planning a Shabbat service

[cellio]

A few months ago my rabbi gave me a Friday-night service to lead, which will be next week (July 14). There have been some changes since I first wrote about my plans, so here's an update on my thinking.

Originally, I was going to lead the service (along with our cantorial soloist) and my rabbi was going to be there to give me feedback. (I've never really gotten this kind of mentoring from him, because in general if he's there he's the one who leads.) Then it turned out that he's going to be out of town that week, so the mentoring part fell by the wayside. And when the rabbis are away it's customary for the worship committee to lead the service, so while I'm still in charge, I now have some other people to work in.

The worship committee just agreed on a goal of adopting Mishkan T'filah (the new Reform siddur) in the coming year. After the meeting my rabbi and I spoke about this service and he suggested that I might include some readings from that siddur, I presume as a very early introduction. Obviously if I do this it needs to be non-disruptive.

So, the constraints as I see them:

• It's a congregational Shabbat service; it can't be too unusual and still fulfill that function.
• In addition to myself there are four members of the worship committee who want roles. (Candle-lighting, kiddush, and the aliyot are already spoken for.) I am not expected to give away 80% of the service in an even division, but I need to give them parts large enough to be worth bothering.
• My rabbi would like me to include something from the new siddur, which the congregants will not have in front of them.
• The cantorial soloist has already publicized it as a night with more formal music (organ instead of piano or guitar).

And some other factors, mentioned for the sake of completeness:

• This Shabbat falls during the Three Weeks. My congregation does not much care about this, so I see no musical impact.
• I am reading torah and giving the sermon. The portion is Pinchas, and I'm planning to talk about zeal. (Yeah, I know, that's so freshman-rabbi of me, though most congregants won't see that. It's an obvious thing to talk about. But I have some ideas that I think will make it not-uninteresting.)

The first order of business seemed to be to identify cohesive chunks that can be given to the other participants. Up front I am claiming the t'filah (central prayer) for myself, and I'll explain why in a bit. I am reading torah, but the torah service has a fair bit of activity (extra people doing things) so this is an opportunity to have someone other than me lead that part of the liturgy. And if I pick the right person, that person can serve double-duty by being my checker and translator during the torah reading. (We always read the English translation after, or during, the torah reading. My rabbi, being fluent, translates directly from the scroll, verse by verse. I, being non-fluent, would have to read it from a book in a block after the Hebrew reading; the book is another thing to deal with on the reading desk, and that leaves people listening to a long stretch of Hebrew before we get there. With a second person, I can read a few verses, have the other person read the translation, and iterate until done.)

Another part of the service that's easy to give to guest leaders is the opening section, kabbalat shabbat. This consists of songs (led by the cantorial soloist) and English readings. I could give that to anyone, though a strong reader is preferred as it's the beginning of the service.

I considered giving the concluding prayers (aleinu, reading before kaddish, kaddish) to someone else, but my rabbi never gives that part away during other group services, so I figure there's a reason. It would make it a little harder for me to give the closing benediction if I'm not already up there, and as the person playing the role of quasi-demi-unofficial-rabbi-substitue in this service, that falls to me. I suspect that reading the list of names for kaddish is seen in a similar way by some. Ok, no guest readers for that segment.

That leaves two people and kri'at sh'ma. That section can be (and often is) covered by two readers, with a clear division at v'ahavta. (We chant it in Hebrew and then the congregation reads it in English; we can start a new leader right after that English.) We'll want the first of those readers to be comfortable chanting v'ahavta in front of a live mike. (The cantorial soloist leads, but the other person will be audible.) One of the volunteers fits that bill. (Well, two do, but I want to use the other for the torah service.)

Ok, that gives me four reasonable pieces of the service to give away, and I have particular people in mind for them. The next thing I looked at was the Mishkan T'filah issue. I paged through the English readings in the book looking for anything particularly elegant or particularly on-theme for the sermon topic. No hits on the latter (not surprising, but had I found something I would have considered it). I found one reading that would work well in kabbalat shabbat and one that would work well as a reading before the t'filah, and both of these would work well logistically in our service. That is, these are points in the service where people will not be much bothered by just sitting and listening without being able to read along.

I said before that I am staking out the t'filah. I'm going to try something unusual there (I figure I can get away with one weird thing): I'm going to lead it a-capella and, for the first three blessings, I'm going to face the ark, with my back to the congregation. I know that my more-traditional readers are thinking "yeah, so? that's what you do", but that's not what my congregation does. We have piano or organ accompaniment during avot, the cantorial soloist leads these prayers facing the congregation, and everything feels kind of orchestrated, especially (to my ear) when it's the organ (up in the choir loft) rather than the piano. The t'filah is fixed text but it's also inward-focused prayer. I'm not going to try something so radical as just inviting people to pray it on their own (another traditional idea), but by changing the aural balance and the physical placement, I want to create the opportunity for personal prayer. Everyone will be able to chant the prayers together as usual, but by not having the leader facing them nor the organ driving things, I hope to create a different feel. (In terms of the "4 Ms of synagogue music", I'm moving us from the default-for-organ of "majestic" to "meditative".)

This is also the one part of this service when I'm going to infringe the cantorial soloist's role. (She and the rabbi have already said in general termas that it's fine for me to do that. We haven't talked specifics; I'm meeting with the cantorial soloist tomorrow night to go over all this.) Coincidentally, just this past Shabbat the soloist commented to me that it can be hard for her to just pray when she's leading (where have we heard that issue before?), so while I was already planning this, an additional benefit is that she won't be doing anything during the t'filah in this service so maybe she can.

I talked about the first three blessings. The congregation always sings Yism'chu and then there's stuff we always read in English, and we'll do that normally. When we get to Shalom Rav I'll lead the singing but, again, a capella (consistency is a virtue). We always have silent time after that for individual prayer, and then the cantorial soloist either leads Oseh Shalom or just sings y'hu l'ratzon by herself; I'll ask her to come up when she's done with her private prayer and do the latter.

I think this will all work pretty well. I've already invited the person who'll lead the torah service (she's another torah reader and fluent in Hebrew, so it's a good match), and I'll talk with the others after I meet with the cantorial soloist tomorrow night.