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liturgical choreography (geeking)
A question came up after services this morning about choreography rather than text, and I realized I don't know where to look such things up. Ok, some (most? all?) siddurim from Artscroll contain some instructions for choreography ("bow here", etc), but I'm looking for a bit more than that. Ideally there'd be discussion, as I'm interested in intended symbolism, history, and variation. Elbogen is text-centric (though I haven't looked for choreography info there so maybe those bits are there too), and Klein doesn't cover liturgy much at all.
The specific issue that prompted the question is this: In most congregations I've been in (including my own), the barchu is done thus: chazan says "barchu..." while bowing, congregation responds "baruch..." while bowing, and then you go on. In Sim Shalom, though, they specify chazan, then congregation, then the chazan repeating the congregation's response. So when I'm the chazan I've been deferring my bow until that repetition, because it makes sense textually -- first I say "let's praise", which is a call to worship, and then we all bow when we actually praise (the next line). When there is no repetition by the chazan the chazan has to bow during the call because otherwise he'll be left out (unless he joins the congregation in the response, which I haven't seen anywhere). (Hmm, I wonder which approach is older -- is Sim Shalom innovating or returning to an earlier practice?) So that was my assumption and my reasoning, but this morning someone suggested that I should be bowing during the first part. Hmm. (I have, by the way, seen both in this congregation -- there's no strong minhag. And this person only brought it up because I'd raised a different question with him and he said "oh by the way if you're interested in these questions...". So not being pushy at all.)
The specific issue that prompted the question is this: In most congregations I've been in (including my own), the barchu is done thus: chazan says "barchu..." while bowing, congregation responds "baruch..." while bowing, and then you go on. In Sim Shalom, though, they specify chazan, then congregation, then the chazan repeating the congregation's response. So when I'm the chazan I've been deferring my bow until that repetition, because it makes sense textually -- first I say "let's praise", which is a call to worship, and then we all bow when we actually praise (the next line). When there is no repetition by the chazan the chazan has to bow during the call because otherwise he'll be left out (unless he joins the congregation in the response, which I haven't seen anywhere). (Hmm, I wonder which approach is older -- is Sim Shalom innovating or returning to an earlier practice?) So that was my assumption and my reasoning, but this morning someone suggested that I should be bowing during the first part. Hmm. (I have, by the way, seen both in this congregation -- there's no strong minhag. And this person only brought it up because I'd raised a different question with him and he said "oh by the way if you're interested in these questions...". So not being pushy at all.)
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I admit that I'm a bit surprised that a Reform congregation would be using Sim Shalom. There are a fair number of textual differences between it and the books I've seen at Reform services.
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I admit that I'm a bit surprised that a Reform congregation would be using Sim Shalom.
It's not. Sorry for the confusion. I belong to (and am something of a leader in) a Reform congregation. I also attend a Conservative congregation for (some) weekday shacharit, and I now lead that service once a week. (I've never put myself forward there; they twisted that arm for a while before I said yes.)
There are a fair number of textual differences between it and the books I've seen at Reform services.
Indeed there are. When my rabbi and I talked about my leading services there, his main question was how I felt about reading some of those passages. Now as it turns out, some of them aren't as relevant as it would appear; this congregation, in contrast to every other Conservative congregation I've seen, doesn't do a chazan's repetition of the Amidah. So we do the first three brachot together and the rest individually, and I just swap in the R'tzei I'm used to while doing so. I can accept "meitim" in G'vurot as metaphorical rather than literal. The other textual differences seem easy to cope with; I'm sure it helps that this congregation does about as stripped-down a service as you can do and still be legal.