New Liturgy

Harmoniyah: Reconstructionist Music and Liturgy Shabbaton: Darchei Noam, Toronto, Canada - November 11-13, 2011

Rabbi Shawn Zevit — Tue, 24 May 2011 12:37:06 -0400

We experienced a wonderful opportunity for learning, professional development, spiritual growth, lots of music-making and seeing old and new friends in the JRF world.

The 2011 Harmoniyah Shabbaton was hosted by Congregation Darchei Noam in Toronto, Canada (http://www.darcheinoam.on.ca/)

Friday afternoon November, 11 through Sunday morning, November 13, 2011.

The goal of this Shabbaton was to continue to build a participatory, community-affirming network of rabbis, cantors, lay leaders, music directors, educators, liturgists, musicians and music lovers that joyfully celebrates our collective experiences, skills and resources in the ongoing preservation and creation of music of and for the Jewish People.

Shabbaton Highlights included (see schedule below):

- Workshops on Music for the Jewish year, finding your voice, davennen leadership skills, and Jewish folk music. - Several opportunities to share and learn music composed by musicians in our own
movement for Shabbat and other times.
- Creative and traditional services for weekday and Shabbat in Darchei Noam's beautiful
environmentally innovative building, surrounded by the beautiful voices of Harmoniyah members.
- Lots of opportunities to hear and share original music as well as known favorites.

The Shabbaton, primarily for the Canada region, but was attended by Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal members, as well as members of Reconstructionist communities in Denver, CO; Palo Alto, CA; Cleveland, OH, and Baltimore, MD, including:

· Cantors / Soloists / Rabbis / Shlichei Tzibbur/ Music Directors and Educators

· Choirs (not necessarily expert musicians, but those willing to devote time to practice)

· Congregational Singers

· Music and Congregational Life (education for families, adults, children; tikkun olam, the arts, programming outside of worship services, etc.)

Our goals are to help participants to be able to return to their home congregation with new tools, melodies, materials and ideas to enrich congregational life. We also hope this retreat will continue the task of growing and building connections among ourselves and our movement.

Coordination took place with other Harmoniyah travelers through the music listserve (www.jrf.org/listserves).

Harmoniyah is the music network of the Jewish Reconstructionist Movement. We are comprised of a group of professional and volunteer members, who serve JRF congregations in a myriad of musical, prayerful and spiritual ways.

Submitted by Phyllis Greenberg, David Lefkowich, and Rabbi Shawn Zevit of the
Harmoniyah Board and Darchei Noam, 2011 retreat host congregation

Prayer In Our Movement

Victoria Cangelosi — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:43:45 -0400

by Dr. Eric Caplan, former JRF Board member

The recent convention of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF) provided an interesting snapshot of the current state of prayer in our movement. The picture that emerged makes possible the following three assertions about the way many contemporary Reconstructionists pray.

We are comfortable with the formulations of the traditional prayers that appear in Kol Haneshamah, our movement’s official series of siddurim (prayer books). When these liturgies give the choice of praying a traditional text that Reconstructionists have generally changed in response to theological or moral concerns, the majority of us choose to pray the revised versions.
Unlike Orthodox and Conservative Jews, Reconstructionists rarely pray consecutive pages in a section of the siddur. Even when we recite the Amidah, shlikhei tzibbur (prayer leaders) often counsel us to focus on one of the prayer’s blessings or to pray what is in our hearts.
We devote more of our worship time to singing than to reading new texts or to reciting the traditional liturgies silently. We sing short excerpts from the traditional liturgy, popular modern Israeli folksongs, American folksongs, and locally composed new Jewish music of relevance to the themes of the service.

I am happy that we have embraced the words of Kol Haneshamah and have stopped searching for new alternative formulations of the inherited liturgy. Although I believe that the content of what we pray is important—especially when assertions of ethical significance are made—finding replacement words that will satisfy all members is an impossible task. What we currently have before us is more than sufficient for us to pray with moral and intellectual integrity. Moreover, I share Abraham Joshua Heschel’s view that the major challenge of our prayer life is not what to pray, but how to pray, or even whether to pray at all.

Indeed, the majority of Jews in our time have chosen to abandon Jewish communal prayer altogether. I thought of them often during the recent convention. Is our prayer culture likely to speak to these Jews?

Our prayer style has much in common with Israeli shira b’tzibbur (communal singing), a gathering with deep cultural meaning. In both frameworks, the community assembles to sing words that express an idealized sense of self, the things that it wants to be. In shira b’tzibbur, the songs are about brave soldiers who are caring lovers, fighters who want peace, people who balance hard work with heartfelt celebration, people with a deep connection to the land. In Reconstructionist prayer we sing about being lovers of Torah, of the Jewish people, of certain core values, and of striving to be moral persons. In both frameworks, the words are addressed to each other and to ourselves individually. There is little sense of singing to a higher power. Reconstructionists seem to speak more about God and the values that we associate with godliness than to God. Great emphasis is placed on being accessible, open to all who wish to participate. In shira b’tzibbur, the words to all songs are projected on a screen placed in front of the audience. Reconstructionists use a prayerbook that has been typeset to help people find prayers easily, which has a readable English translation, and that includes an educational commentary aimed, in part, at novices. We sing fairly small portions of the text, repeating the same lines over and over with increasing levels of kavannah (intentionality), making it easier for the uninitiated to join in.

Most importantly, both frameworks foster a strong sense of community among participants, and for a movement that needs to grow as Reconstructionism surely does, this may be their greatest strength. For although there is much research indicating that North American Jews hesitate to join communal organizations, they still crave community. They still want to have connections with other Jews. And our shira b’tzibbur prayer aesthetic might provide a non-threatening, accessible avenue to explore these connections.

But for our prayer services to be powerful Jewish experiences, the words need to be sung primarily in Hebrew. Much of what we sing about is of universal concern. Our desire for peace, our appreciation of the natural world, our moral values, our need for physical and financial security; these are sentiments that all humans share. They become Jewish when expressed in Jewish vocabulary. Every nation can praise God for “bringing on the evening.” But only Jews speak of God as ha-ma’ariv aravim. And, ultimately, people come to synagogue in search of Jewish experience. Prayer services that sideline Hebrew are less likely to provide this experience.

In the convention minyan led by our Israeli guests, Psalm 150 was chanted in Hebrew to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s, “Hallelujah.” This union of cherished ancient words and beloved contemporary melody triggered deep feelings within me. This was a liturgical moment that was open to all and yet deeply Jewish. It was both hip and timeless. And I am thoroughly convinced that it would have been a less powerful experience if the Psalm had been sung in English.

Reconstructing Tradition: A Call for Communal Mourning over the Iraq War during the Omer Mourning Period

Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:25:30 -0400

Our tradition instructs us: From the day you bring the sheaf of wave-offering, you shall keep count until seven full weeks have taken place. This is the time of counting. From the second night of Passover until Shavuot—the time of receiving the Torah, we count, day after day for 49 days. Sefirat HaOmer, the counting of the Omer.

The Omer is not one of the most widely observed Jewish practices, yet I think it is one of the most profound and meaningful. There is something about taking some time in the darkness of the evening to mark the passing of time that resonates powerfully. It is an opportunity to bring a consciousness to our transition from our being avdei Pharoah—servants of Pharoah—to avdei Hashem —servants of a Higher Power.

But there is one element of the Omer that I have always found a bit perplexing, a bit uninspiring. The Omer, or at least the first 2/3 of the counting, is customarily a time for communal mourning. Marriages are not performed. Many observant Jews do not shave or do not cut their hair. The origins of this association are obscure but mostly attributed to the death of thousands of disciples of Rabbi Akiba (a second century rabbi) who died in a plague during the Omer in Talmudic times. Observance of mourning during the Omer was cemented after other tragedies befell the Jewish people during this time in more recent Jewish history, i.e. the Crusades, pogroms.

In my mind, I never fully understood how this time of introspection and fruitful, personal reflection could be considered a sad or dark time. Kal v’homer—all the more so—Jews already have a widely observed period of communal mourning, the 3 weeks which lead up to Tisha Ba’av (the remembrance of the destruction of the temple).

Don’t we as a people have enough set time to commemorate suffering? During the Omer, why focus on suffering when we are supposed to be moving to higher spiritual places as we move closer to the receiving of the torah?

Now, as a Reconstructionist, I seek to look at Jewish customs that may feel a little out of date or less relevant and try to infuse them with new meaning instead of simply throwing them aside. In that spirit, I have been wondering if there is a way to reconstruct this period of mourning during the Omer. I asked myself: What does this custom really mean? What was its original purpose? Can it be relevant to our lives today?

Looking further into the story of Rabbi Akiba, I discovered that according to tradition, the reason the students suffered from the plague was because they could not find peaceful ways of solving their disputes. In that vein, it seems that the mourning rituals engage in during the Omer are not simply intended to evoke commiseration with suffering, rather we mourn in order to heighten the awareness of our responsibility to seek just and peaceful solutions to conflict.

I cannot think of a more perfect message for our time.

While we are counting the Omer, we have other numbers to count. 4: four years plus one month since the invasion of Iraq. 3296: the umber of American lives lost since the start of the war. 67,243: the estimated number of Iraqi civilian deaths since the start of the war. 416 billion and counting: the taxpayer dollars funding the war.

Last month, at the fourth anniversary of the war, I got back in touch with my anger and frustration. I attended a rally and a vigil in Clark Park. I sent emails to my elected representatives. And then, a few days later, I went back to doing my everyday routine. I listen to stories of bombings and to NPR’s analysis while getting ready in the morning, while cooking dinner. That righteous indignation quieted.

Because of the nature of this conflict and because most of us do not know people serving in Iraq, it is easy to disconnect. Even those who disagree with my position on the war recognize that many of us sit comfortably while a war is being fought in our name.

What have we as individuals, ourselves sacrificed for this war? What has this community sacrificed? Acknowledging that I am not directly sacrificing, not directly affected, I am left wondering: how can we keep this reality of war before us? How can we maintain the fire that keeps us deeply engaged or in action?

In light of these questions and in light of the story of Rabbi Akiba’s students who died because they could not reach peace, I propose that we reconstruct this period of mourning during the Omer to be a period of mourning for the lives lost, the dreams lost, the hope lost as a result of this war.

I want us to use this period of intentionality and reflection consciously and well. And just as some don’t shave or cut their hair to externalize their mourning, we too should have rituals that remind us of the harsh reality in Iraq and God willing, stir us to action.

Last Friday night, I lit an additional candle alongside our Shabbat candles. At my congregation, Kol Tzedek in West Philadelphia, I'm proposing that we take on this custom when we are together. It will be a zecher, a remembrance of the lives that have been lost as a result of this war.

And I suggest we each find our own way of engaging in the coming weeks. Maybe instead of simply reading or listening to a news story, we take the time to really process what is going on and to educate ourselves about the conflict. Maybe we take a moment of silence at some point each day. Maybe we commit to calling our elected representatives each day or each week of the Omer to continue to remind them to find a way to bring our troops safely and speedily home.

Let’s make this time of counting the days a time of intention and a time of action.

After all, the ikar—the essence—of the Omer period is to teach that there is a seamless line between Passover and Shavuot. We are not free for freedom’s sake. We are free to be responsible. We are free so we can be called to a Higher order—to the moral and ethical obligations of Torah. We are called to the pursuit of justice and peace.

New Blessings For Friday Night

Ellen Dannin — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 19:52:47 -0500

I wrote these blessings in order to increase the number of people who can be blessed on Friday nights. However, I have also used them in other situations, including before Torah study. The themes are taken from the Birchot ha-Shachar.

May you see the world each day with fresh eyes.

May you always know day from night, true from false, wisdom from convenience.

May your every step be on firm earth.

May you see through illusion to reality.

May you bring splendor and joy to all you touch.

May you always know what it is to live in freedom.

May you be a support to those who have fallen.

May you guide those who wander to return to their true path.

May your needs be fulfilled.

May you draw strength from your community.

May you be a part of the splendor that crowns Israel.

May you remember in whose image you are created.