Temple Beth Shalom of Cambridge

I started doing this weird thing ever since I moved to Cambridge from Chicago. I go around to different places of worship and harass — I mean, I ask tons of questions of clergy and churchgoers.
A couple weeks ago, the place of worship was Temple Beth Shalom. I called before and asked to meet with a member of the congregation — you know, for the customary questions:
Is there a dress code?
Are women and men seated separately?
Is there any special ‘bread and wine’ protocol?
[This is more important than you’d think — some places of worship extend this to believers of all faiths, others solely to the baptized or members of that congregation — you never know…]
So, I went to a service. Chicago’s big on diversity, but not so much on the integration of said diversity. We sort of hover around each other. I’d had minimal exposure to the faith/​culture; mainly the history of Jewish-​Black relations during the Civil Rights era.
To sum things up, it was a foreign experience. Thank god for hymnals with English translations alongside the original Hebrew and kind people that simply smile when you respond to their open ‘Shabbat Shalom’ with a feeble ‘Um, thank you?’.
At the end of the service, I got to ask even more questions. What was davening? Why do women only count in some of the services? Can Judaism be considered a forward-​facing culture with such old-​school roots?
It was so worth it.