cellio: (menorah)
Monica ([personal profile] cellio) wrote2006-11-07 11:36 pm
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trans-denominational prayer

Hebrew College describes itself as "trans-denominational"; they are not affiliated with a single movement and their students have a wide variety of backgrounds. Because I was there for a few days, I got to see how that plays out in communal prayer. How do you come up with something that everyone can live with? When asked that question directly, Rabbi Arthur Green, one of the founders of the program, said "with a great deal of trust".

What I saw, in practice, was a great deal of traditional liturgy. We participants were told to bring a siddur; everyone prays from his own. So I brought the siddur I'm most comfortable with, which is Mishkan T'filah. (Well, a pre-publication draft of same.) I considered Sim Shalom, but it's in two volumes and I wanted to pack light. Had I known how things would play out, I probably would have grudgingly brought an Artscroll -- which might not have contained everything they did either.

I was told that the students as a group want to learn to lead a traditional service. That's important, I agree. I don't think it takes five years of daily services to learn that; I expected to see a little more variety in the day-to-day (or service-to-service) routine. They do have some alternate, experimental minyanim on certain days, and students are not required to attend there every day so they can explore on their own, but it appears that when the whole community comes together the service doesn't vary much. I wonder how those students from less-traditional backgrounds feel about that. I mean, it's supposed to be about negotiation and compromise, but it looked like the Orthodox compromise was "ok, women can lead" and the Reform compromise was "double the service", which doesn't seem all that balanced. But I'm not part of the community nor part of the discussions, so I am limited to what I can observe from the outside.

But, all that said... the ruach (spirit) in the room was at times amazing. On my first morning there, when we got to the first "kadosh kadosh kadosh" part in the service (I mean the one in kri'at sh'ma, not the kedusha), the person in front of me opened his hands and looked heavenward and it didn't seem fake. His prayer helped lift me too. Music -- some Carlebach, some modern, some unfamiliar to me -- was used well. People didn't talk during the silent prayers so you could pray silently. The group waited for the slower folks. The service leaders seemed meticulous in monitoring the room. When it was good it was very, very good. When it wasn't, it was frustrating.

One faculty member said that davening divides people if not handled well, which is why one significant trans-denominational conference (Hartman Institute in Jerusalem) doesn't have communal prayer as part of their program. That's practical for a summer program and probably not for a rabbinical school, so I think Hebrew College has to bite that bullet. I didn't see tension; it looks like most people really are trying to work together on this. That's good to see.