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Simchat Torah
This year's Simchat Torah services were, I'm pretty sure, the best we've had during my time there.
The evening service always includes consecration for new religious-school students, so there are tons of kids there, generally somewhat unruly. Sometimes in the past this has led to more being cut from the service than I'm comfortable with. This year that didn't happen; most notably, we got a full amidah that we could complete individually, rather than the usual congregational reading. (This is something we've been doing for a while in the morning minyan, but it's the first time I've seen it in our sanctuary.) I am very pleased.
(I suspect that being a Sunday may have helped with kid-control; they weren't coming from a day of school, with parents coming from a day of work. And there was a congregational dinner before services, too.)
This year we opened the back wall of the sanctuary; for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur we do that and fill the space back there with chairs, but this time it was left open. This meant there was much more room to dance, and everybody could see everything as the torah scrolls were carried around the room. I think that made a big psychological difference.
On Simchat Torah we make seven "processions" around the room with the torah scrolls while singing and dancing. These are called hakafot. In some (many? most? I don't know) congregations this isn't organized; people get up and join or drop out as they like and it just works. My congregation always invites people in groups for these, with the groups being things like "families with students in religious school", "new members", etc. At times this has ended up being so family-focused that there were people who went three times before I got to go once, and that was off-putting. This year the groups were better-chosen, including having some that were mutually exclusive and collectively all-inclusive. Yay. Meanwhile, our cantorial soloist and band did a great job of keeping the music flowing.
Inter-shul anthropology question: how long do you spend on your hakafot (total)?
The morning crowd was smaller and older, and we were joined by another local congregation. (We take turns for the festivals.) On the way in I asked my rabbi if he wanted me to read torah and he said sure and gave me an assignment. This is not the problem you might think it is; I know the portion and have read parts of it most years recently. One of the rabbis from the other congregation read the first half (end of the book of D'varim), and I and my rabbi split the other half (beginning of the book of B'reishit).
In the morning we had the cantorial soloist and our pianist but not the band, but the music was still nice and lively. The service was about what I expect for our combined services. I wish that Mishkan T'filah, our siddur, didn't reduce the prayer for rain (and the one for dew in the spring) down to practically nothing; having heard tal for the first time at Pesach in Toronto, I would have enjoyed hearing its bookend geshem. But I assume I just won't get that in the Reform movement; oh well.
I didn't go to the other synagogue for Sukkot last week [1], so I don't know how many people were there, but attendance yesterday was higher than I've come to expect for festival services. I'm glad to see that.
[1] Rather than walk two miles there and back I went to Young People's Synagogue a couple blocks from my house.
The evening service always includes consecration for new religious-school students, so there are tons of kids there, generally somewhat unruly. Sometimes in the past this has led to more being cut from the service than I'm comfortable with. This year that didn't happen; most notably, we got a full amidah that we could complete individually, rather than the usual congregational reading. (This is something we've been doing for a while in the morning minyan, but it's the first time I've seen it in our sanctuary.) I am very pleased.
(I suspect that being a Sunday may have helped with kid-control; they weren't coming from a day of school, with parents coming from a day of work. And there was a congregational dinner before services, too.)
This year we opened the back wall of the sanctuary; for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur we do that and fill the space back there with chairs, but this time it was left open. This meant there was much more room to dance, and everybody could see everything as the torah scrolls were carried around the room. I think that made a big psychological difference.
On Simchat Torah we make seven "processions" around the room with the torah scrolls while singing and dancing. These are called hakafot. In some (many? most? I don't know) congregations this isn't organized; people get up and join or drop out as they like and it just works. My congregation always invites people in groups for these, with the groups being things like "families with students in religious school", "new members", etc. At times this has ended up being so family-focused that there were people who went three times before I got to go once, and that was off-putting. This year the groups were better-chosen, including having some that were mutually exclusive and collectively all-inclusive. Yay. Meanwhile, our cantorial soloist and band did a great job of keeping the music flowing.
Inter-shul anthropology question: how long do you spend on your hakafot (total)?
The morning crowd was smaller and older, and we were joined by another local congregation. (We take turns for the festivals.) On the way in I asked my rabbi if he wanted me to read torah and he said sure and gave me an assignment. This is not the problem you might think it is; I know the portion and have read parts of it most years recently. One of the rabbis from the other congregation read the first half (end of the book of D'varim), and I and my rabbi split the other half (beginning of the book of B'reishit).
In the morning we had the cantorial soloist and our pianist but not the band, but the music was still nice and lively. The service was about what I expect for our combined services. I wish that Mishkan T'filah, our siddur, didn't reduce the prayer for rain (and the one for dew in the spring) down to practically nothing; having heard tal for the first time at Pesach in Toronto, I would have enjoyed hearing its bookend geshem. But I assume I just won't get that in the Reform movement; oh well.
I didn't go to the other synagogue for Sukkot last week [1], so I don't know how many people were there, but attendance yesterday was higher than I've come to expect for festival services. I'm glad to see that.
[1] Rather than walk two miles there and back I went to Young People's Synagogue a couple blocks from my house.
no subject
This year, I was in a conservative synagogue, which hasn't been the case in many years. I had forgotten that they did groups. The ones I heard were "member for 20+ years", "member <5 years" "has a bar/bat mitzvah in the last year or the coming (parent or child)" and "is a jewish educator in your own opinion".
I was surprised that A) I saw relatively little passing off of torahs in the midst of hakafot (much more common in Orthodox shuls) and B) the last hakafa was not "has not yet had a turn & wants one".
no subject
I think a group-based designation that doesn't account for everybody in the room is flawed. So if they're not going to have the "everyone who wants" catch-all, they'd better be really sure about the others working collectively.
On handing off torah, this ties into my question about timing. At my synagogue everyone in a group takes a scroll (torah, nach, or for the kids, little stuffed ones) and makes a circuit around the room. Then the next group comes up and those get handed off. Our hakafot are done in 20 minutes or so. I have the impression that in some places an individual hakafah might be 15 or 20 minutes, meaning it's way more than just going around the room. So how does that work? Do people take turns carrying it around (but it's still just one hakafah collectively, or does only one person carry it around but everybody gets to hold it at some point, or what? (I have the impression that during these 15 or 20 minutes most people are in circles dancing, yes?)
no subject
In Orthodox synagogues I've been too, a single hakafah can take 5 minutes (if they are really hurrying) or anywhere up to 15-20. There's lots of circling and other related kinds of dancing. At some point, someone says "ad kan hakafah
In Orthodox synagogues I've been too, a single hakafah can take 5 minutes (if they are really hurrying) or anywhere up to 15-20. There's lots of circling and other related kinds of dancing. At some point, someone says "ad kan hakafah <aleph, bet...zayin>" (Until here hakafah <1, 2, ...7>). The Torahs get passed and a new series of Aneinu lines is said. But people who want to pass on the Torah often do in the midst of a hakafah. So even though only some people (7 times the number of Torahs) get to be holding a Torah as a hakafah begins, generally anyone who wants to hold a Torah gets to do so for at least a little while.
no subject
(Noticed this while doing some journal maintenance years later, oops.)
By "collectively all-inclusive" I didn't mean a seven-way division, but that the first two or three included everybody in the room. I think that year it might have been "members for N years or more" and then "members fewer than N years including 0" (i.e. including non-members, because it could be embarrassing to make them their own group).