"WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT MY LODGE"

by R.W. B. Touvia (Teddy) Goldstein
Past Master "La Fraternidad No. 62 Lodge" Tel Aviv.
Grand Lodge of the State of Israel
Past Grand District Superintendent and
President of its Charity Fund

 

 

My Mother Lodge, the first Spanish speaking Lodge in Israel, consecrated on January 10, 1970 and called "La Fraternidad No. 62", has reached a very special and peculiar status that in these few lines I will try to describe.

To say that the promedia of assisting brethren to every meeting is over 75%, is very positive but, its not the most important factor that I want to point out and, please, do not forget to consider that we work every Thursday of the year besides the months of August and September that we are on vacation. There are other interesting factors that make my Lodge very special.

To mention that in every Lodge meeting the Ceremony and Protocol is strictly observed to the delight of all present brethren; that the speeches and conferences delivered by our brethren is each one better and more interesting than the other, demonstrating how much research work is invested by them; that the mutual respect, harmony and fraternity that is felt among all brethren of the Lodge, are only factual testimonies of circumstantial evidence.

In its almost 25 years of existance, my Mother Lodge has had success to elevate, to incomparable levels, the fraternity and love among its members, and more important, among and with our wives. In reality, in many Lodges, the relation between the brother and its own wife is many times negatively affected because, the man, leaves her home in order to assist to a Lodge meeting or activity, sometimes once a month, in other cases twice a month and in our case, the situation is apparently exaggerated as we meet every Thursday. There are some Lodges that the ladies don't even know each other.

Its already many years that our ladies, without a formal masonic compromise and not pretending to become any organized masonic feminine group, meet periodically and permanently to listen to conferences and expositions on issues of their interest, including masonic themes, or other activities, coinciding these meetings on Thursdays with ours. It has become a tradition that the Reigning Master's wife presides the ladies' activities and everybody refers to her, in a fraternal and loving way, as the "Mother Superior", expression that was adopted spontaneously and empirically and that became inspiration to an excellent theatrical parody put on stage by our ladies representing our Lodge as a Convent where the nuns, compared to the brethren, are presided by the "Mother Superior", compared to the Reigning Master.

This situation of true fraternity, directly and indirectly fortifies the union among the brethren and their families, that comes to a practical and pragmatic manifest, with the opening of our respective homes promoting the virtue of masonic hospitality to such a degree that, besides the Thursdays that we meet the brethren in Lodge or at the White Table, tours, picnics and fraternal week ends together with our ladies and families, we also meet on Fridays at our homes to practice Masonry also "Out Side the Temple Walls". Some Fridays the brethren are invited and distributed in three homes simultaneously and we worry to specially invite the just initiated brethren and their ladies in order to facilitate their integration to our Masonic Family. All this is done voluntarily, no obligation and with a reciprocity expectation.

To the author of these lines is clear that, this peculiar integrated form of fraternity, is what characterizes primarily my Mother Lodge that, with this system, without making any transgression to masonic law or principals of our Fraternity, has found a way and a perfect solution to the integration of the brethren and the ladies constituting a real great masonic family that vibrates with the clear and happiness of its members and cries and sorrows with any pain and tragedy they have.

It is very nice to listen how our Lodge is praised for its achievements, not only by Grand Lodge of Israel Dignataries but, also, by a great number of brethren that visit us from home and abroad that, when they find out about our special way of practicing integrated masonry, coincide that our system is worthy to emulate.

 

 

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