Entry tags:
Eikev: reward and punishment
Yesterday's d'var torah:
( Read more... )
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machzor pre-review
The Reform movement is publishing a new machzor (prayerbook for the high holy days) after several decades. The format is similar to Mishkan T'filah, the new rest-of-year prayerbook that was published a few years ago. Just as MT was intended to replace Gates of Prayer (its predecessor), the new machzor is intended to replace Gates of Repentance (GoR). I am one of the people in my congregation who was asked to evaluate it for possible purchase. (Actually, what we're evaluating is draft editions of certain services. My comments are based on the morning services for Rosh Hashsna and Yom Kippur.)
Now that I've shared my comments with my rabbi and the head of the committee, I'll go ahead and share them here. I'd love to hear opinions from people in other congregations who have also taken a look at the drafts.
( my review notes )
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some rambling notes from Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur was really good for me this year. I haven't had time to assemble a more-organized post (and lookie, Sukkot starts tomorrow night!), but I want to record a few disconnected thoughts.
We had the minyan-style (Ruach) service for the morning service again, this time using the draft of the new Reform machzor (which is in beta test and is, I believe, scheduled for publication in 2015). We also, for the first time, had a minyan-style service for Rosh Hashana and used that draft too. Overall I am pleased with what I saw of the new machzor; there are certainly decisions I would make differently (including a major formatting one), it's still way, way better than Gates of Repentance, the current book. Ok, granted, that's a low bar, but still...
At that service on Rosh Hashana at one point my rabbi stood up and said "tag, you're it" (not in those words), leaving me to proceed from an unfamiliar book. (He had to go downstairs to the other service.) I stumbled some but got kudos from congregants for my attempt. So on Yom Kippur I got there early so I could review the new book, and he was able to stay. But hey, I would have been prepared to lead the vidui and s'lichot if I'd've had to. (The minyan-style service goes until the torah service, at which point we all adjourn to the sanctuary for the rest.)
I chanted torah for the afternoon service again, same part as last year. They gave me the same part for Rosh Hashana morning as last year, too. I detect a pattern. :-) I'm hoping that next year will be the year I actually learn high-holy-day trope.
On Yom Kippur afternoon, to fill time between services so people don't have to leave if they don't want to, we have a beit midrash, classes. To my surprise there was nothing I wanted to go to during the first hour, so I found a quiet corner and read more of the new machzor. (And just sat and thought for a while.) During the second hour I went to a class that was really more of a discussion about forgiveness, more focused on the human element than halacha. More questions than answers here -- do you have to forgive someone who intentionally hurt you, does "forgive" imply "forget", can you put a situation behind you without actually resolving it (psychologically, I mean) and just not let that guy live rent-free in your brain any more or do people need closure, stuff like that. Lots to think about; little to report.
I found many of my thoughts over the day drifting to someone in authority over a community I dedicated a lot of energy to, who repeatedly and unapologetically misused that authority in ways that damaged me, and the other people who stood by and let it happen. I am trying really hard to just ignore the whole thing, while at the same time wishing that maybe somebody would learn something from it.
At the ne'ilah service (the last one of the day, near sunset), the associate rabbi spontaneously invited anybody who wanted to to come up onto the bimah in front of the open ark for the service. Nobody stood immediately, but a moment later I did -- not sure what was driving me, but I'm glad I did (and a dozen or so people joined me). It was a different experience, and even though God isn't physical so proximity doesn't mean anything, being right there in front of the open ark did...something. It definitely enhanced my prayer.
We had the minyan-style (Ruach) service for the morning service again, this time using the draft of the new Reform machzor (which is in beta test and is, I believe, scheduled for publication in 2015). We also, for the first time, had a minyan-style service for Rosh Hashana and used that draft too. Overall I am pleased with what I saw of the new machzor; there are certainly decisions I would make differently (including a major formatting one), it's still way, way better than Gates of Repentance, the current book. Ok, granted, that's a low bar, but still...
At that service on Rosh Hashana at one point my rabbi stood up and said "tag, you're it" (not in those words), leaving me to proceed from an unfamiliar book. (He had to go downstairs to the other service.) I stumbled some but got kudos from congregants for my attempt. So on Yom Kippur I got there early so I could review the new book, and he was able to stay. But hey, I would have been prepared to lead the vidui and s'lichot if I'd've had to. (The minyan-style service goes until the torah service, at which point we all adjourn to the sanctuary for the rest.)
I chanted torah for the afternoon service again, same part as last year. They gave me the same part for Rosh Hashana morning as last year, too. I detect a pattern. :-) I'm hoping that next year will be the year I actually learn high-holy-day trope.
On Yom Kippur afternoon, to fill time between services so people don't have to leave if they don't want to, we have a beit midrash, classes. To my surprise there was nothing I wanted to go to during the first hour, so I found a quiet corner and read more of the new machzor. (And just sat and thought for a while.) During the second hour I went to a class that was really more of a discussion about forgiveness, more focused on the human element than halacha. More questions than answers here -- do you have to forgive someone who intentionally hurt you, does "forgive" imply "forget", can you put a situation behind you without actually resolving it (psychologically, I mean) and just not let that guy live rent-free in your brain any more or do people need closure, stuff like that. Lots to think about; little to report.
I found many of my thoughts over the day drifting to someone in authority over a community I dedicated a lot of energy to, who repeatedly and unapologetically misused that authority in ways that damaged me, and the other people who stood by and let it happen. I am trying really hard to just ignore the whole thing, while at the same time wishing that maybe somebody would learn something from it.
At the ne'ilah service (the last one of the day, near sunset), the associate rabbi spontaneously invited anybody who wanted to to come up onto the bimah in front of the open ark for the service. Nobody stood immediately, but a moment later I did -- not sure what was driving me, but I'm glad I did (and a dozen or so people joined me). It was a different experience, and even though God isn't physical so proximity doesn't mean anything, being right there in front of the open ark did...something. It definitely enhanced my prayer.
Entry tags:
changing worship modes
This is nothing new, but in recent months I have become more attuned
to the variety of so-called "innovations" in worship -- everything from
meditation to yoga to poetry (replacing liturgy) to interpretive dance (!) --
and I finally figured out one of the things that bugs me about it.
Understand that, at some level, if it works for you then it's no bother
to me except to the extent that you then interfere with me. But it doesn't
tend to work for me, and I realized recently a big reason why: I have barely
begun to plumb the depths of the traditional forms, and not only am I not
ready to stray beyond that, but I feel I would be incapable of understanding
a change of this sort if I didn't already understand the foundation upon
which it's supposed to be built.
(There are other reasons, including that some of this tickles my "weird" meter, but that's a separate discussion. I mean, there's plenty of weirdness in mainstream Judaism too. Like, rejoicing while waving three branches and a piece of fruit around? Really? But I digress.)
A couple things have brought this to mind:
( Read more... )
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Shabbat evening
Friday night I led services. My rabbi and our cantorial soloist were also on the bimah. It went really well; the three of us work well together. In his greeting (and explanation of why I was doing this) my rabbi said some really complimentary things about me, which was sure nice to hear.
Attendance was lower than usual; presumably some were away for the holiday and others were tired out from one or two seders. Many of the regulars were not there, but there were also people I didn't recognize. Most did not seem to be in a singing mood, though that improved as time went on.
Leading out of Mishkan T'filah poses some challenges, but it just means you have to plan a little more (at least if your congregation has strong opinions, and whose doesn't?). In previous siddurim your choices were the Hebrew text and the English adaptation, and readings they intended to be responsive were typeset accordingly. MT has Hebrew, the English translation (mostly accurate now), and (usually) two other English readings for each part (some intended for one reader and some that can work responsively); you're supposed to choose one thing from all this and then turn the page. So I had to meet expectations on the balance of Hebrew and English (left to my own devices there'd be a lot more Hebrew), but then within the English there were choices to make. Again, left to my own devices I'd stick to the translations, but people expect some "creative" readings, so I had to balance that too. I think I did a good job of balancing all this; I'll check that assumption when next I meet with my rabbi.
MT, unlike prior Reform siddurim, includes all the psalms that make up the kabbalat shabbat service, so I injected (in English) one we don't usually do. We're gradually increasing what we do in this part of the service, so I made a small contribution. I think we need to learn easy, singable melodies for more of them; that will help.
I rushed ya'aleh v'yavo, a seasonal insertion, and as a result stumbled a bit. Oops. (Done in by a kametz katan.) I knew I would have to be aggressive in starting it, else people would go on auto-pilot right past it, but then I needed to slow down and I didn't.
My rabbi announced from the bimah that I'll be leading again in June. I must find out when. :-) (We had originally talked about two date options for leading, this Shabbat and one at the end of May. I thought it was either-or. Maybe he didn't and is misremembering the latter, or maybe he has something else in mind. I have been asking him for more opportunities to do this, as it's been averaging once every nine months or so. I guess he agrees that it should be more. That'd be nice.)
Attendance was lower than usual; presumably some were away for the holiday and others were tired out from one or two seders. Many of the regulars were not there, but there were also people I didn't recognize. Most did not seem to be in a singing mood, though that improved as time went on.
Leading out of Mishkan T'filah poses some challenges, but it just means you have to plan a little more (at least if your congregation has strong opinions, and whose doesn't?). In previous siddurim your choices were the Hebrew text and the English adaptation, and readings they intended to be responsive were typeset accordingly. MT has Hebrew, the English translation (mostly accurate now), and (usually) two other English readings for each part (some intended for one reader and some that can work responsively); you're supposed to choose one thing from all this and then turn the page. So I had to meet expectations on the balance of Hebrew and English (left to my own devices there'd be a lot more Hebrew), but then within the English there were choices to make. Again, left to my own devices I'd stick to the translations, but people expect some "creative" readings, so I had to balance that too. I think I did a good job of balancing all this; I'll check that assumption when next I meet with my rabbi.
MT, unlike prior Reform siddurim, includes all the psalms that make up the kabbalat shabbat service, so I injected (in English) one we don't usually do. We're gradually increasing what we do in this part of the service, so I made a small contribution. I think we need to learn easy, singable melodies for more of them; that will help.
I rushed ya'aleh v'yavo, a seasonal insertion, and as a result stumbled a bit. Oops. (Done in by a kametz katan.) I knew I would have to be aggressive in starting it, else people would go on auto-pilot right past it, but then I needed to slow down and I didn't.
My rabbi announced from the bimah that I'll be leading again in June. I must find out when. :-) (We had originally talked about two date options for leading, this Shabbat and one at the end of May. I thought it was either-or. Maybe he didn't and is misremembering the latter, or maybe he has something else in mind. I have been asking him for more opportunities to do this, as it's been averaging once every nine months or so. I guess he agrees that it should be more. That'd be nice.)
Entry tags:
report from the pews: Mishkan T'filah
Friday night I arrived to find copies of Mishkan T'filah, the
new siddur published by the Reform movement, in the racks. There
have been some services with photocopied subsets of this book (probably
copied from earlier drafts), but this was our first chance to use
the real thing.
The service went remarkably smoothly, and especially so given that the two rabbis and one cantorial soloist had not had substantial planning time. (The books just came, people were just getting back from various trips, etc.) When the leaders stuck to the intended usage pattern and when the book stuck to its own format, things were smooth. When someone decided to insert an English reading for something we'd just done in Hebrew, or the book broke from the two-page spread, things were a little rougher but still ok.
( Read more... )
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Entry tags:
JWC Shabbat service
This morning I participated in the annual Shabbat service held
by the (Pittsburgh) Jewish Women's Center. I'm not really a member
of the group (been to a couple functions, on the mailing list, don't
pay dues), but several women in my congregation are and they recruited
some of the rest of us.
I chanted torah, and it was the longest portion I've done to date (about three-quarters of a column in the scroll). I was a little worried about that, but apparently I wasn't the only one so they told us "do as much as you can and we'll fill in from a chumash as necessary". However, I really wanted to meet this challenge.
The service overall went pretty well. There was a lot of singing, and I knew about two-thirds of the melodies (but picked up most of the others trivially). They handed out percussion instruments; next time I will do predatory choosing and take the large loud tambourine to keep it out of the hands of someone sitting next to me. :-) The song leader was very good (she's a pro) and the service leaders in general were good.
We used what I gather is the latest draft of Mishkan T'filah, the forthcoming Reform siddur. (Y'know, the economics of publishing have really changed. They've published a bunch of draft editions; I don't think that would have been feasible a generation ago.) They were on loan from URJ so I couldn't borrow one for a few days to look it over more closely; oh well. They've fixed some of the things I considered to be bugs in earlier drafts, but they've introduced some things that really annoy me. Oh well; I guess that's an inevitable consequence of committee-produced products.
The service was long (almost three hours, without musaf), and also started late. It was funny -- at 9:30 (the scheduled start time) the organizers were huddling in the front of the room, and all of the people from my congregation were exchanging glances. We start on time, always (barring something really unusual). Others present made comments about "Jewish standard time" and thought nothing of starting (ultimately) 15-20 minutes late.
All in all, it was a pretty good service, with some things I liked and some I didn't care for. People were very friendly and everyone was working together, which made a big difference.
If they ask me to participate in a future service I'm not sure what I'll say. On the one hand it was fun, but on the other, it was a lot of work to learn the portion and I didn't get to put that work to use for the benefit of my own congregation. Maybe that means I should focus on chanting torah in my own congregation and ask to lead a part of the service if JWC invites me again. Leading doesn't require nearly the preparation that chanting torah does.
After I got home Dani and I headed out to an SCA event. More about that later, but I will mention the Jewish tie-in here. Halacha holds that if a negative consequence of keeping Shabbat is merely financial (and not of the will-be-out-on-the-street-if-this-goes-wrong variety), you keep Shabbat. This is one of the reasons that we don't conduct business on Shabbat even though you could make more money by keeping your store open on Saturday. More personally, it was the basis for my agreeing to let Dani drive my car -- with its previously-pristine clutch -- to the event, though Dani normally drives an automatic. Ouchy ouchy ouchy. :-)
Entry tags:
liturgical minutiae
We were supposed to study talmud again today,
but never quite got there: when I walked in,
my rabbi asked me what I thought of the new
siddur. We talked about some of the issues there,
and ended up on a hunt for the alternate R'tzei.
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Mishkan T'fillah: evaluation
Following is the meat of my response to the evaluation
form for the new siddur. The questionaire has several
ratings questions, demographics, short-answer questions
(they left space for a couple sentences per), and the
obligatory "any other comments?" invitation. I'm not
going to transcribe all the ratings questions, but I
will comment on a few.
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Mishkan T'fillah
Yesterday morning after services we had a discussion
of the new siddur. I think they're going to pass
out evaluation forms next week, and they'll be due
back a week or two after that.
( Read more... )
We don't yet know if the rabbi is going to continue to use this book between the end of the evaluation and the actual publication.
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Mishkan T'fillah (7)
Today's service with the draft siddur went very
smoothly.
( Read more... )
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Mishkan T'fillah (6)
This morning's service with the new siddur went
pretty smoothly. Everyone (except the half-deaf
person who needs to adjust his hearing aid) followed
pretty easily, and it felt intuitive.
( Read more... )
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Mishkan T'fillah (5)
This Shabbat was day 6 with Mishkan T'fillah, the new
(draft) siddur. I don't have a lot of new observations this week;
mostly more re-inforcement of previous observations (and
one new experiment we tried).
( Read more... )
I hope that I'll be able to borrow a copy of this siddur while writing up my formal evaluation. It would be handy to be able to refer to specific texts, page numbers, etc. I hope they'll welcome that level of feedback.
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Mishkan T'fillah (3)
Today was the fourth day of the trial for the new
siddur, though I missed last week so it was only
my third time with it. The congregation seems to
be fairly comfortable with it (as am I); there was
very little tripping over altered text or getting
lost. The rabbi is even starting to learn the
page numbers. :-)
( Day 4 )
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more on Mishkan T'fillah (2)
More comments on the new (draft) siddur.
( Day 2 )
Overall, things went more smoothly this week, which is what I expected. By the end of the trial period (sometime in February), I expect that this group will be thoroughly comfortable with this siddur. (I wonder if we'll keep using it, or go back to ours until this is actually published.) I'm comfortable with using the new siddur now, but I adapt to stuff like this very quickly, in part because I've made an effort to learn the structure of the service and the reasons behind it.
Next weekend I'll be away at a con, so no Mishkan T'fillah for me for two weeks.
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Mishkan T'filah: first impressions
The UAHC (the national organization of
Reform congregations) is getting ready to
publish a new siddur (prayer book), which
it does every 25 or 30 years. This time, for
the first time, some congregations are being asked
to test-drive a draft and provide feedback.
We are testing the Shabbat morning service.
This morning was our first run through it.
I think that, on balance, I'm going to end up liking the new siddur. It's got some warts, and maybe some of them will be addressed as a result of this test-drive. It's got things I disagree with, but probably fewer than the book it'll replace. A lot of thought has gone into making it very flexible and adaptable for congregations with different needs. I'm looking forward to the rest of the trial run.
Since I'm going to be one of the people providing official feedback (there's a limit to the number from each congregation), I'm going to try to record some thoughts after each time I use it, so I can later evaluate both initial and final impressions. I'm guessing that most of my readers won't care about these entries.
I think that, on balance, I'm going to end up liking the new siddur. It's got some warts, and maybe some of them will be addressed as a result of this test-drive. It's got things I disagree with, but probably fewer than the book it'll replace. A lot of thought has gone into making it very flexible and adaptable for congregations with different needs. I'm looking forward to the rest of the trial run.