leading prayers and song

[cellio]

Sometimes when I meet with my rabbi we have these very-high-bandwidth discussions that turn out to have only been 20 minutes when they felt like an hour -- not because they dragged but rather because there is so much content. It's pretty nifty when that happens. (The first meeting I ever had with him, when I was shopping for a congregation and a rabbi, was like that too.)

When my rabbi and I last met, we somehow ended up talking about our services, changes that have been made in the last few years, and the tensions between those who want "classical Reform" and those who want more tradition in the service. This led us to talk about some of the changes that have occurred since we got a cantor-in-training. (She's technically a "cantorial intern", because she doesn't yet have the credentials to be a capital-C cantor. This year she was nominally half time; the previous year, her first, was less than that.)

The rabbi mentioned that some people are upset that because we have Shira, we don't use hired singers as much. (Before then, most services had either the professional quartet that we use or one member of it acting as a quasi-cantor.) I said that to me this is a major win because we are less frequently hiring gentiles to participate in our services. (This had bugged me for a while. We have talented people in the congregation who would do it for free, to serve the congregation and God, and yet we've been hiring outsiders -- for work on Shabbat! -- who don't even know what they're singing, and would probably be bothered by some of it.)

I've also noticed in recent months that, finally, the rabbis and/or Shira have taken over the parts of the service that are supposed to be led by Jews. Before, these professional singers would lead things like Barchu, which is just wrong. [*] I commented to the rabbi that I had noticed the change and I thanked him for it. He has apparently gotten a lot of flack for it -- not because of any theological reason, but because people see it as a further reduction of the role of the professional singers. I think some people are worried that eventually it won't be cost-effective to have them come in just to sing an opening song, a closing song, and a meditation piece. (Well yes, and the logical progression is to then drop the professional singers. :-) ) I'm not sure why people are so attached to hired singers.

[*] Ok, I have to cover this one now, before continuing. There is a principle in Judaism that says that you can fulfill an obligation through someone else. For example, when someone says a prayer that you're supposed to (also) say and you just say "amein", that's fine -- so long as the person who's aiding you was also obligated. This is why the Orthodox don't permit women to lead services; they say that women are not obligated to (most of) those prayers, so men cannot fulfill their obligations ("be yotzei") through a woman. The egalitarian movements -- Reform and many Conservative and Reconstructionist -- say that men and women are equally obligated, so men can be yotzei to women and vice versa.

Anyway, our discussion of the professional singers spawned half a dozen parallel tangents, so I didn't get to bring up the problem of the grade-school services there. So I sent email. (The problem is that, starting with fourth grade, each class leads one service a year. That means starting around the age of nine. However, one is not obligated to the commandments until bar or bat mitzvah, at the age of 13 or 12 respectively. So just as I can't be yotzei to a gentile, I also cannot be yotzei to someone who is not yet of age.)

I got a quickie answer at Friday-night services (woo hoo! email works!): My rabbi said that because people read along on most of the prayers anyway, they're not really being yotzei to the kids. But this doesn't cover everything; there are still required prayers that the kids lead and that the congregation does not read along on. So I'll continue to go elsewhere for those services, but at least I've planted the objection in his ear.

My rabbi is away at camp this week and next (he does a stint as a counselor every year), and then I will be away for the next two weeks for Pennsic. So it'll be a while before I get to talk with him again. We seem to do this back-to-back thing every year with camp and Pennsic; pity there's not a week in between or something. Oh well.

Comments

Re: Cantors, hired singers, etc

[goljerp]

I think you covered what I find is the most important thing for me in a prayer leader: ability to lead rather than perform. I like attending choral performances, but that's a separate thing for me than praying.

With melodies that are only used once a year, though, the congregational learning curve is steep.
Well, it doesn't have to be. For one thing, there are a set of melodies which I've heard at various (conservative) shuls over the years and are pretty similar. One thing they have in common is a lot of "yai dai" ing, where you don't even need to know the hebrew words in order to participate! Of course, it helps that I've known these tunes for a long time, and pick up melodies easily, but it seems to me that the basic stuff is pretty easy to pick up.