Guest Post: Kosher Gospel

While I was watching gospel videos the other day, I could not help but to be struck by the verve, vitality and vigor with which the singers and their parishioners encouraged one another one to reach crescendos of spirituality. Their outpouring of emotionality was stirring even from the barrier of my computer screen.

Was it the awesome voices, the rousing choir, the energized music or all of them combined? Or was it the experience of coming together for the sole purpose of prayer, without a predetermined text or a G-d given mandate to attend?

Whatever the cause, the collective result of a congregation engaged in their mission of praising the L-rd and electrifying one another was, as an observer an honest and pure experience.

Is that what it was like for us with the Leviim and Pirchei Kehuna? Was that akin to the atmosphere that we sing about in Mareh Kohen on Yom Kippur? The question of where did we lose it or why did we lose it interests me less, but more of why have we not brought some of it back. I do not see an openly emotional prayer session being dependant on bringing sacrifices or being housed on har habyit. Is our yearning for uplifting prayer experiences why we have seen a proliferation of Carlebach minyanim around the modern Orthodox world?

My purpose at this time is not to propose alternatives, though I have some up my sleeve, but rather to present the thought that within the realm of our daily or Shabbat minyanim, there is a way to rise above the monotony of the experience that plagues most of our kehillat and to activate a more meaningful, uplifting, non kitschy service that will have us leaving our shuls inspired, uplifted and fulfilled. Why have we not pursued it?

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Avi Silverman holds a BA from Yeshiva University in Psychology and Speech and Drama, an MS from The City College of New York in School Psychology and has Rabbinic Ordination from Yeshiva University. In his professional career, Avi has worked as an Upper School administrator and Retreat Center Director in America, and at Bar Ilan University and various elementary and high schools in Israel. Currently, Avi is the Advisor for Education and Communities at Nefesh B'Nefesh and lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh with his wife and six children.

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.