prayer

[cellio]

We were supposed to study Talmud yesterday, but the combination of 9/11 and rabbinic obligations did that in. So we studied today. But neat as that always is, that wasn't the neatest part today.

Last week after the Thursday service we were talking (I forget how we got to this topic) about the Friday-night service, and my rabbi said that another local rabbi does a chazan's repetition [1] of the Amidah [2] in that service but he (my rabbi) says you don't do that at an evening service. I started to ask involved questions, but I could see that he was on his way to a meeting. So I sent email.

[1], [2]: The Amidah is the core prayer of the service. It is said individually, not congregationally (but everyone says it at the same time, quietly and at his own pace within reason). Because it's so important, the sages were concerned that unlearned people might say it wrong and thus not fulfill the obligation. So they added a repetition of the whole thing by the "chazan", or person leading services, to "cover" everyone, just in case. (Remember that you can have other people do things on your behalf. The chazan's job, in part, is to be the person who does that.) But it's important to try to say it yourself, so they didn't just get rid of the now-technically-unnecessary private recitation.

Here's the meat of the email I sent:

I'd be interested in knowing why the chazan's repetition of the Amidah isn't done at night. I thought the reason for the repetition was to "cover" for the people who aren't capable of saying it on their own, but if that's the case I would expect it to be at every service. It's not as if only skilled people come to ma'ariv but unskilled people come to shacharit, after all. (This whole business of skill seems to matter a lot more in the Orthodox world, where they seem to hold that if you skip or mispronounce a word your prayer might not be valid.)

Well, my rabbi said, all of that is correct, but the issue is that the evening service itself is of questionable status. (At this point I said "because there weren't any korbanot at night?" and he seemed pleased that I got that.) Remember that the prayer services that we have were instituted after the destruction of the Temple and fall at the times of day when korbanot ("sacrifices", but I don't like that word) were brought at the Temple. So, there was one every morning (shacharit), and an extra one on Shabbat (that's the service now called musaf), and there was an afternoon meal-offering (mincha), and of course there were the various holiday extras. But there were never evening korbanot.

The evening service, strictly speaking, is optional! And if it's optional, there can't be an obligation to say the Amidah at it, or at least there can't be an obligation as strong as for the other services. So, if you don't need to say it at all, you certainly don't need for there to be a chazan's repetition just in case you need help saying it.

But in a way, that was all by way of introduction. The neat stuff was coming up.

We talked about prayer and obligation. Do we believe that God requires these specific words from us at these specific times? Or do we believe that God requires awareness, intention, and deeds? (These aren't the words my rabbi used; I'm attempting to summarize a conversation in which I did not take notes.) My rabbi draws a distinction between praying to God and having a conversation about God, which has the effect of making us more aware of what God does for us and what we should do in return. This took me somewhat by surprise. (At one point he asked "any questions?" and I said "now no, later I'm sure". I'm writing this journal entry in an effort to flesh out my questions and reactions.)

It's important to remember during this that my rabbi, like Maimonides, believes that God does not intervene in the world. A logical consequence of this would be that God doesn't really react specifically to prayer. Maimonides probably didn't have a problem with that, because as what would now be called an Orthodox Jew, he took the obligation to pray as a commandment from Sinai, so he did it even if he saw no worldly purpose. (Any actual students of Maimonides' writings reading this should please speak up and correct me if I've got any of this wrong. I will be perplexed [3] for years to come.)

([3] It's a joke. Maimonides' last, and most cryptic, work was the Guide for the Perplexed, written specifically for his best student. And it's pretty hard to understand.)

Now, remember that my rabbi is Reform. (As am I, of course.) The Reform movement says that the traditional interpretations of our obligations aren't the final word. It does not teach, as some claim, that there are no obligations; rather, we have to study, interpret, and at times innovate. So if a Reform congregation does a chazan's repetition of the Amidah, it is unlikely to be because most people in the room believe that this is necessary.

Ok, so my rabbi doesn't accept the traditional obligation for saying the Amidah, which means he's free to change how we do it. (I'm saying "he" and not "we", but if the congregation actually had a problem with this it would have been dealt with.) The Reform movement has certainly made significant changes to this prayer in its siddurim (prayer books), so this is far from an unusual position. (Though note that the biggest changes are in the English "interpretations", not in the Hebrew itself.) As we usually do it, it's a sequence of texts (generally read together or responsively) about the nature of God, the covenant, and our obligations to each other. It does follow the form of the traditional prayer in terms of general content, by the way. Some of it is even the same text, but not all by any means.

I guess our difference in approach comes down to this: I do believe in an obligation to pray to God, and not just to talk about God. Related to this, I believe in a God who listens to prayer -- and, in fact, even if one weren't obligated, I would say there is a clear benefit to our prayer, so I will do it. And I believe that I can believe these things while still believing that God doesn't decide, individually, who is going to get onto that plane and who is going to be in the path of that tornado and who is going to develop Leukemia.

But I don't believe that the obligation is to a particular text, spelled out word for word, and that if I accidentally mispronounce a word or intentionally abbreviate a section God is going to punish me. I pray the Amidah around the specific themes laid out by the sages two millenia ago, and not (necessarily) by saying the specific words that were laid out no more than one millenium ago at the outside [4].

[4] The themes, and even some specific brachot (blessings), are spelled out in the mishna (early part of the Talmud). People were expected to improvise. The earliest siddur was written down in the tenth century, and it wasn't really until siddurim became common (probably several centuries later, after printing) that people fixated on the text rather than a text.

When I pray alone, I use Hebrew that isn't all that different from what my more-traditional friends use. There are places where the Reform movement has shortened it, and there are some specific changes made for theological reasons with which I agree [5], but by and large, this is the traditional prayer. I like it that way. And it's ok that I say it because I think I should and my rabbi says it because it's good content that people should hear.

[5] The Reform movement got rid of prayers for the rebuilding of the temple, and downplays or eliminates the idea of physical resurrection of the dead, and is kind of ambivalent about the idea of the moshiach (messiah).

Some of this is actually stuff that I thought about before beginning to lead services at Tree of Life. They are Conservative; that means that, officially, they believe in the obligation to pray (as I do) and the obligation to say these specific words (as I do not). So given that, I asked myself, was I halachically qualified to be a chazan for them? (Note: they do not do a chazan's repetition of the Amidah -- all this time I thought they were doing it wrong! -- but that means that anyone who is fulfilling his obligation through me is doing it with my silent recitation.)

I concluded that they can, in principle, certainly fulfill their obligations through me because (1) according to their rules I'm obligated and (2) while we differ on interpretation, I do in fact accept that obligation. The more critical issue, to me, was what to do about my comparative lack of skill and speed with Hebrew.

I talked with their rabbi about this from the start, and I said that I was sure they didn't want to wait for me to read their full text given my current reading skills. He said I should feel free to use English, but that doesn't really help. Hebrew is a more compact language than English, so I can't read all the English in the time that most of them can read all the Hebrew.

So I do what I always do when praying in a fast minyan: I revert to the mishna's interpretation. I strip those prayers down to the minimum that, per that interpretation, must be said, and anything else is gravy. Broadly speaking, each paragraph in the Amidah really boils down to one or two proscribed sentences and a bunch of embellishment, so I say those sentences and move on. (There are actually more bits that I have added in as I've gotten a better feel for the speed of this congregation.) The rabbi knows that this is what I'm doing, so I conclude that he has no problem with it because he keeps inviting me back.

Wow, that question and resulting discussion did touch off a lot of reaction on my part, didn't it?

Comments

[katanah.livejournal.com]

while still believing that God doesn't decide, individually, who is going to get onto that plane and who is going to be in the path of that tornado and who is going to develop Leukemia.

Does this mean that you don't believe that G-d decides who is going to get on this plane or be in the path of that tornado, etc.? I am trying to ascertain whether you are saying that G-d is unconcerned with our (collective or individual) fate, or if you're saying that G-d doesn't make our fates for us, or what.

I agree with you about praying because there is clear benefit to doing so, personally. :)

As for people fixated on the text rather than a text ... you are aware that the texts used are also different between Orthodox Ashkenazim and Orthodox Sefardis, right? There is no the text, really ... it's just that often non-Orthodox Jews view Orthodoxy as the measuring stick to prove that they are more sane, more modern, less inhibiting, less overtly structured ... I'm sorry, I'm making assumptions, as well. I just think that generalizations ... well, generalize. A lot.

And hey, if mispronunciation rendered my prayers ineffectual, I would be doomed. *laugh*

[cellio]

Does this mean that you don't believe that G-d decides who is going to get on this plane or be in the path of that tornado, etc.?

Yes, that is what I am saying. Because if you believe that God saved you from being on that plane, then you also have to believe that God wanted the people who were on the plane to be there.

I believe that God is involved, but at a higher level. Guidance comes more in pointing out a path than in individually manipulating points along the way. There are occasional exceptions, and very occasional spectacular miracles, but mostly, God operates at a "policy" level, not at the day-to-day "implementation" level. I wrote a lot more about this here, a couple months ago (which I think was before we bumped into each other).

How can I say this at this time of year especially, when the high-holy-day liturgy tells us that God decides who shall live and who shall die, who shall perish by fire adn who by the sword, who by famine and who by pestilence, and so on? Frankly, I think some of that is poetic license. Yes, we are being judged, and some of us will die, but I still think much of it is metaphor. I see this annual judgement as more akin to a performance review, during which we set some goals for how things are going to be different next year. (After all, the judgements I just listed are made on Rosh Hashana, and the common interpretation is that they're mostly anulled on Yom Kippur if we do our part.) So no, I don't really believe that on Rosh Hashana God decided, for example, that I'm going to die in a car crash this year, and then, that if I don't atone by Monday, that he'll decide that it will be in an accident on the way home from work on December 12, and so on. I do think that God decides in general terms how much "effort" (to apply human terms to God) he's going to put into guiding me and helping me, based on my behavior and actions and teshuva.

So, to get back to your question, God is certainly concerned with our fates, but he doesn't completely control them. Not because he can't, but because this is a partnership and we have to do some of the work.

(I just realized that you have been writing "G-d". I hope you aren't offended that I don't; I don't consider an English translation of a title to be the divine name. I would never write the tetragramaton in this way.)

you are aware that the texts used are also different between Orthodox Ashkenazim and Orthodox Sefardis, right? There is no the text, really ...

I am aware of the differences. And I'm not taking shots at the Orthodox here; while a lot of people (Orthodox and liberal) seem to be into movement-bashing, I am not among them. (So yeah, I think in this case you were making assumptions that I don't think apply.)

When I said the text I wasn't referring specifically to, say, Artscroll. In any given community there is going to be some notion of "the" text, the one that is correct and required for this particular community. I've had Modern-Orthodox Jews tell me that I need to use these particular words, and I've had Chassidim tell me that I need to use these (different) particular words, and so on for some Conservative, and even some Reconstructionist, and yes, even some Reform. (I get around. :-) ) My problem is with the idea of "these words only", not with any particular set of "these words".

And hey, if mispronunciation rendered my prayers ineffectual, I would be doomed. *laugh*

Yeah, me too at times. :-) But see, I've actually been told that, in all seriousness. Personally, I believe that God sees/hears my effort and intentions, and not just that I tripped over that tricky word again. Besides, we aren't even required to pray in Hebrew; it's an effort most of us choose to make. So so long as we're not being disrespectful, I think God will tolerate some bumps along the way.

an aside

[cellio]

There has got to be commentary on the following question, somewhere.

On Rosh Hashana it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed...

Does God write these judgements on Shabbat? Or, this year, did he write the preliminary judgements the day before Rosh Hashana?

If God writes on Shabbat, is it because God violates Shabbat in general or because this specific case overrides Shabbat restrictions?

(Yes, of course God is not bound by Shabbat -- but part of the reason we cease from work on Shabbat is to immitate God...)

[cellio]

Aha, I see where your comment about Orthodoxy came from now. (It was probably my comment in the original email I sent.) While it's true that I've seen that kind of concern (again, locally-scoped; definition of "right" varies) much more from the Orthodox Jews I've met than from the Reform, it's not either exclusively or univerally an Orthodox issue. I apologize for my sloppiness.

looking at just a small bit...

[goljerp]

the Guide for the Perplexed, written specifically for his best student. And it's pretty hard to understand

A friend of mine (who is a Reconstructionist Rabbi) calls it "the Guide to become Perplexed" (or the Guide for being Perplexed).

I took a medieval philosophy class at my shul this past year, and we looked at the guide a couple of times. One hint which was given was that the most interesting stuff is in the notes, because he didn't think that stupid people read the notes. Also the middles of the chapters are where the interesting stuff is; stupid people read only the beginning sentence and the end of a chapter. And yes, compared to Rambam, most everyone is stupid... so don't take it as an insult.