Why can't lay people lead services?

[cellio]

Today was the last morning of the siddur pilot. They handed out evaluation forms and asked us to bring them back next week. The questions that the CCAR did, and didn't, ask gave me a little insight into their goals. More about the evaluation in a separate entry, later.

At Torah study we talked about the question: why do we need a rabbi to lead services? We don't, of course; any somewhat-educated person who meets the (straightforward) halachic requirements can lead. In most Orthodox and some Conservative congregations, in fact, the rabbi doesn't lead services -- other congregants do. But in the Reform movement, by and large, the rabbi leads, unless you're such a small congregation that you don't have a rabbi.

(For those who are wondering, a rabbi's primary job responsibilities, traditionally, are to (1) teach and (2) act as a decisor. The latter means anything from resolving disputes (via a beit din, a court of rabbis) to answering specific questions about halacha. My rabbi certainly fields some questions (I know I'm not the only source of them, but I don't think he gets that many); aside from conversions, I don't know if he ever sits on a beit din, mainly because the Orthodox community doesn't consider a Reform rabbi to be qualified and they mostly control the beitai din. But anyway, a rabbi is not necessarily an officiant nor does he have a closer connection to God than a regular person does. He is not an intermediary. The reason this topic came up, by the way, is that we were studying part of the priestly ritual, and those people were intermediaries of a sort.)

My theory (which I wasn't fast enough to articulate this morning) is that this is a product of our culture. People (Americans specifically? people in general?) tend to want access to the expert. We don't want to settle for the physician's assistant to treat our illness, even if that person is perfectly qualified because it's only the flu and the flu is a well-understood problem; we hold out for the doctor. We don't want the apprentice electrician even though it's only a light switch; we want the experienced one. We only consider the "lesser" positions if we can save money, for the most part. (Yes, of course I'm over-generalizing.) So I think it's the same with rabbis and services; people want the rabbi, who they know will do everything right, and not the qualified layman who has no credentials, even though it's only a regular Shabbat service and that person has seen this hundreds or thousands of times. I've already seen this with respect to music; the Reform congregations I'm familiar with want the professional singers, even if they're not Jewish, and not the ameteurs from within the congregation.

Why is this a more common attitude in Reform than in other movements? Two factors, I think: first, we're more assimilated into the surrounding culture and second, we're (overall) less educated.

Assimilation means, in this case, that we are more inclined to imitate what we see or hear about from other parts of Americana, like church services. That organ at services isn't a coincidence, after all. The Reform community is more outward-focused, while the Orthodox community is more inward-focused (or so it appears from the outside). We're more likely to have had diverse worship experiences, and the ideas rub off. (Remember that most Orthodox would not set food in a church at all, and some of them will not set foot in non-Orthodox Jewish services.) I'm not trying to say that they're shutting the world out; it's not nearly that active. But they will have fewer chance encounters, and therefore fewer opportunities to pick up foreign ideas about "how things are done". Combine this with the fact that most Reform Jews do not attend services regularly, and you get a community that's more in tune with the outside world than with its own traditions and history.

And then there's the education factor. In the Orthodox community, it is pretty much presumed -- correctly -- that almost any adult male present is capable of leading services. He's been davening daily for most of his life, after all, so he knows the drill and can probably read the Hebrew correctly. Maybe he doesn't have a good voice, but that's not so important. I see this dynamic in play in the morning minyan at the Conservative shul I frequent, by the way; at least half the regulars can step in to lead services if the regular guy isn't there. (By the way, I am not yet one of those people. I am in the bottom third of that group for liturgical skill. I have most of the knowledge, but am just not fast enough with the Hebrew yet. Ironically, I am in the top half or third for pronoucing the Hebrew correctly -- I'm just too slow.)

Most Orthodox and many Conservative Jews of my generation have had significant Jewish educations -- day school, or at least a daily after-school program, and maybe Yeshiva, and maybe something beyond that. They also attend services regularly, so the Hebrew component of that is reinforced on a regular basis. But there's more to it than just the Hebrew; they learn halacha, study Talmud, study Torah in some depth, and so on. Most of my traditional friends can quote relevant sources off the tops of their heads, and know how to look up most of the rest. And they're just regular people -- lawyers and accountants and programmers and shopkeepers, not rabbis.

Most Reform Jews of my generation have not had a similar education, and are not seeing that their children get that kind of education. They send their kids to Hebrew school, which meets after school one day a week and on Sunday mornings, until bar mitzvah. A smaller number continue on through high school. They are studying a broader range of topics (after all, the Reform movement's focus isn't on traditional halacha), and they are spending less time on it, so of course their knowledge isn't as deep. Hebrew is not a large part of it, judging from what I've heard when the various classes lead services; they just don't read well, for the most part. I'm not dissing the kids; they read better than I probably would have at that age, and some of them read better than I do now. But most of them do not read well, do not maintain the skill past the bar mitzvah, and are not going to emphasize it with their eventual kids.

So, all told, the average person at a Reform service probably isn't capable of leading it. (Some of those could if they had time to practice.) So if you suggest to the average Reform Jew that someone other than the rabbi can lead the service, his thinking will probably go something like this: "Well, I can't do it, and I'm pretty normal, so why should I assume that David there can? He hasn't had any more schooling than I have; he's just a regular guy. No, he'll probably screw something up. We should stick with the rabbi; he's an expert." And if they've never actually heard David lead services, how are they to know that he's actually capable of doing it?

So the Reform Jew who is qualified to lead services faces a real up-hill battle -- not necessarily with the rabbi or the administration, but rather with the congregation. And who wants to put up with that kind of grief? Speaking only for myself, why would I want to try to force myself onto people who apparently wouldn't want me? And who am I to go to the rabbi and say "please make a pitch and let me do this"? Unless the rabbi decides that you don't have to be a rabbi to lead services, thus drawing flack from people who will say he's shirking his job responsibilities, it's not going to happen. So at some level, it's all politics.

And that's why, in the Reform movement, you have to be a rabbi to lead services, most of the time. In my opinion, of course.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

An interesting and insightful post.

I would add that some of this is also historical, found in the genesis of the Reform movement. If I remember my course on "Jewish Life in Eastern Europe" correctly, the Reform movement leaders were somewhat ashamed of the impression non-Jews might have of how services appeared at the time. Many synagogues had services that seemed rather informal, with talking and interrupting during the service, everyone seeming to do their own things whenever, etc. (This is still true, today.) So they made a deliberate effort to emulate the formality (or perceived formality) of some of the church services they had seen. And since church services are generally run by the clergy, that's what they went with.

I think the Reform movement was also responsible for the rabbi giving a sermon becoming part of the service. Even in Orthodoxy today, rabbis tend to be expected to say something on Saturday morning services. And although it's usually a d'var Torah, often it feels like (or actually is) a sermon.

One final thing to note is that Orthodox Jews tend to hold services more often (the three times a day thing). And although they're shorter than shabbat services, you're not going to be able to get the rabbi for every single one. Which is why people might be more accepting of the laymen running the service.

(I'll also note that there is in Modern Orthodoxy a movement for women-only services, so the women can lead and read aloud from the Torah. Suffice it to say for obvious reasons that no Orthodox rabbi runs these services.)é

[cellio]

So they made a deliberate effort to emulate the formality (or perceived formality) of some of the church services they had seen. And since church services are generally run by the clergy, that's what they went with.

That makes sense. I hadn't thought of that.

And although they're shorter than shabbat services, you're not going to be able to get the rabbi for every single one.

Good point. Even with optimal packing (mincha and ma'ariv back to back), that's still twice a day, or 14 times a week.

It's also my perception that in Orthodoxy Shabbat services are not as, err, "important/prominent" as they are in the other movements, where most people don't show up daily. So even a Conservative or (rare) Reform congregation that has daily services might be ok with lay people leading the daily services but still insist on a rabbi for the "main" service of the week. Whereas in Orthodoxy, you're expected to be there every day, they're all important, and if you live somewhere you can't walk from, well, just stay home on Shabbat and come the other six days. (As opposed to the Conservative movement, which says that Shabbat services are so importnat that it's ok to drive to them if you must.)

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

Actually, in Orthodoxy, you're expected to choose your home so that you live within walking distance from a synagogue.

It's better to pray with a minyan, on any day, even more so on Shabbat and holidays.

(Forgive me for commnting on such an old post, but I felt compelled...)

[cellio]

Actually, in Orthodoxy, you're expected to choose your home so that you live within walking distance from a synagogue.

Yes. I've heard the "so stay home on Shabbat, then" response in the case of ba'alei t'shuvah and converts, who got the house first and the religion second. Eventually you move, but in the meantime you have a problem. (There's also the problem of disabilities that prevent a walk that was feasible when you first moved in.)

It's better to pray with a minyan, on any day, even more so on Shabbat and holidays.

Thanks.

And no problem with new comments on old posts! Fortunately, I have email notification turned on, so that doesn't bother me at all.