Friday night

[cellio]

At the oneg I received a rather effusive compliment on my torah reading on Rosh Hashana. I'm impressed that this long after the event someone sought me out to praise me. Nifty.

During the service I realized why I have a reaction that I do to one small bit. Our service leaders almost always face the congregation. There are points in the service where one is supposed to bow toward the ark (which is at the back of the bimah); the norm is for the leader to turn around at that point and do so. Someone on our bimah (not my rabbi) sometimes does the bow but doesn't turn around (so bows toward the congregation). This bugs me. I understand why it was happening (the reasons no longer apply but the pattern persists), but it still bugs me.

Last year after the Sh'liach K'hilah program there was a discussion in comments in my journal about which way the chazan faces, though not this particular detail. The article I'd read (that started the discussion) asserted that when the chazan faces the ark (to lead much of the service, not just these bowing bits) it facilitates more private prayer than when he's facing the congregation. That may be true, but it's just part of it.

When the chazan stands in the front of the room, faces the ark, and bows, he is leading us in prayer. He is our representative, our sh'liach tzibur, almost our stand-in, before God. Whose representative is he when he bows toward us?

I had this epiphany Friday night. It is as if the person bowing toward the congregation is representing God in the transaction. And that's just wrong. We do not presume God's participation and response in our prayers.

I don't mind the chazan conducting most of the service facing us; I understand how seeing a back for the entire service could be alienating to some. But there are parts where I'd rather the person turn around and be our representative.

Comments

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

Wow, it's interesting to hear your thoughts on this. There are similar liturgical lines of thought to consider when one talks about which way the priest should face during the consecration. In my one class on liturgy we are reading Pope Benedict's The Spirit of the Liturgy and he also speaks a lot about liturgical structure in the Temple and in the synagogue (which he then moves into how those structures lead to practices in Catholic churches). There is such a richness to liturgy. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I barely grasp it.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Side thought: I think some of the difference between places where prayer-leaders mostly face the congregation or mostly face the ark has a lot to do with architecture (OK, also likely denomination, which is the cause of architecture...). In my (Conservative) shul growing up, the bimah is stage-like, raised above the rest of the room (with the ark even higher beyond that), and all the leader-stuff happened there, mostly facing the congregation. In most of the Orthodox shuls I've been in, the leader is usually at the front of the room, but not elevated, so it's less... necessary is the word that keeps coming to mind.... to have the person facing the congregation. Sometimes there's a bimah, but it's used only for sermons and (in some places) Torah readings.

I agree with the difficulties of facing the congregation while bowing, btw.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Da lifnei mi atah omeid. The thing that is really awkward about our bimah is that if you turn around for the amidah you need to turn the microphone toward one side, since the desk is really big and meant for torah reading. So for the last year we have been playing around with having a shtender in the middle of the pews at which the person leading services faces toward the ark. Some of the oldies don't like it and some of them still prefer to lead from the bimah. But gradually both our leaders and congregants are getting used to the leader facing toward the ark at all times. For all of my kvetching about my shul, this is something that really has improved (from my POV) over the last year.

I also think that most of the discomfort of congregants is not from looking at someone's back but from the fact that the rabbi and the president now don't sit on the bimah, so people have no faces to look at on this big, stage-like bimah. The eastern wall is supposed to be populated with the congregation's leaders, perhaps just for this reason. Oh well.

You will like this piece on synagogue architecture and how the direction of the prayer leader (really, the lectern) reflects the different movements' attitudes toward prayer and congregational participation. If you don't have an academic password somewhere or don't feel like going to the library I can email it to you.

This is Murmur311

[(Anonymous)]

I'm at work, and so not logged in. But, I wanted to comment on this before I got home tonight and forgot.

I'm not real big on the bowing thing in general. My rabbi doesn't bow and the reason he gave for not bowing has always made sense to me: he doesn't want it to seem like (or even to be like) he is worshipping the Torah/ark and not God. The only part of the service that I bow during is the Aleinu when it specifically says "we bow." We've had a real cantor once a month and on RH and YK for the past year now who has had arguments with my rabbi about turning towards the ark and bowing. He's made concessions, as has she.

What triggered this response was your comment above that the chazan is our representaive, our stand-in before God, which strikes me as antithetical to Judaism. I've always viewed Jewish prayer as being a direct communication with God--we don't need an intermediary/stand-in/etc. We don't need a rabbi present to pray for us, we don't need a priest present to represent us. We represent ourselves to God.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I view him as himself when he bows toward you. I guess my analogue is aikido, which has some shinto/spirituality/icon worship built in. At the beginning of class, it is traditional for the sensei to walk out to an already-lined-up class, and bow toward O-Sensei (creator of Aikido), whose portrait hangs at the front of the dojo. There, we are all students before him. Then, sensei turns around and bows, and we bow back: we are his students today. In a way he's got O-Sensei "on his side", but he is also greeting us and inviting us to train with him.

In a congregation, it's like, when the speaker is facing away, he is speaking as a part of but also as leader of the congregation. When he faces, he is speaking for himself, but with his knowledge at his back, and God on his side. To me it's not like he is representing God, just interpreting or guiding; providing a human face so that all may progress together, not filtering or incarnating the Word from on high.

Just my gut feeling.

[goljerp]

It is as if the person bowing toward the congregation is representing God in the transaction. And that's just wrong. We do not presume God's participation and response in our prayers.

A bit of a digression -- this is one of the reasons why I don't like the "birkat cohanim" (blessing of/by the cohenim) and fought against my minyan starting it up. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, there's a part of the service where the cohanim (priests) get up in front of the congregation and say the priestly blessing, while facing the congregation and holding their hands in a way somewhat similar to the vulcan salute from Star Trek. (Nimoy didn't pick that at random.) Anyhow, although it's very clear that the cohanim are not blessing, but rather are acting as the conduit for God's blessing, it is as if they are, and I really don't like it. (In some Sephardic communities it's done every week on Saturday; in most Conservative congregations it's not done at all, or if it is, only a few times a year. I think Reform has probably dropped it.)