I'm not a particularly religious person, though I identify very strongly with being Jewish. For me, Judaism is more than a religion, its a culture. Many of the Jewish practices I perform I do more because they are what my family did rather than for their religious implications. That being said, there is something very cathartic about hearing familiar prayers in a synagogue. I don't mean this as being proselytizing, I'm sure Christians feels the same way in a church, and Muslims in mosques, because it's more the familiarity and sense of history than anything else. Having now lived in five different cities in my adult life, I've been to a number of different Jewish services. Each time, I'm struck by the differences between the services. I wrote a little bit about it this past fall when my family attempted to go to a new temple for the high holidays.
This weekend I went with my girlfriend to North Carolina for the one year anniversary of her grandfather's death. We went to her uncle's synagogue for the yertzeit Friday evening. The service was beautiful. I actually found that they used many of the same tunes that the synagogue I grew up at used. There were definitely some differences, and some tunes that, even though I knew the words, I couldn't pick up the tune. What is always reassuring is that no matter how different the service, the alieot and the aleinu always have the same tune. Hearing them transports me back to my childhood.
Like I mentioned, there's just something very peaceful and cathartic about being in a synagogue and hearing familiar tunes, even if the synagogue itself is unfamiliar.