This is an old custom that is, thank God, still kept by many. Here you can see in typical Yekke style the care and result of the decorations from Kehal Adas Jeshurun (KAJ) aka Breuer’s Shule in the United States. Of course it’s not the exclusive domain of Yekkes, but certainly a hallmark of Shules that daven Nusach Ashkenaz. It is absent in Chabad and elsewhere, and I missed it, being limited in my movements due to my broken ankle and ribs.
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Vases of flowers were common to most Melbourne Shules this year on Shvuos, indeed Adass had no less than 6 large multi-floral bouquets plus krantzen in the main shule. However one sight no longer seen in the town is the minhag of bringing in fragrant grasses and or hay to be placed around the bimah & duchen as well as being passed around so that the mispalelim may bentsch “Borei Isvei Besamim. Grass in the shtiebl was quite common in both Poland & Hungary before the Khurbm, sadly it has become another obsolete minhag in Melbourne.
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I presume that the “fragrant hay” included herbs such as meadowsweet, that have a pleasant natural fragrance, or perhaps they used sweet flag (scented rushes, calamus). I don’t know whether such things grow in Australia.
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