A Parent's Prayer

On the eve of Rosh Hodesh Sivan, it is some people's custom to recite a special tefilla, by the Shla - Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz. He wrote a Parent's Prayer on the eve of Rosh Hodesh Sivan pointing to it as the most auspicious time to pray for the physical and spiritual welfare of one's children and grandchildren, since Sivan was the month that the Torah was given to the Jewish people.

One side not: my son came home from school and the prayer that he wrote for his parents was that we should have enough food to feed him (he is already saving up to buy himself a kindle)!

Going to a Minyan at a Shelter

This is perhaps one of the more bizarre stories that I have read about the superstorm Sandy, and in none other than Bloomberg Business Week.  I'd personally like to interview Moshe Najjar about his "swinging" tefilla philosophy.

Storm Keeps Long Island Jewish Shelter Short of Men for Prayers

By Peter S. Green on October 29, 2012

Moshe Najjar is having a lonely wait as the South Shore of New York’s Long Island prepares for Hurricane Sandy to arrive. The only Orthodox Jewish man at a specially created Kosher shelter, he is a minyan of one, lacking the rest of the 10-man minimum required for many important prayers.

Evacuated from his home in Cedarhurst, one of the largely Orthodox Five Towns on Long Island’s southern Atlantic coast, Najjar, 47, said today he was pleasantly surprised by the religiously appropriate shelter in the West Hempstead High School, where men and women can bunk separately and Kosher meals are served on paper table cloths.

“I was going to go to a hotel, but right now, the financials are not doing it for me,” Najjar said, wearing a black trench coat and the traditional yarmulke, or skull cap of observant Jews.

“I’m looking for a job; I have some leads,” he said. “Today, tomorrow might not be a good time to be having interviews.”

Officials have ordered a mandatory evacuation of Long Island’s Nassau County coast as Sandy’s winds, combining with a nearly full moon and high tides, are expected to send water surging up to 8 feet deep across the Atlantic Coast and 11 feet or more on the North Shore, from the normally placid Long Island Sound. With 230,000 Jews, the fourth largest Jewish population in the U.S. according to the North American Jewish Data Bank, Nassau County opened the Kosher shelter to encourage people who might not otherwise have a place to stay.

‘Accommodate’ Customs

By midmorning, only 21 people had registered at the center, and Najjar was the only Jewish man. A clutch of elderly women sat chatting in a corner. Several dozen green cots, each with a white Red Cross blanket, stretched across the floor of the school gym.

“We’re trying to accommodate their customs, and the shelter is open to all,” said Susan Dubourg, a Red Cross volunteer managing the shelter.

Not everyone who had come so far appeared to be an observant Jew, she said. With separate sleeping quarters, the shelter can house up to 100 people, and in a crunch could sleep 300 if needed, Dubourg said.

“They are definitely well-prepared here,” said John Rocchetti, 66, an Italian Catholic who grew up in Brooklyn’s predominantly Orthodox Borough Park neighborhood, and was evacuated from his top-floor apartment in the seaside district of Far Rockaway.

Kosher Food

“I live in a Jewish neighborhood, and some of my best friends are Jewish,” he said with a laugh. As a vegetarian, the retired school-bus driver says he likes the Kosher food at the shelter.

The lack of arrivals didn't surprise Chaim Shapiro, a West Hempstead resident who popped in to the shelter to see how he and his nearby synagogue could help.

“The community tends to rally around itself; people open their spare bedrooms to neighbors and family, so I’d guess there will be less than 100 people here,” he said.

“If they get 10 men here, I’ll tell them to bring over the siddurim and the Torah,” he added, referring to prayer books and the scroll of the Old Testament.

When Hurricane Irene hit Long Island last August, Najjar and his then-wife and children didn’t seek out a shelter. “She said, ’Let’s go hide in the basement.’ She did it, but, Baruch Hashem, nothing happened,” he said intoning a Hebrew phrase praising the name of God.

While he follows the Yemenite rite, Najjar welcomed word from Alan Cabelly, a West Hempstead resident who invited him to worship at Young Israel of West Hempstead, an Orthodox synagogue which follows the Ashkenazi traditions of Eastern Europe.

Najjar smiled broadly when he heard there would be enough men for full prayer at the synagogue, a short walk through the wind and rain.

Were Humans Created to Daven?

There is a fascinating verse in chapter 2 of Genesis:  

ה וְכֹל שִׂיחַ הַשָּׂדֶה, טֶרֶם יִהְיֶה בָאָרֶץ, וְכָל-עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה, טֶרֶם יִצְמָח:

כִּי לֹא הִמְטִיר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, עַל-הָאָרֶץ, וְאָדָם אַיִן, לַעֲבֹד אֶת-הָאֲדָמָה

No shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground;

No the verse highlights the fact that there is a need for humankind to realize the need to work the land and be partners in the creative nature of the planet.  One friend pointed be to a commentator  Rabbi David Kimhi (the Radak), who noticed a similar piece of language (as do others – Rashbam and the Hizkuni) in chapter 24 where we find Isaac wandering near Beier-lahai-roi on the cusp of meeting his wife for the first time:

סג וַיֵּצֵא יִצְחָק לָשׂוּחַ בַּשָּׂדֶה, לִפְנוֹת עָרֶב; וַיִּשָּׂא עֵינָיו וַיַּרְא, וְהִנֵּה גְמַלִּים בָּאִים.

And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide; and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, there were camels coming.

Rashi jumps on this verse on Genesis 24:63 to say it is the language of tefilla - and was the perhaps first recorded instance of someone davening mincha.  

I am rather blown away by the idea that in chapter 2, Hashem not only wants man to till the ground, but that the underlying method is for tefilla to move people to act and thus our dependence of rain.  There have been many discussions about why the Torah begins with creation – aside from the obvious, I think it offers the readers a relationship with nature that could be lost otherwise if it was based solely on a covenant of experience or genetics.  Nature is truly what surrounds us and while the Torah and Judaism present a matrix for which we can comprehend the world, tefilla is our language which we can really experience it.  For me, this may be even what we were created to do – to daven for rain and make sure that the cycles of nature are working. 

One final point, now that we have begun to ask for rain please bear in mind that for all that the meteorologist and weather can predict the weather – they still can’t really tell us why it rains and when.  I wish I could be as wrong in my job as the local weather people and still get a paycheck!  Let me stick to the davening.  

A Magnet to the Torah?

A reader of the blog pointed out an interesting shul phenomenon, one that I think I was narrowly not paying much attention to before.

Whenever the Torah is taken out of the ark- have you noticed that some people move forward to the front of the shul to kiss the Torah?  In some shuls the children swarm the front.  In other shuls people wait for the Torah to pass by their aisle and might extend a fringe or a hand.  All of these are gestures to show how much we cherish the written Torah and that it is a central in our lives.

But have noticed that sometimes, people are just busy talking or to tired to move down the aisle or out of their way to acknowledge the Torah?  Isn't this part of the element of neilla on Yom Kippur, that the ark is opened and that we try to stand at attention at this most holy and propitious time?  Perhaps I am feeling frustrated by the gentleman who I shared a minyan with last week and sat through neilla reading Primo Levi's Survival in Aushwitz but I have since noticed many other shuls were there is a malaise about the removal or returning of the scrolls and I think this is sad.  Further I think there is a certain correlation between shuls with less active physical movement at the opening of the ark sequence to the shul's overall tefilla satisfaction level.  As a parent and educator I very much feel that the small actions and  messages we send are expressions of core values - and one of the core values of Judaism (debate however you may on how to interpret it) is the Torah.  "It is a a Tree of Life for those hold fast to it and all who cling to it find happiness"  - so, what can we do to motivate our fellow congregants to start holding fast and magnetizing their tefilla?

I can tell you this, the shuls that I do visit where davners are moving to the Torah have been places that I would rank as some of my best tefilla experiences.

Does Tefilla Make Better Jews?

There is a Jewish Press article making the circuit the past few hours titled Overhauling Orthodox Education To Make Better Jews by Rabbi Dov Lipman (now more well known for his articles in the Times of Israel and as one of the vocal opponents to religious radicalization in Beit Shemesh last year).

I recommend that you give it a full read for I think he raises several crucial issues that educators must face when you take an honest look at the final product graduating from your schools.  Lipman beings with a startling anecdote about a rabbi friend who tries to repay a kindness to another Jew who seemingly shakes said friend down for my money and a heavy dose of guilt.  He takes this frustration to the realm of tefilla and our pedagogical approach:

My friend related how just that morning during Shacharit he was thinking about how “off target” we are as he watched rabbis barking at children to stand during “vayevareich Dovid” and the “vihu rachum,” part of Tachanun at a youth minyan. He was not suggesting we shouldn’t find ways to encourage our children to stand when our custom dictates standing during prayers. But the degree to which the kids were being scolded for not standing struck a chord that led him to reflect upon what we teach as important and what is not important.

Not just writing to complain, Lipman boldly offers a solution to reinvigorate our students as well:

There should certainly be a Talmud track for the elite students with the intellectual, language, and attention skills necessary to enjoy and benefit from it, but for the mainstream yeshiva high school student this almost exclusive focus on Gemara wastes precious time from more productive study and actually turns most students off from interest in Torah and even Judaism. 

Tanach study should lead to meaningful discussions about the lessons each chapter seeks to convey about proper moral, ethical, and spiritual behavior. We should teach our students about meditation and connecting to their deeper selves along with the concept of personal prayer. 

Once they understand that the most important part of davening should be their personal prayers and pouring their hearts out to God in their own words, this has the capacity to change and uplift their entire prayer experience. The topic of prayer must be accompanied by Jewish philosophy courses and providing the framework for students to ask their questions and receive well-thought-out answers.

While I don't agree totally with his thesis, and others have begun to divide his points and critique, I do so appreciate Lipman sentiments about about how central prayer is to reflect to the true achievement of a Jewish education and one's personal growth.  The chief goal of this blog is to discuss how to evaluate the success of teaching tefilla and so far I have not found adequate answers from educators regarding a viable system to share and reproduce (which, by the way, is not the case for teaching Tanach, Talmud, or Jewish Thought). For too long  many of the minyanim in schools (and for that matter, community shuls) do not reflect the pinnacle Jewish experience of that very day, yet we continue to press our students with the centrality of this ritual and its spiritual potential.  If not Lipman's approach, let's reapproach the situation of the spiritual behavior of our graduates - if not now, when? 

Guest Post: The Vietnam of Day School Ed

You read the title correctly!  This post is authored by Michael Feuer, who is on the faculty of Sulam Yaakov and whom I recently met teaching a course titled Prayer: the inner journey that leads outward.  I welcome your reactions.  

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The Vietnam of Day School Education

When I heard a respected educator apply these words to prayer, my jaw dropped. But after the shock faded, the precision of the phrase started to play on my imagination. Given that I share the sorrow and fear over the “field situation” which provoked the comment, but not its hopelessness, I figure some reflection is in order,  so – why Vietnam?!

Educators and community members rule the day, unengaged students rule the night. Our children are not absent from prayer; we can make a minyan and the shuls are full on Shabbat. But we grade prayer as attendance, and praise the appearance of focus. It’s true, sitting quietly is a praiseworthy habit in today’s culture. But we are not teaching them to cultivate silence, but to pretend to say words.

What are we fighting for anyway? Only a real soul-search after Gd and a lot of prayer can answer this question. How many teachers and parents have a mature, living relationship with Gd and an active engagement with our soul? How many of us find strength in prayer and have tasted its pleasure? If these are absent from us, or not deemed relevant,  then what are we asking from our students? Teacher’s prayer groups are the weapon of the next generation.

In context of the liturgy, this conversation becomes a minefield. Tracing a path through questions of doctrine, obligation, authority and tradition without losing your company seems hopeless. And yet, these very issues form the backbone of the Eighteen Blessings. Perhaps prayer is the primary context created for this struggle and we should encourage our students to take the fight there. If they don’t feel safe struggling with Gd, Torah and Am Yisrael then what kind of relationship can they build?

In asymmetrical warfare, victory is not achieved through force. Prayer is not an act to be imposed, it is a lifestyle to be cultivated. Teaching it is a battle of hearts and minds. We must invest in the context of prayer as well as its content. This means devoting more time for praying and more resources for learning. It means developing a model of mutual awareness and spiritual mentorship between all members of a school – staff, faculty and students. At its core prayer is the pursuit of relationship, and as such is the ultimate communal effort.

Awakening the emotions in service of prayer is essential. Are our classrooms vessels where students feel safe to share their hearts? To we encourage journaling, spiritual chevruta, giving and receiving of blessing?

The siddur is a complex and powerful tool for awakening the soul, connecting to Am Yisrael and turning to Gd. It must be engaged as an instrument to be mastered, and not as a book to be read. Repetition becomes practice when the students sense they are picking up a relationship where it left off each time they pray, and just not doing it all again. 

The attempt to reduce prayer to a deliverable educational product is bankrupt. It must be replaced by a critical dialogue meant to cultivate consciousness over the question of prayer. In order to accomplish this we have to be prepared to take risks, and even lose battles. But that’s what you do when you’re committed to winning the war. 

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Michael Feuer has rabbinic ordination from the Sulam Yaakov Yeshiva, under the guidance of Rav Dov Channan and has spent much of the past two years thinking intensively about the topic of tefilla. Since making aliyah in 2001, he has been Program Director of a post-high school yeshiva, taught history, Jewish thought and Bible in several Jerusalem yeshivot and midrashot and halacha at the Pardes Institute.

To Learn or to Daven

Within Judaism, there is a significant tension between these two primary acts, to learn Torah and to daven.  The Babylonian Talmud, in Shabbat 127a states:

אלו דברים שאדם אוכל פרותיהם בעולם הזה והקרן קימת לו לעולם הבא, ואלו הן:  כיבוד אב ואם וגמילות  חסדים והשכמת בית המדרש שחרית וערבית והכנסת אורחים ובקור חולים והכנסת כלה ולווית המת ועיון תפילה והבאת שלום בין אדם לחברו ובין איש לאשתו ותלמוד תורה כנגד כולם.

These are the precepts whose fruits a person enjoys in This World but whose principal remains intact for him in the World to Come:  They are: honoring one's father and mother, acts of kindness, early attendance at the house of study morning and evening, hospitality to guests, visiting the sick, providing for a bride, escorting the dead, absorption in prayer, bringing peace between man and his fellow, and the study of Torah is equivalent to them all.

Clearly the status of Torah study (on simple reading of this text) trumps all, including the delving into the depths of davening.  To this note, I once heard this story told over about Rabbi Soloveitchik which I found a version of here: 

Torah learning would be more beneficial than saying Tehillim during the spare time on Rosh Hashanah. Rav Y. B. Soloveitchik states that once, his father, Rav Moshe Soloveitchik, zt”l, saw him saying Tehillim on Rosh Hashanah and took the siddur from him, replacing it with Maseches Rosh Hashanah. He then said to his son, “My father (Rav Chaim) would learn the laws of shofar, etc.,  because that is what the day represents (and on Yom Kippur he would learn the rituals of that day) because that is where Hashem’s world is today.” 

Some see this approach as appropriate only for the most elite Torah learners which can be best expressed by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's statement, also from the above article: “The talmid chacham should go as his heart desires, as it is said ‘the ones who learn Gemara, there is nothing greater.’”

For those of us who are not giants in Torah or Talmud - are we left just to chant tehilim?  After a recent conversation with a family member (@bradinsky) who shared with me a fascinating class on superstition and Jewish customs, I have been thinking deeply about which comes more natural, studying or davening? Which is more powerful and transformative on the individual? Which is easier and which is more difficult?  I am in the process of writing a longer post on this subject, but I wondered what others thought?  

Praying for Food

I have written before here and here about the struggles to find meaningful tefilla while abstaining from food.  Today is another one of these days and it brings to mind the ongoing tension of the needs of body vs. the needs of the soul.

Indeed it states in Deuteronomy (8:3) that, in this case the miracle preformed in the wildnerness, that through it you should "know that man does not live by bread alone, but by the every word that comes from the mouth of Hashem does man live".  Additionally the Mishne from Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our Fathers) 3:21 states:

"Rabbi Elazar ben (son of) Azariah said: If there is no Torah [study] there is no proper conduct; if there is no proper conduct there is no Torah [study]. If there is no wisdom there is no fear of G-d; if there is no fear of G-d there is no wisdom. If there is no knowledge there is no understanding; if there is no understanding there is no knowledge. If there is no flour there is no Torah; if there is no Torah there is no flour."

The last aphorism equates a relationship of sustenance related to some issues ripped from today's headlines - that without a job, one's Torah learning will not be sustainable.  But in the tefilla frame of mind, one must also remember that we are not monks who frown upon food and the material world - but rather we relish and sing in the delight of Shabbat and holidays as well as in the houses of study and prayer.

So it brings me back to what I think about on a fast day - the historical shadow of the day or my craving to nosh on food....  I think about both.

Guest Post: James Jacobson-Maisels

The following was originally published in the Pardes June Newsletter as a Dvar Torah by James Jacobson-Maisels. In the coming months, the blog will share some more concrete insights along this thematic angle. 

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R. Pinchas of Koretz, an early Hasidic master, taught, "The world thinks that one prays before/to the Holy One, blessed be He, but it is not thus. For prayer itself is truly (mamash) the essence of divinity. As it is written: He is your prayer and He is your God (Deuteronomy 10:21)." (Midrash Pinchas, Sec. 1:52, p. 37-38) 

I clearly recall my first time reading this text and the excitement and wonder its radical call to rethink my entire approach to prayer engendered in me. Here R. Pinchas asks us to focus on the process of prayer itself. He challenges us to consider what it would it mean to not think of prayer as a secondary process, as an act of communication which reaches beyond itself, but to experience the process itself. He calls on us to experience the very words, movements and consciousness of prayer as divinity.

Such an approach opens our eyes to see that the divine is not out there somewhere but right here. Although it is also true that the divine is right here in the sense of being within each one of us, this is to say that the divine is right here in the sense of the full gestalt of the moment. When we take our three steps forward into the amidah we normally imagine ourselves as entering the presence of God, approaching the King.

Here, however, when we step into prayer we enter the very body of God. We merge into God's presence. Indeed, the very stepping itself is the flow and movement of the divine in and through us. 

What if, before we prayed, we paused and recognized our body, words and movements as the body of God? What if we paused and saw the full totality of our experience as the presence of divinity in all its majesty and subtleness? What would it mean if we entered prayer with the intense mindfulness of this process being God, of walking through an ether of God, of our breath being God's breath, of our words being divinity itself and with the fundamental insight of non- separation and non-duality? How much care and mindfulness does such a conception draw forth when every letter, every sound, every phoneme, every shudder, every shuckle, every thought, every bow, every step and every moment is God's very being? Can we enter tefilah (prayer) with that consciousness and in doing so be radically brought up short, shocked out of our complacency and the sometimes rote nature of prayer?

We can all do this. It doesn't require us to believe anything in particular or to commit ourselves to some mystical perspective. It requires only the fundamental commitment to be fully present with the experience of tefilah, to recognize its permeated sanctity and to be unwilling to neglect any aspect or detail. It challenges us to cherish every instant as immersed in a sea of divinity.

That is the opportunity and challenge that R. Pinchas gives us - to see the very matter of our practice, its physicality and its process along with the thoughts, emotions, movements and sensations which make it up as the very presence of God's self.

Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Judaic Studies from Brown University and an M.St. in Modern Jewish Studies from Balliol College the University of Oxford. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in Jewish Studies specializing in Jewish mysticism.

A Good Network is Worth.....

It is so wonderful to be connected to amazing and thoughtful people.  As such, I feel it as a need to share some of these resources with you.

Shlomo Ressler started sharing a dvar Torah in 1995 and has continued to do so, week in and week out, with thousands of people.  He called the project the Weekly Dvar - and I encourage you to join the readership.

The latest post, in the name of Rabbi Avi Weiss, captures a simple and poignant message:

Perhaps the most famous blessing is found in this week's Torah portion. The Birkat Cohanim, the priestly benediction is recited by the priest and by parents to their children every Friday night. (Numbers 6:24-26) The benediction is divided into three sentences each containing two important elements; God's blessing, and a prayer to avoid possible pitfalls of the blessing. 

In the first part, the priest states: "May the Lord bless you and keep you." The Sifrei understands this to refer to monetary benefits. But money has the potential to corrupt. Therefore a blessing for money is not complete unless accompanied by an assurance of protection  from its dangers. Hence the last word of the sentence, "May the Lord guard you." 

In the second section, the priest states: "May the Lord cause His light to shine upon you." The light of the Lord is often associated with Torah knowledge (Proverbs 6:23). However, while one can know every word of Torah, one can still lack the ability to interact and engage others in an appropriate manner. Hence, this blessing concludes with the word, ve-hunekah, from the word hen, grace. This last statement is telling us to remain gracious to others because knowledge often makes one insular -- even arrogant. 

In the final part, the priest states," May the Lord lift His face to be near you." This blessing expresses the hope that one should always feel the presence of God, for too often we sense that God's face is hidden from us. (The Hebrew word yeesah, to lift, is the opposite of God being lowered or hidden.) Although we hope to always be absorbed in God's presence, sometimes even that experience can distort one's perception of how to change the world. Too often, people have done dastardly things in the name of God. Therefore, the text concludes, with a blessing of a grounded belief in God, of shalom, coming from the word shalem, whole. 

This threefold blessing reminds us that there is no absolute good. Every step forward always contains the possibility of unforeseen problems. May we be blessed with this awareness.

On the topic of tefilla, I think it is worth reflecting on the importance of graciousness.  What do you think>

Is There an Age to Start Growing your Spiritual Side?

I think this is a fair question to ask.

This thought was instigated by the reading/hearing of the weekly Torah portion in synagogue.  In Bamidbar, also known as the book of Numbers, we learn about the census of the Israelites in the wilderness.  The criteria for counting the people really is for a military purpose in that the desert was a staging ground for the eventual and supposed swift move to Israel.  Further, the essential criteria is for men "from the age of 20, all those that went to fight" (1:3) was  clarifying who could go out to war.

The tribe of Levi was not counted with their brethren, and were selected out for a different purpose - to serve in the Mishkan (the travelling Tabernacle that was the precursor to the Temple).With a careful reading, one can see that the Levites are counted from one month and older, yet they will only serve in the Mishkan from age 30 to age 50.  Thus their training and education for their spiritual burden begins at a much earlier age as well as their actual career of practice is limited to a period of peek performance.  Juxtapose this to the military men where there is no specific criteria beyond their age (note even physicality), there is a stark difference in their call to duty.

I first digested this point in reading Gideon Weitzman's Sparks of Light a few years ago.  Weitzman, a delightful teacher and scholar on the philosophy of Rav Kook, highlights this differing roles between the national entity and spiritual component and argues that this set up was to guard a balance for the nation to "survive and thrive".

One of the most influential books that I have ever read was As a Driven Leaf by Milton Sternberg - which if you haven't read, then what are you waiting for. The book is a historical fictitious account of the life of Elisha Ben Abuye. Sternberg, in sharing the travails of the protagonist, cites the enigmatic Mishna in Pirkei Avit chapter 4:20:

Elisha the son of Abuye would say: One who learns Torah in his childhood, what is this comparable to? To ink inscribed on fresh paper. One who learns Torah in his old age, what is this comparable to? To ink inscribed on erased paper.

Connecting to the idea presented in the beginning of the post - must spiritual people be nurtured for a longer time and thus before they may be corrupted from complex or negative thoughts?  Is there a latent message in the text promoting the notion of Tabula Rasa?

As a parent AND teacher, tis a daunting task - to raise moral and good children who will strive to care for their world and the people in their community.  And we know that we have to start at a young age to impart habits and values and not just wait to our young people have the physical maturity to "take" responsibility" (I have previously written about the issue with the age of bar/bat mitzvahs). But how can we properly prepare to shape the soulful side and properly measure our effectiveness?

Praying for a Successful Lift

The following article is ripped from the headlines of the Wall Street Journal - I am very curious as to why this is mainstream media news.  However I have to admit, whenever i do Hagbah, I do say a little prayer.

When Handling Precious Scrolls, Torah Lifters Pray for Successful Hoist

Updated April 26, 2012, 10:13 p.m. ET

Dropsies Have 'Dire' Consequences; After a Fall, a Long Fast for All

By LUCETTE LAGNADO

 

At the Manhattan Sephardic Congregation, Chalom Sibony gets a hand hoisting an elaborate scroll weighing about 60 pounds.

NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J.—Rabbi Robert Wolkoff has a recurrent nightmare. A congregant is lifting a holy Torah scroll high up in the air when it starts to tilt toward the ground.

In the dream, the rabbi lunges forward to catch the scroll, screaming, "Watch out, watch out." Then he wakes up in a cold sweat.

Jewish congregations are struggling with the heavy weight of Torah scrolls as they look for more ways to include women and older men in the sacred act of lifting a Torah. That's prompting some to look to acquire lighter Torahs, WSJ's Lucette Lagnado reports.

It isn't all in his head.

Lifting the Torah scroll during Sabbath services—a ritual known as "Hagbah," which means to lift in Hebrew—is considered a tremendous honor. It can also be a perilous undertaking.

The average Torah scroll, which contains the Five Books of Moses, handwritten by a quill on parchment, can weigh about 25 or 30 pounds. Scrolls are mounted on long wooden poles; they are often hard to handle, and even harder to hoist. Some scrolls, encased in wood and silver, weigh 40 or 50 pounds or more.

Accidents happen, and when they do, custom calls for significant acts of contrition, including fasting. Lots of fasting.

"If you drop the Torah, the implications are dire—the shame is enormous—and traditionally one needed to fast for 40 days," says Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. The offender has plenty of company in hunger, as anyone who witnesses the Torah tumble must also refrain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset.

The Heft of the 'Hagbah'

Natalie Keyssar for The Wall Street Journal

Philip Welsher lifts a scroll at the B'nai Tikvah Synagogue in New Brunswick, N.J.

Many of these scrolls are older, and were made in Europe before World War II. They have profound emotional value—but to replace them is expensive, as a new lighter-weight scroll can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

These days, not too many at Rabbi Wolkoff's synagogue, Congregation B'nai Tikvah, get to lift the Torah scrolls. Women, in particular, have felt excluded. While this is a proudly egalitarian synagogue where women take part in all rituals, virtually none raise the heavier scrolls since the effort requires both skill and muscle. Most women aren't up to it.

"Some of our Torahs are so heavy, only certain people are allowed to lift them," says B'nai Tikvah member Barry Safeer. "There are people with bad backs, there are those who make the congregation nervous."

That is especially the case when there is an overzealous or "show off" Torah lifter. "I call them testosterone Hagbahs," says Rabbi Gerald Skolnik of the Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens, N.Y. "It is someone having to prove how virile they are."

Natalie Keyssar for The Wall Street Journal

A Rabbi at B'nai Tikvah, North Brunswick, N.J., shows the Ten Commandments.

Hilary Friedman, one of the few women who has "done Hagbah," twice, is a physical trainer who lifts weights and teaches Pilates. Yet when she picked up the scrolls, she says, "I was shaking. My own child told me, 'Please, I don't want to fast for 40 days!'" She says she watches older "deconditioned" men lift the scrolls high up over their heads and wonders how they do it. "I will tell you, it is their sheer faith which lets them get it up there," she says.

Rabbis tell horror stories about the time a Torah fell or tore under their watch.

Rabbi Daniel Sherbill of Temple Emanu-El in Miami Beach, is still haunted by that day in 1995 when a scroll tumbled to the ground after its ornate housing, or "ark," was opened.  It was the High Holidays, and he was leading a congregation near Chicago. Dozens of members fasted for 40 days, from sunrise to sunset, he says. Beth El-Atereth Israel, a modern Orthodox congregation in Newton, Mass., lived through its disaster in 2007 during Simchat Torah, a holiday when Jews dance with the scrolls. A congregant carrying a bulky Torah tripped and lost control.

Rabbi Gershon Segal opted for the more modest penance—one communal fast day along with prayer and charitable giving. Then he took precautionary measures. He installed a bench within easy reach so that scroll lifters overcome by the weight would have a ready refuge.

Rabbi Wolkoff has decided to take more dramatic steps. Besides being heavy and unwieldy, B'nai Tikvah's Torah scrolls are in disrepair. The synagogue concluded a new scroll was urgently needed. A committee has searched and debated for months on what to buy, from whom and for how much. 

Almost everyone agrees the congregation's new Torah must be super-light, just 10 to 15 pounds. Yet when it comes to Torah scrolls, less is often more.

 Natalie Keyssar for The Wall Street Journal

Torahs at the Manhattan Sephardic Congregation

"When you are buying a Torah, on the one hand, you are buying this commodity, like a house or a car. But it is also a sacred act," says Rabbi Wolkoff.

B'nai Tikvah's committee has been quoted a dizzying array of prices—$35,000, $40,000, $60,000, all the way up to $120,000. The lighter or smaller the Torah, the heftier the price tag, especially if a fine parchment is used. Rabbi Wolkoff says lighter scrolls can cost $10,000 more than a conventional, heavy scroll.

The reason: Torahs aren't printed like ordinary books or Bibles. Often made in Israel, they are created by scribes who toil, feather quill in hand, for up to a year to produce a single scroll. Torah "brokers" typically arrange a match between congregations and scribes. They set the price, pay the scribe—and pocket the difference.

Rabbi Shmuel Miller, a Los Angeles scribe, says he charges $40,000 to make a normal-size, 22-inch scroll. But a pint-size scroll about 12 inches tall, with elaborately styled Hebrew text, "can take a few more months of work," he says, explaining how the smaller characters require a slower, more careful hand.

Rabbi Zerach Greenfield, a broker and scribe who shuttles between New York and Israel, counters that it is no big deal to produce a light, readable scroll. Rabbi Greenfield has provided scrolls weighing five pounds to U.S. military chaplains. Nowadays, he says, some parchment can be much lighter. He is confident he can deliver a quality 12½ pound scroll for approximately $30,000.

Others think the weight issue is a bit of a tempest in a Kiddush cup.

"The issues with the weight of our Torahs have become mythic," remarks Philip Welsher, a synagogue member who is an adept Torah lifter and seems to carry even the heaviest scrolls with ease. He believes more women at B'nai Tikvah could lift them if they only tried.

"I am not a wimp," says member Bobbi Binder, who has done Hagbah once or twice with a smaller scroll, but has been loath to try again with the larger Torahs. "It is not fair" that women can't enjoy the honor of Torah-lifting, she says.

Other congregations aren't sweating the issue.

Manhattan Sephardic Congregation, a Moroccan-Jewish synagogue, has acquired some supersize Torah scrolls, encased in the tradition of some Middle Eastern Jewish communities in wooden frames. One majestic 4-foot scroll swathed in wood, blue velvet and silver weighs a staggering 58 pounds. Rabbi Raphael Benchimol isn't fazed.

"We are a young congregation," he says. "We have a bunch of guys who came out of the Israeli army."

Write to Lucette Lagnado at lucette.lagnado@wsj.com

Educator Guest Post: Tzvi D. Daum

I am ever looking for educators that are experimenting with successful approaches to davening. If you, or someone you know, dabbles in the craft of teaching tefilla, please suggest they contact the blog.  

The following post is from Tzvi D. Daum, an experienced educator who actively incorporates technology into his classroom.  He is also the creator of TorahSkills.org. 

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In my school, I daven together with a group of 6-8 graders with the type of background I described in my Lookjed post.. many of them come from homes where parents hardly go to shul and if they do.... I find that even in very religious schools teffillah is very hard for this particular age group and I believe it is a struggle all around. As such, our main focus has been to train students about how to "act" during davening. The number one rule being not disturb others who wish to daven (talking etc) and to respect the sanctity of a shul, keep siddur open to the place etc. Hopefully once they get older they will know how to act in a shul and feel comfortable there. My understanding is that for better or for worse we are not the only ones with this attitude...

Having said that we do speak twice a week during Shacharit about the importance of prayer and different aspects of it. Also, we recently introduced a "Minyonaires Club" where students are graded in four general areas 1) coming on time 2) Not talking 3) Saying certain parts of davening out loud (and the fourth category escapes me at the moment...maybe it is having the place)...in any event, the daily results are put on a chart in the hallway and students enjoy checking it. Basically one successful day entitles students to an ice cream at lunch, a successful week is some other prize and after a month there is a catered lunch and the students have their pictures hanging on the wall in shul as members of the club (there is some leeway for the occasional messup). I apologize for not being up on all the details as I don't actually administer the program, however I can certainly speak to the ones who do and get you some feedback as to its effectiveness to date. I would say we introduced it about six weeks ago. I find at this age you will have students who will naturally daven, others who simply won't and most are probably a couple of shades in between.

Tzvi D. Daum

Reapproaching the Torah Service

I just attended a fascinating session by Amichai Lau-Lavi (who is the founder and director of Storahtelling) at the Limmud Conference titled "Meet the Maven".  The session introduced the historical role of the maven - also known as a miturgaman (translator) - from the time of Ezra the Scribe.  The job of the maven was to inform and transform the Torah experience for those who didn't understand the original text.

What I thought was really important to share was Lau-Lavi's diagnosis that we have live in a time when most readers don't understand what goes on in the Torah service or are just uninterested.  He aims to reach back to a lost practice of having a skilled and trained  'maven' translate the Torah reading to the modern reader (the profession ceased almost 1,000 years ago).  There is a serious pedagogical approach behind his argument, one that I suggest you follow the link to read more about.

I am presently looking for other organizations and initiatives that are looking to reapproach tefilla in synagogues and schools.  If you know of or hear about creative ideas similar to the concept of Storahtelling, please share it with me and the readers.

Praying Sitting or Standing

Does it matter?  Does sitting or standing while davening have an impact on your spiritual feeling?  Call it the calisthenics of tefilla if you will, but do I really raise my tefilla when I rise up?

For me, the issue of posture and prayer started back when I was younger and often heard the “please rise” and “you may be seated” conducted in the tefillot in my Hebrew School and at camp.  I once had a rabbi/teacher who explained the conceptual idea behind the Shmoneh Esrei prayer, called the “Amidah” or “standing”, as being titled such since it is said standing upright which he claimed was a uniquely human posture.  Thus standing erect in prayer before our Creator (and bowing) was a way to acknowledge our special position and connection to God.

Another controversial situation is whether it is proper to sit during the Torah reading in synagogue or stand up.  On this issue, the sitters have won out, but it seems that some sources support this position only out of sheer comfort and not as an ideal way to hear the public reading of the word of God.  In Jewish practice standing is a sign of respect and is done for a parent, teacher or rabbi.  When the Ten Commandments are read publically, people customarily stand up out of respect and as if to re-enact this experience as it was described in the Torah.  (Anecdotally, when Senator Joseph Lieberman went to synagogue the first Shabbat after being nominated in 2000 as the VP candidate, a reporter from the Washington Post wrote that “upon entering the entire congregation rose and read aloud the Ten Commandments”; coincidentally he was tardy for Shul on what happened to be parshat Vi’Etchanan).  Also, when the last lines of any of the five books of the Torah are read, there often is a loud clap in shul or a “please rise” so that we can rise to mark the ending of a book. 

One argument that I hear from some educators is that standing keeps kids from falling asleep.  So goes the theory that slouching is a habit of the lazy and lazy, unfocused people cannot find spiritual transcendence.  Now I have many friends that can sleep anywhere – and it is important not to confuse the bliss and harmony of sleeping with a true spiritual experience.  (It is also noteworthy that one can sleep while standing – indeed this is a habit that the IDF imparts into many an Israeli youth).  But is it a more spiritual posture? Recently when I was on an airplane and couldn’t rise to pray - mainly for safety reasons and courtesy to the others that would have been blocked from moving about in the cabin, I davened in my seat, with a slight recline.  It was a different experience but not a bad one.  I think it was just not what I was normally accustomed to.

Somehow, I think there is a power in having a proper posture in prayer. What do you think?