Davening with Annoying People

A loyal reader of the blog approached me with interesting davening dilemma. He has stopped going to his regular minyan, to the point that the rabbi of the shul called to see if everything was OK.  The reason he switched his prayer local was solely because of a particular worshiper who mutters loudly throughout the tefilla. Citing the ongoing disruption, his seemingly need to draw attention to himself - the personal atmosphere became too much for this fellow to tolerate so he switched minyanim.

Haven't we all experienced this at one time or another.

I had the pleasure of living in a one minyan town, to which there are many beautiful advantages.  However, there was an unfortunate streak of deaths spread out 10 months apart that led to the morning tefilla consistently being led by the most tone-deaf, Hebrew illiterate mumblers for a good few years.  It was painful - dentist office painful.  I was able to find an antidote from quitting the minyan from the Ramban's famous letter to his son:

Therefore, I will now explain to you how to always behave humbly. Speak gently at all times, with your head bowed, your eyes looking down to the ground and your heart focusing on Hashem. Don't look at the face of the person to whom you are speaking. Consider everyone as greater than yourself. If he is wise or rich, you should give him respect. If he is poor and you are richer -- or wiser -- than he, consider yourself to be more guilty than he, and that he is more worthy than you, since when he sins it is through error, while yours is deliberate and you should know better!

I found a way to see these daveners as making a significant contribution to the tefilla, and humbled myself before their off key nusach.  Right before Kol Nidre on Yom Kippur we recite a permission, a public calling out of a policy to daven with sinners.  "Al Daat HaMakom" may have entered the traditional mahzor after the Spanish inquisition and the prevalence of crypto-Jews.  However I think it is refreshingly honest of us to recognize that although we are striving for purity and perfection on the holiest of days, we are also among wanton sinners, annoying people, and stiff-necked ideologies. How to pray with annoying people?  It's easier said then done. I guess the first step is to ask yourself if you are that person and be the change you want to daven next to in this world.

Prayer for Fallen IDF Soldiers and Vitcims of Terror

In Israel, we have begun to mark Yom HaZikaron, Remembrance Day for Fallen IDF Soldiers and Victims of Terror.  The following is the IDF's Chief Cantor singing the El Maeli Rachmim prayer in 2011:

I am generally not a 'fan' of chazanut - mostly because I was Hebraicly illiterate as a child and didn't like my shul's tunes.  Also, it was very showy, in the sense of the chazan sang (read performed) and the rest of us watched.  This tefilla give me the chills each year, mainly because of the gravity of the day and shadow of national loss - but I also think I truly understand and identify with the words.  May there memory be for a blessing.

Prayers for the President

Yesterday, Rabbi Sharon Brous delivered a blessing at the 57th Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service in Washington, DC.  A rabbis' presence at a multicultural (interfaith) service does not always go without controversy, especially when its held in a church. (It could be considered a similar situation to Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks attendance to the Royal Wedding in 2011).  But one thing is for sure, such an event does call for prayer and blessings - as it is truly an amazing part of living in a democratically free country.

Here is the text she shared (and a video):

Elohei ha-ahavah, God of Love. Help us widen the boundaries of our hearts. You know us better than we know ourselves: the distinctions we make, the biases we hold, the ways in which we fail to manifest our greatest potential as we diminish ourselves and others with our impatience, lack of compassion and vision, lack of hope. Give depth to our faith; let our actions bear witness to the expansiveness of your mercy. Grant us the grace to love our neighbors and to love ourselves. We pray that you bring your presence among us, as light, as life and as holy inspiration.

I am always amazed at the creative abilities of those who compose prayers as I am a davener that is much more comfortable in a well worn siddur.  Also, I feel that spiritual meaning is naturally in Hebrew and thus personally feel disconnected by the English liturgy in prayers (I recognize that this is my personal stance).

One final comment - I think that the blessing shared above, although targeted to the Creator, captures the sentiment of the blessing codified by the Shulchan Orach to be recited upon seeing a non-Jewish king which may be appropriate to say upon seeing the newly inaugurated President:

ברוך אתה ה' אלוקינו מלך העולם שחלק מכבודו לבשר ודם 

Blessed are You, Lord our God, who has given from His glory to (humans of) flesh and blood.

Guest Post: The Amidah Project

This post is originally from Chicago Carless, a blog by Michael Doyle, address many important issues for tefilla educators.

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For the past few months, my Reform synagogue has done something most Reform synagogues don’t: we’ve stood and recited a partially silent Amidah, Judaism’s sizeable central prayer. You find the Amidah–which means “standing” in Hebrew, because you stand when you say it–in every Jewish service, whether shacharit (the morning service), mincha (afternoon), or maariv (evening.) Tradition suggests most if not all of the Amidah is recited silently, and most Orthodox and Conservative congregations follow suit.

Yet even with the traditionalizing trend of the past three decades, many Reform congregations pray an abbreviated form of the Amidah, always out loud, and often seated for the prayer’s latter parts. Meaningful passages in Hebrew are often skipped in favor of English intepretations or, simply, left out entirely.

Aside from a few seconds for “silent prayer,” there isn’t often the same opportunity our Orthodox and Conservative brethren have to really be alone with your heartfelt intention.  In fact, a typical Reform Amidah can be far from heartfelt. It’s hard to really go deep with your tradition’s central prayer when your denomination seems afraid of it’s deepest parts.

When we decided to test out a partially silent Amidah (we still chant the first three, long blessings out loud), several people pushed back. Some were afraid they wouldn’t understand the “new” parts in Hebrew. (We use Mishkan T’Filah, Reform’s latest, fully translated and transliterated prayerbook.) Some were afraid they wouldn't know how long to stand or when to sit down. (We sit when we’re individually done.) Some said they’d miss formerly chanted or sung parts. Overall those who pushed back were afraid that they’d miss, essentially, meaning.

What we’ve found is instructive. Some people still want the “old way” back. And, frankly, I would prefer our newly silent Amidah to be one arrow in an overall quiver of ways to approach the Amidah–including our “old way.” Especially in Reform, there’s no reason to leave anybody out. (And I happen to feel quite touched when our cantor sings R’tzei.)

But overall, people seem to like our newly silent Amidah. Why? Because in those long, pungently silent minutes of silent prayer, we are finally (and in Reform, for once) rendered alone–with our thoughts, with our prayer, with our tradition. The experience has knocked many of us out, initially rendering some of us to tears. And that outcome was totally unexpected. Wonderful. Incredible. A blessing. But unexpected.

Maybe that’s how far as Reform Jews we’ve let ourselves become removed from the meaning behind the words we pray–no matter what language we choose to pray in. But the meaning is there if we just listen for it. For some in my congregation, taking ourselves off of our liturgical autopilot for a little while was enough to start to sense why we say the Amidah in the first place. The prayer is truly an emotional journey if you let it be.

I don’t blame any Reform Jew for feeling disconnected from an Amidah recited silently in Hebrew. It just hasn’t been our practice, and not a lot of us talk about our prayer experience publicly. So I will. Over the next few weeks I intend to post a series of blog entries that lay out the Reform versions of core Jewish prayers, beginning with the Amidah (both the Shabbat and weekday versions), in Hebrew transliteration and English translation, accompanied by my thoughts on my emotional experience during each specific blessing or rubric of the liturgy. (Perhaps with video, as well.) After all, I definitely feel an almost exhausting emotional journey during the Amidah. It’s a feeling worth sharing–and most of all, describing. As you may have guessed from the title of this post, I’m calling my new series “The Amidah Project.”

We can’t all be Debbie Friedman, z”l, able to find the most miraculous meanings in seemingly hidden Hebrew corners of the liturgy and set them to catchy modern music. But we can all pause, and read, and listen, and then write and talk about our experience. I invite all of my Jewish readers to do just that. Open your nearest siddur–on Shabbat, the one covered in dust in your closet, or online. Find a part where you always tune out. This time, though, tune in. Read it slowly. Sit with it. Consider what those words might really mean–from Deity, to you. You might come up with nothing. But you might come up hearing that still, small voice.

The basis for our entire tradition.

This post is part of my Amidah Project series–an attempt to examine my personal experience of the core prayers of the normative Reform Jewish liturgy. For more, please browse my Amidah Project archive.

Prayers from the (Sacred) Trash

I am currently reading Sacred Trash; The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza written by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole (published by Nextbook 2011).  Fascinating stuff, moderns combing through ancient texts.

Last night I came across the following passage that I felt compelled to share here.  In reviewing part of the saga of the discovery and analysis, the authors tell how one scholar (Davidson) finds a text with both Greek and Hebrew letters and identifies an important Hebrew text as a piyyut.  This leads to explanation of rich history of such a poetic tradition which enriched the prayer service in the late fifth century ce:

However exotic or ingrown their compositions might seem by our own standards, at their best payyetanim produced real poetry, sometimes of a major sort.  A vast allusive range; a feeling for dramatic possibility; an ability to extend scriptural narration; a varied repertoire of virtuoso musical strategies; and above all a developed sense of the tradition's homiletical potential and the congregation's hunger for the nourishment it might afford - all these were used to intensify the liturgical moment, to suck marrow from the seemingly dry bones of routinized prayer and to make it matter afresh, as the Mishna demanded: "Whosoever makes his prayer a fixed task," it cautions, "his prayer is not a true supplication." Other sources echo that call: "One's prater should be made new each day," the Palestinian Talmud tells us, and "As new water flows from the well each hour, so Israel renews its song." Extending that notion, other writes still have likened the payyetanim to angels, which - according to one midrash - are created by God for specific missions and vanish after completing them.  (p.110)

I have written previously about the concept of a trained mavens which reaches back to this tradition of the payyetanim, but is clear that our davening today has disconnected from such colorful flourishing (except for maybe Friday night davening).

One final comment - interesting that 1500 years from now, scholars might actual find bar-mitzvah tapes or CD's to hear the sounds and trop used during our davening and song, but we are restricted to the visual image of this poetry without the pleasure of the sounds and effect it had.  Sad and fascinating.

Reader Response.... A Tefilla Lab

I received the following response to a post specific to evaluation: 

I hope Marc Rosenberg will forgive me if in my response to his question, I move somewhat beyond the scope of the question. He asks about evaluating students/teachers when it comes to performance in tefila. I would like to make a proposal about tefila in high school through which I will touch upon his question.

Although I am currently not involved in running a minyan, having taught in various schools across the hashkafic spectrum, I am quite familiar with how tefila is conducted. It seems to me that before we can evaluate how students are performing in tefila, we must educate them on how to do so. Just as I can not expect my students to know how to read a gemara without first giving them the skills, it would be naive for us to expect our students to know how to pray properly, without teaching them how to do so.

My suggestion is that we move from minyan as just a time to daven to minyan as a lab for tefila. If there was a class on tefilla, including why we pray, why praying is necessary and similar issues, we would begin to tackle the problem. Instead, in most schools, we tackle the how; when to stand, what to say and how to bow. Perhaps some beiur tefilla could be included in this class, but I do not believe that the main problem is a lack of understanding of the words. I am well aware of my own struggles with tefila despite a grasp of the meaning of the words.

To be sure, the class would only be a beginning. There would also be a need for students to be able to express themselves about their struggles, successes and thoughts on tefila, perhaps through a blog and/or a brief thought before or after minyan.

Finally, and perhaps this is most crucial, we need the adults running the minyan to open up to the students a bit about their own struggles and successes with tefila.

If we treat tefilla as a part of the educational part of the day, where we try to reach the student intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, we have a chance to achieve something. If not, we will at best create robots who look like they are praying, and at worst continue to fail to touch our students lives in this important area.

Is Hebrew the Obstacle?

A reader of this blog contacted me to share some tefilla news: the local rabbi of the major neighborhood shul arose on Shabbat a few weeks ago and addressed the issue of davening.  This rabbi diagnosed the problem primarily as one of frustration with the language barrier and suggested, since Gd understands English, that the congregation experiment with the vernacular in order to increase the meaning and spirit of the community's prayers.

I fear that language is not what is holding the masses, or even individuals, from greater enthusiasm in the realm of tefilla.  But maybe I am wrong.  Try it out.  Read the Shema - do you see/feel a possibility for transcendence?  I - and this is my personal belief - think that you have to try what works best for you.  For some people, English prayers might work best, but for me, it just seems awkward.  I am of the opinion that it is nice to have a special language in which to speak to Gd even though that same language is used to order food, yell at people, and even used in comic books (all in Israel).  It is nice to travel the world and to walk into a temple or synagogue and to have a mutually common way to pray, regardless of the language in which we speak at home.  Having a special and historic channel helps me in my spiritual yearning - but I know that this doesn't work for everyone.

Nonetheless, I think it is worth revisiting whether the revival of the Hebrew language has really led to a spiritual revival in the realm of prayer.  When I tried out the English tefilla, I realized (again) that the problem is that I don't easily meditate or have a sense of how to focus on the meaning behind the words.  I personally attended Hebrew School growing up, which I credit with teaching me how to be illiterate - give me the ability to read but not understand a word. If davening is like punching a ticket and one fulfills the obligation for tefilla by simply chanting words in a particular format then there is a clear method to evaluate what is being taught and practiced in our schools.  But aren't we looking to do something more in our tefilla?  I am happy that some rabbis are standing up and acknowledging that there is a problem within our shuls - but let's be serious about educating people on how to improve the situation.