prayer techniques

[cellio]

I won't be leading shacharit tomorrow, so no daf bit, but instead I'll share a few short notes from some recent unusual-to-me services.

I've seen this a few times. The congregation chants a word or phrase from the part of the liturgy you're supposed to be doing, over and over, while the service leader chants the entire passage over it. The load on the congregation is lighter (useful if not everyone is fluent), the problems of skipping text are avoided (the representative of the congregation says them), and you might get a sort of minor meditative thing going that helps with focus. I wouldn't have predicted that I could be happy with my entire contribution to Ashrei being "Halleluyah" in a tight loop, but it worked.

The service leader is the locomotive; the congregation is the train. The leader leads, but everyone has to get there together. (This is an approximation of something said by Hazzan Jack Kessler.) This analogy breaks down if you look at it too hard, but I found it interesting enough to note.

This almost set off my woo-woo alarm but I tried it anyway: say Ashrei with a partner, delivering your part directly to the other person with intention. The reason I feared woo-woo is that I thought this would take praise of God too close to praise directed at the other person, but it didn't actually feel that way. I felt like I was praising God through this other person. It's not something I'd make a habit of, but it was an interesting experience.

I appear to be ok with thoughtful drumming during prayer. I am still not ok with chanted English where liturgy belongs -- doubly so if the English isn't a translation but something creative. Singing English is ok, but I find that I want the nusach, the traditional chant melody, to be reserved for more-or-less traditional Hebrew text.

The amidah is your private audience with God. What do you want to say to him? (Rabbi Richard Simon.)

More later, I presume.

Comments

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

This is a lot of the path that Shefa Gold uses in her meditative prayer services. I can't speak to her recordings, because I don't have any of them, but I know she goes or at least, used to go to the Chavurah institute. You may want to check her out if you're both going this year.

[cellio]

She was at the kallah, too. I didn't go to her service (I think there was just one and I was obligated to be elsewhere), but I heard her perform a little.

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

The congregation chanting a simple phrase with the leader chanting the entire passage sounds interesting.

[cellio]

I encountered it several more times over the course of the kallah. I infer that it's something of a mainstay in the Renewal movement, but it was new to me.