The Emacs incantation you wanted is something along the lines of (modify-syntax-entry ?\{ "(} " lisp-mode-syntax-table) (modify-syntax-entry ?\} "){

The Emacs incantation you wanted is something along the lines of (modify-syntax-entry ?\{ "(} " lisp-mode-syntax-table) (modify-syntax-entry ?\} "){ " lisp-mode-syntax-table)