What follows is a hypothetical letter written after this coming Yom Kippur to myself.
Dear Myself from Three Months Ago,
As I munch my Yom Kippur break-the-fast madeleine, I recall the past ten days with joy that so much about praying with the new machzor went well. But I also feel some regret, and a bit of the subjunctive mood sits in. If only I had known three months ago, when preparing for the Days of Awe, what I now have discovered having used it. So I am writing this to you in hopes that, through some wrinkle in the space-time continuum, you get this before it is too late and can prepare properly.
Here are Ten Things, in no particular order, I wish I had known about Mishkan HaNefesh before these High Holy Days:
The Hashkiveinu in the evening services restores Shomreinu to Malkeinu. After all this is the time of year for the sovereign side of God to be highlighted.
The Kaddish restores the High Holy Day ul-eila mikol. It’s the same matter of privileging the transcendent as above.
The Uvchein restores the image of the Sparks of David, not as a literal progenitor of the Messiah but a symbol of messianic hope.
The Kaddish Yatom inclues now kol yoshvei teiveil, in keeping with our historic Reform value of universalism and in recognition of the worth of all humanity.
HaMelech HaYosheiv is now correctly HaMelech Yosheiv, the proper phrasing for the High Holy Days.
Page 207 of Yom Kippur has Leonard Cohen’s Who By Fire as a commentary to Unetaneh Tokef.
Page 243 of Rosh Hashanah adds to the Akedah verses about Abraham’s brother’s great progeny back in the old country. This is another test of Abraham’s faith. He sacrificed everything for one son, whereas Nahor stayed put and was blessed with so many.
There is a great midrash (Pesikta drav Kahana 24:1) on Cain repenting and receiving a reduction in punishment from God.
Page 607 of Yom Kippur features a great transition from Yizkor to N’ilah:
Set me as a seal (chotam) upon your heart, for love is strong as death. Song of Songs 8:6. Love stronger than death leads to the “seal” motif of N’ilah.
The Prayer for Our Country for Canada contains French.
Bonus Insight: The Al Cheyts are different than in GOR. Wish I had known that!
Rabbi Edwin Goldberg is the rabbi of Temple Sholom of Chicago and is one of the editors of Mishkan HaNefesh.
With Mishkan HaNefesh now close to being published, the decision regarding the Shofar sections made by the editors many years ago, and piloted for many a season, is naturally coming under review by colleagues. The responses range from, “So excited” to “Wait, what is going on with the shofar service?” It therefore seemed like a good time to review why we made this choice and why it has been so popular in the piloting – and why you should be excited about it.
As you will see when you open Mishkan HaNefesh, each service has a certain theme that we focus on throughout the liturgy. The point is not to reduce a complex, theologically rich and poetically vibrant worship service to a slogan. We do wish to privilege a certain message, however, because there are certain themes that ground the worship service. As an example, if you can reduce a sermon to one essential sentence (which many homiletics professors suggest) that does not mean the rest of the sermon is redundant verbiage.
Early on in the creation of the machzor, the editors looked at Rosh HaShanah morning and decided that there is a particular symbolic act that permeates the whole morning. Like synecdoche in literature, the one thing represents something far greater. For us – and quite possible for you – that is the sounding of the shofar. But it is more than the sound; it is the liturgy surrounding the shofar sounding. And more in particular, it is the tripartite themes of malchyuot (Sovereignty), zichronot (Remembrance) and shofarot.
Reform Judaism did away with the musaf service on Rosh HaShanah (and everywhere else) long ago but kept the practice of the three shofar sections. The editors of Mishkan HaNefesh realized that these themes and the sounding of the shofar could be developed and dramatized in a pervasive way by splitting the three sections into three different places in the worship service, each positioned in some logical place. After experimentation during the piloting phase, we settled on the following: malchuyot would come in the Amidah, following the M’loch declaration. Zichronot would follow the scriptural readings, including God remembering Sarah and Hannah. And Shofarot would precede the closing prayers and the redemptive message of the second part of the Aleinu – l’taken olam b’malkhut Shadai.
Dividing the shofar sections means the congregation can spend more time with each theme. Chevruta, musical selections, min-sermons, iyyunim, much can be innovated. Or not. The choice is up to the worship leaders. One could even decide to feature the three sections one after the other if preferred.
When the editors first introduced this model of separating the three sections of the Shofar liturgy and blasts, it was admittedly met with some skepticism. Because we were in the early piloting phase at that point, we decided to give it a try and evaluate after the piloting. The feedback was so overwhelmingly positive about the way in which it impacted on the overall feel, flow, and meaningfulness of the service, even from those who had been the most resistant, that we chose to maintain this innovation.
Mishkan HaNefesh is not so easy for worship leaders not because it restricts choice. Quite the contrary. Because there are so many choices. Depending on the choices you make, these three shofar sections can become high points throughout the Rosh HaShanah morning service.
You should know that, in addition to the three shofar sections, the shofar also can be sounded earlier in the service as well as the night before. These are possible soundings to once again focus on the prime imagery of the day. Like the rest of the book, the idea is not to do everything. Rather it is to decide what matters most for you and your congregation and employ the machzor in that endeavor.
Rabbi Edwin Goldberg is the senior rabbi of Temple Sholom in Chicago, and part of the editorial team of Mishkan HaNefesh.
One of the goals of the editorial team in creating Mishkan HaNefesh was to allow for many different doorways into the High Holy Day experience for participants. Based on the idea of different modalities of learning, we wanted to address different modalities of experience.
For some people the beautiful translations of the liturgy might be what speaks to them. Other people might find a way into meaning through the poems throughout the book. For others, the music is going to be what makes their experience meaningful. For still others, it might be the material meant for personal reflection and mediation, while for some it might the more intellectual or philosophical commentaries on the bottom of each page. And of course for some, it will be the rabbi’s sermon.
We talked for a long time about adding visual art, one more doorway in for the visually inclined worship participant. We considered many different ideas before deciding that abstract art would be the best fit for the machzor, and that if possible to use art all from one artist. Even once we narrowed it down, the question of art was still complex. We wanted art that would enhance the beauty of the text and be a fitting companion to it. We wanted art that would speak to the big themes of High Holy Day liturgy. Then we also had certain parameters set by the realities of printing and reproduction. For a time, it seemed like it was going to be impossible to find art that was just the right fit.
In our search, we were introduced to the artist Joel Shapiro. Joel is an internationally acclaimed artist with pieces in major museums and other settings throughout the world. He works mostly in sculpture, but also does other work including prints. We showed Joel some of the initial drafts of Mishkan HaNefesh, and he was intrigued by the project. During an afternoon spent in his huge, airy and art-filled studio in Long Island City, we were intrigued by him and by his work. A short while later, he told us that he was inspired and moved by Mishkan HaNefesh, and generously offered to create a series of original prints for us. It was an incredible offer and we accepted with great enthusiasm.
When Joel proposed creating wood block prints, we loved the idea. They would reproduce well on the printing press we were using for the book, but more than that, we loved the idea of using wood to create the art for the machzor. The associations were rich and plentiful – for example, Torah is a tree of life, eitz chaim, and the connection to earth and nature.
Joel spent months reading the drafts and studying High Holy Day liturgy. He worked first with paper, drawing, cutting and tearing shapes as he pondered the best way to represent the major ideas of the High Holy Days. To prepare for his work, we offered him a list of themes for each service. The themes follow below, along with some thoughts on each piece. All art is, of course, by its very nature open to interpretation. It will be meaningful and beautiful to some, and simply pages to skip over for others. The comments that follow below are some very subjective interpretations on the art which may be helpful when looking at it, but don’t be limited by these ideas. They are not what the art is definitively “about” – they are just some of the possible interpretations.
RH p. ii: This is the frontispiece for the Rosh HaShanah volume. There is a sense of it being a portal or doorway into the High Holy Days, especially with that piece on left folded back to create an opening, as well as also conveying the idea of parts coming together to make a whole.
RH p. xxxi: Rosh Hashanah evening: Avinu Malkeinu, renew us… This piececonveys a feeling a gathering, ingathering, and homecoming, a house of prayer.
RH p. 101: Rosh Hashanah morning: Hear the call of the shofar… The shape at the center is a heart, the biological kind, not the Valentines kind. Combined with the circularity, it’s an intriguing choice for the service that contains the shofar sections running throughout it, a sense of sound and emotionality.
YK p. ii: This is the frontispiece for YK. In this image there is a sense of brokenness and off-kilterness which emphasizing the uniqueness of the day, the idea that we are turned upside down on Yom Kippur, that we’re off balance. There’s also a hint here of the idea that the focus of Yom Kippur is in exploring our internalities – there’s a lot going on in the woodgrain inside the shapes.
Kol Nidre by Joel Shapiro, from Mishkan HaNefesh.
YK p. xxxiii: Kol Nidre: I forgive, as you have asked… The slight bend in the image feels like a good metaphor for asking forgiveness, conveying a subtle sense of brokenness within the wholeness, as well as penitence. The very simplicity of this piece also feels like a fitting beginning to Yom Kippur, when we’re stripped down to our core.
YK p. 129: Yom Kippur morning: You stand this day, all of you, in the presence of Adonai your God… This image embodies a sense of community, a oneness despite all the different shapes and types. There’s also a sense of tension between our internalities and externalities.
YK p. 321: Yom Kippur Minchah: You shall be holy… Parts of a whole are being brought together – each one individual but together forming a community.
YK p. 441: Avodah:May we ascend toward the holy… This is an abstract interpretation of the steps leading up to the Temple, an ascension toward holiness. There is also an unfolding of layers that take us back to the core of the Holy of Holies, and to the core of ourselves, imbueded with tension between holiness and the profane.
YK p. 513 : Eleh Ezk’ra: For these things I weep… This is a difficult, agonized image that evokes perhaps a tormented tear, a body twisted in pain, a display of deep mourning.
Yizkor by Joel Shapiro, from Mishkan HaNefesh
YK p. 535: Yizkor: These are the lights that guide us… These are the ways we remember…This image is strong and mournful yet also embodies a sense of peace and oneness. There is also the circularity of the life cycle and the fullness of life, the idea that we go around and around.
YK p. 609: N’ilah: You hold out Your hand… This is the end of the cycle. There is a sense of ascension, a path to holiness, and the closing of the gates, the light at the end of tunnel. We move back toward God and toward uplift as the gates begin to close.
In the end though, art doesn’t have to be understood in order to be felt and experienced. Art can evoke emotion that goes beyond words. Viewing these pieces is another way to connect with some of the central High Holy Days tropes, with the acts of reflection and repenting, remembering and hoping, celebrating and grieving, questioning and confessing, forgiving and asking for forgiveness.
Rabbi Hara Person is Publisher of CCAR Press, and served as Executive Editor of Mishkan HaNefesh, the new Reform Movement machzor for the High Holy Days.
In an interview for Sh’ma Journal in 2012, Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi stated that he saw the Hasidic idea of “Rebbe,” as opposed to the ordained leadership role of a rabbi, as a fluid one. Rabbi Schachter Shalomi remarked, “I believe that in our day, living as we do in a democratic context, we need different people — men and women — in a community to function as rebbes at different times, helping people grow in their relationships with God… Mostly, I try to listen to what people say, how they say it, and when they say it, and then I ask what lies behind these presentations. What does this person’s neshamah (soul) need in order to live more harmoniously with God and creation?”
This High Holy Days, I was stepping into this position for the first time. This was only temporary, as Rabbi Schachter Shalomi would have it, but with definite purpose. As I approached Erev Rosh HaShanah, I was terrified. Had I picked the right prayers? Would my voice cause people to rush out of the room covering their ears? Would I come off as pompous, self-righteous, distant? Would I alienate this room full of college students at a Hillel just now finding its footing? This tornado of anxiety whirled around in my head, leaving me physically quaking as I began the service. Although I looked out at a sea of unfamiliar faces sitting with solemn expressions, unsure if they were solemn because of my terrible leading of prayer, or because of Rosh HaShanah, I tried to focus on my role: delivering the meaning of the holiday in translatable terms.
Sooner than I thought, the service closed without a hitch. My wife beamed with pride. Many strangers approached me thanking me and telling me I did a great job. Of course, this was expected – I couldn’t imagine these individuals saying anything disparaging no matter how much I had butchered their expectations. Then a woman, a stranger herself to the community just passing through on a road trip, came up to me and said, “You didn’t even look nervous at all! I would have been a mess up there.”
Now, that comment I hadn’t expected. Then I thought back and remembered Rabbi Schachter Shalomi’s idea of inhabiting the space of the Rebbe. Somewhere at the start of the Amida, I had entered a state of flow. The role of Rebbe had been placed on me by the many eyes switching their gaze from the machzor, to me, and back to the machzor, and I had stepped up to the challenge, similarly gazing down to the machzor, then back to the congregation, then back down to the machzor. In this exchange we entered into a moment of relation via the words of Mishkan HaNefesh.
The new machzor was my bridge into gaining a level of security in this new, alien situation. Had I been reading from Gates of Repentance, I almost certainly would have had greater difficulty finding my way into the role. The baggage that I carry connected to Gates of Repentance would have weighed me down significantly. Instead, I had been given the gift of ownership. Mishkan HaNefesh contains a great deal of alternative readings, from essays to poetry, written by people of all stripes. My services contained readings from individuals as disparate as Samson Rafael Hirsch and Richard Feynman. As the shaliach tzibbur, the prayer leader, I was given the opportunity to pick from the many different elements of the machzor to attend to what I thought the community’s neshama would need. Not only this, but I was also able to use the digital files of the machzor to help myself. By importing them to my iPad, I was able to alter the machzor itself to fit my needs. Instead of having a binder full of papers, I was able to smoothly transition from page to page, removing pages I was not going to use, highlighting readings I intended on doing or had handed out to participants to do, and typing in iyyunim and congregational directions so that I could read them clearly.
Combining the multivocality of the machzor with the technology of my iPad, I was able to design a service that would speak to the congregation, as well as guide me through the motions of leading without my having to remove myself from the moment. I simply needed to continue scrolling through the digital files, knowing that I had prepared them with great thought beforehand.
In this way, Mishkan HaNefesh gave me the tools to successfully occupy the role of Rebbe for this community’s High Holy Days. I was able to take the time well before the services to reflect on what a congregation such as Gettysburg Hillel would need, choose from the machzor the pieces that fit best, and then allow myself to inhabit this new role with the machzor as my guide and bridge to the community. Not only did I come away from this year’s High Holy Days having accomplished a new feat on my way to becoming a rabbi, I was also able to be a part of some of the most meaningful services I had attended in my life. The community at Gettysburg Hillel had a great willingness to participate, welcomed those from outside of the college, and gave me the gift of accomplishment by entrusting me with their High Holy Day services. The warm community of Gettysburg and the utility of Mishkan HaNefesh ushered me into 5775 with a feeling of gratitude and accomplishment by providing the environment for my first step into the role of the Rebbe. May this year be one of great experience and accomplishment for all!
Andy Kahn is a second year rabbinic student at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. He is currently the intern at the CCAR.
For more information on Mishkan HaNefesh, click here or write to machzor@ccarnet.org.
One of my favorite parts of any Jewish worship service is the section sometimes labeled ‘Nisim she’b’chol Yom’ – everyday miracles. We are presented with a series of 1-line sentences that all begin by blessing God as we take a moment to contemplate every little moment that has already passed since the moment we became aware that we were awake that morning, right up to the present. Blessings for the ability to stretch, to open our eyes, to place our feet on the ground, for the clothes we are wearing, and so on. I often introduce this section of the liturgy at a Bar or Bat mitzvah service because I think its something that everyone in the room can relate to and appreciate. Sometimes I see nods of recognition and see a spark as some in the room realize the power in our fixed liturgy to make us more mindful and appreciative of the ordinary – the things that we take for granted until we no longer have them. Sometimes I feel some sadness as I watch rows of young teens who are unfamiliar with communal prayer, looking uncomfortable and self-conscious, unable to accept the invitation to verbalize out loud an appreciation for something as simple as waking up. They will often smile in recognition when I admit that there are many mornings when my first thought, rather than being an expression of blessing, is more like ‘Urgghh… do I have to get up?!’ But that’s when I realize that the power of a repetitive ritual that calls on me to recognize ordinary blessings out loud is the power to shift my whole orientation to the day ahead. Now that is miraculous!
In our new High Holy Day machzor, Mishkan haNefesh, we are offered the traditional blessings – a list that we can find in the Babylonian Talmud, indicating that they are over 1500 years old. We are also offered other more recent texts that express the same sentiment. On Rosh Hashanah morning, one of these options was ‘Miracles’ by Walt Whitman. In this poem, Whitman invites us to experience the everyday through the lens of wonder and amazement:
Why! Who makes mach of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles.
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love –
or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of an August forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds – or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down – or of stars shining so quiet and bring,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new-moon in May…
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles…
To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every inch of space is a miracle…
Every spear of grass – the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,
and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.
These blessings are not prayers that ask anything of God. They are simply expressions of Gratitude. A way of growing this character trait of beauty within each one of us. If we want to approach the New Year with an intention to change and repair, this simple practice of morning affirmations can be quite transformative if we choose to make them into a regular habit.
Last year I was in Jerusalem for the High Holy Days. The experience of being in Israel for this focal point of the Jewish year, especially as it coincided with my entering into Rabbinical school at HUC-JIR, provided a new layer of meaning to the holidays for me. Praying with my community while looking out into the Old City through the gorgeous windows of Blaustein Hall in Beit Shmuel, I was drawn to connect to the past of our people. For millennia, the hill that I was gazing upon has been the central focus of this very service. Our ancient predecessors worshiped the same God, at the same time of year, by making animal sacrifices on the hill framed right in front of the entire HUC-JIR Jerusalem community, where our eyes rested as we prayed through our traditional liturgy.
The High Holy Days are often described as an ominous period that evokes reflection on mortality and the worth of our lives. As Rabbi Ismar Schorsch wrote, quoted in the Rosh Hashanah Morning portion of Mishkan haNefesh, “we gather again in the fall against the backdrop of a natural world that is beginning to wither in order to contemplate what the passage of time means in our own lives.”
I have never felt this theme of the High Holy Days as acutely as I do now. In stark contrast to last year, in which our services were planned out and led by the faculty of HUC-JIR, this year the responsibility is all mine. In the coming weeks I will, for the first time, be leading a community in their High Holy Day worship. No musical accompanist, no senior authority to follow – just myself. This is a humbling prospect, and one that certainly makes me contemplate the path that led me here.
The majesty and power of the High Holy Days has often been lost on me. As a child, I looked forward to Yom Kippur only for the annual break-fast we held at my house with our community of friends. Dramatic, operatic choirs and music, prayers speaking to a king-like God of which I saw no proof in my life, and sweating in an overcrowded sanctuary, did not draw me into the spirit of teshuvah, nor did it make me feel connected to the tradition being put forth. Instead, I felt alienated and, for many years, stopped attending High Holy Day services altogether.
Now, it is my turn to be the one leading a community of people who may or may not feel completely alienated by the service they are going to attend. More likely than not, most of the people in attendance at the small Hillel where I will be leading are going to be searching for a sense of home, a sense of community, and a sense of meaning. They will want the familiar, but will also want to be engaged in something that intelligently challenges their worldview. They will be searching, as I have in the past, for something that connects them our tradition in the way they have heard others speak about the transformative power of the rituals and liturgy. When I consider the fact that it is my responsibility to bring this about, the opening to Hin’ni speaks to me more than it ever has before: “Here I am. So poor in deeds, I tremble in fear, overwhelmed and apprehensive before You to whom Israel sings praise.”
Many of my classmates are in a similar position. Some are going to other Hillels, some are going to small communities throughout our country from Wyoming to Arkansas, all with the same new experience of the High Holy Days awaiting them as fall arrives. Each location has its own set of circumstances around the days, but the main theme is the same: We are no longer congregants in the pews, we are now leaders on the pulpits.
I feel incredibly lucky that, in spite of my apprehension and fear, I have the opportunity to make use of the new Reform machzor, Mishkan haNefesh, as my guide for leading this community. Although I grew up using Gates of Repentance, I still associate it with the alienation and frustration of my earlier years. It is a wonderful coincidence that for my fresh start with the High Holy Days I am gifted the experience of using a new form of our tradition as the foundation for my leadership. We are in this together, and both of us are pretty new to the task. I hope that Mishkan haNefesh and I will be able to provide the students of Gettysburg College Hillel meaningful holiday worship that invites rather than alienates, that inspires rather than bores. I look for to writing further about this experience after the gates have closed, and we are on solid footing in 5775. Shanah Tovah!
Andy Kahn is a second year Rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in New York,and is also a Rabbinic Intern at CCAR Press.
When the new edition of a Reform Siddur for Shabbat and Festivals, Mishkan Tefilah, was published a few years ago, some of the changes and some of the choices embedded in the liturgy necessitated conversations in congregations about how we would pray some of the prayers.
One example was the second paragraph of the Amidah, often referred to as the ‘Gevurot’ (strength/power), for it begins with the phrase, ata gibor l’olam Adonai – Your power is eternal, Adonai. In earlier generations of Reform prayer books a change had been made to the language of this prayer as you would find it in a Conservative or Orthodox prayer book. In three instances the traditional prayer referred to God as m’chayei hameitim, literally ‘who brings the dead back to life’. For decades in Reform congregations we recited this prayer with a change in the wording, declaring m’chayey hakol – who gives life to all things. Conceptually, this didn’t rule out the idea, discussed in early rabbinic sources, that one day the dead would come back to life. But neither did it assert this doctrinal belief in the way that the traditional phrase seemed to do so definitively.
So why, when a new edition of a Siddur was created, do we now find the words ‘hameitim’ offered in brackets as an alternative choice to ‘hakol’? There were those who argued that there were allegorical ways of understanding ‘who brings the dead back to life’ and that we could use the more ancient liturgical language without having to accept a messianic doctrine of the revival of the dead. We all have times when we feel like we’ve hit a dead end. Maybe we are stuck trying to solve a problem at work, deal with a difficult family member, or so lost in grief that we cannot imagine ever experiencing the joy and blessing of life again. And yet… somehow we do. We go home and we start the next day anew, and maybe we see a solution to our problem that was beyond our grasp the day before. Perhaps we try to reach out to that family member in a different way, or perhaps something changes in their life and we unexpectedly get a message from them to indicate a desire for reconciliation. And while we have good days and bad days, perhaps a grandchild comes to visit and brings us joy in the midst of our grief, or a walk in the fields on a particularly beautiful day brings us some awareness of beauty. Each of these are experiences of m’chayey hameitim – we have had a powerful experience of a revival of life. Our ‘being’ is not only in the past tense; now we feel some hope in the potential of our future ‘being’ too.
In Mishkan HaNefesh, the draft Rosh Hashanah morning liturgy presents us with a poem by the Israeli poet, Zelda, as a contemporary text facing the Gevurot passage. In this poem Zelda, in the midst of grief, reflects on how the smallest things around her can suddenly bring her back to life:
In the morning I said to myself: Life’s magic will never come back.
It won’t come back.
All at once the sunshine in my house
is alive for me
and the table with its bread
is gold
and the cups on the table and the flower –
all gold.
And what of the sorrow?
Even in the sorrow, radiance.
The closing phrase of the blessing (chatimah, or ‘seal’) is translated: You are the Source of all blessing, the life force surging within all things. Bringing our awareness to all that surges with that life force can open up the possibility of feeling the presence of blessing in our lives once more. It is an invitation to return to life.
One of the most emotionally heart-tugging prayers and melodies of the High Holy Days is a petition called Sh’ma Koleinu. In a beautiful new translation in the forthcoming Mishkan HaNefesh, we pray:
Hear our call, Adonai our God. Show us compassion Accept our prayer with love and goodwill. Take us back, Adonai; let us come back to You; renew our days as in the past. Hear our words, Adonai; understand our unspoken thoughts. May the speech of our mouth and our heart’s quiet prayer Be acceptable to You, Adonai, our rock and our redeemer. Do not cast us away from Your presence, or cut us off from Your holy spirit. Do not cast us away when we are old; as our strength diminishes, Do not forsake us. Do not forsake us, Adonai; be not far from us, our God. With hope, Adonai we await You; Surely, You, Adonai our God – You will answer. (CCAR, (c) 2014, All rights reserved).
Take a listen to this recording, with a melody by Levandowski, that I grew up hearing throughout my youth in the UK (click on the 2nd sound link when the new page opens up).
Put aside theology for a moment. If you are not sure what God-idea you believe in, you could get stuck on the literal words here. But look instead at the human emotion being poured out. It is a heart crying out for relationship. To be received. To be held. To be seen. To not feel alone and abandoned, uncertain of what lies ahead. Uncomfortable when we sit quietly long enough to notice what thoughts, anxieties, doubts, and self-disgust arise within us. We want to be accepted. We want to be received. We need relationships despite our flaws and imperfections.
To me, this gets to the heart of the human condition. It is a crying out that has been distilled into a few sentences that captures so much of what many of us feel in the dark, when no-one is watching.
As with so many of the core prayers of our High Holy Day liturgy, the new CCAR machzor also offers us an alternative text drawn from a more contemporary source. On Kol Nidre, the text that is offered is a poem by Rachel, an Israeli poet. It’s opening verses, like the prayer they face, express an outpouring of emotion:
Will you hear my voice, you who are far from me? Will you hear my voice, wherever you are; A voice calling aloud, a voice silently weeping, Endlessly demanding a blessing.
This busy world is vast, its ways are many; Paths meet for a moment, then part forever; A man goes on searching, but his feet stumble, He cannot find that which he has lost…
Hear me! Help me find meaning in all of this vastness! Help me live in relationship and connection to others. Accept me, and help me learn to accept myself.
You are probably aware, if you’ve sat through High Holy Day services in years past, that these worship services run longer than most other days of the year. If you have not really studied or examined the words on the pages closely before, you may not be aware of all the ‘extras’ that are part of the High Holy Day liturgy. Of course, the Shofar service is one of the most immediately recognizable additions. And the singing of Avinu Malkeinu. And you may have spent many a year struggling with the medieval piyyut (poem) U’netaneh Tokef(that’s the one that contains those uncomfortable lines, ‘who will live and who will die’).
But perhaps you don’t remember a series of paragraphs that are inserted into the Amidah that extend the section known in Hebrew as k’dushat Hashem – the Sanctification of the Name. That is the section where we repeat 3 times, kadosh kadosh kadosh… holy holy holy is the Eternal God of Hosts.
The reason why this section of prayer is extended with some additional paragraphs is because the ‘sanctification of God’s name’ was, historically, a big theme of the Jewish New Year. In ancient times there would be an official day of the year to celebrate and honor each year of a king’s reign. Think of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. There was a lot of fuss and fanfare as her Diamond Jubilee was celebrated back in 2012. Something of this ancient ritual was borrowed in Jewish ritual – one day a year we recognize and honor the coronation of the King of Kings. In our Rosh HaShanah liturgy we do this when we ‘sanctify God’s name.’ But what does that mean exactly?
The three additional passages that become part of the sanctification prayer over the High Holy Days each begin with the word u’v’chen, meaning ‘therefore.’ What follows in the 3 passages are an ancient liturgists idea of what the world would look like if we all acted in ways that demonstrated our attempt to bring a sense of God’s holiness into our world. First, all of creation would feel a sense of awe and reverence for God. Second, the Jewish people would no longer struggle because they would receive honor and respect and, third, we’d all be acting righteously and we would no longer be witness to evil.
Now, putting the history lesson and the ancient language of kings aside for a moment, what we have here, right in the center of one of the central prayers of our liturgy, are words that remind us that we’ve really failed to do much of meaning if we dutifully sit in synagogue and mindlessly recite words, unless the time we spend in reflection and connection remind and inspire us that, when we get up, we make meaning by doing.That’s why I love some of the alternative, contemporary readings that our upcoming new machzor, Mishkan haNefesh, has placed across from the three traditionalu’v’chen passages emphasize the centrality of our actions if we really want to do honor to God’s name and bring holiness into our world. My favorite of the passages is one that I intend to make the focus of this section of worship this year in my congregation – it is an adaptation of a prayer first written by Rabbi Jack Reimer and published in New Prayers for the High Holy Days in 1971. It begins:
We cannot merely pray to You, O God
to banish war,
for You have filled the world with paths to peace
if only we would take them.
We cannot merely pray
for prejudice to cease
for we might see the good in all
that lies before our eyes,
if only we would use them…
And, following additional passages in a similar mode, it concludes:
Therefore we pray, O God,
for wisdom and will, for courage
to do and to become,
not only to gaze
with helpless yearning
as though we had no strength.
So that our world may be safe,
and our lives may be blessed.
I know how easy it is to feel frustrated in the ritual of sitting and praying over the High Holy Days. I know how easy it is to look around a room and wonder how many of the people we see will leave the sanctuary after a couple of hours of reciting righteous words and exert themselves to live according to those words. I know how it feels because I have had those thoughts and feelings, sitting as a congregant in years past. But I have come to appreciate that with all things in life, I most often act and do with greater care and greater impact when I have first taken sufficient time to contemplate and consider all aspects of the task that lies before me – not only what needs to be done, but who needs to be included, what challenges face us, and how we can achieve something collaboratively.
So it is with the High Holy Days. There are a great many words on the pages that lie before us. But they are there not to numb us into mindless recitation, but to prod and cajole us into action. Action that, when we rededicate ourselves to our purpose each New Year, might be that much more energized, thoughtful, and effective because we took the reflective time that the High Holy Days give to us to do better.
Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz serves Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough, MA.
When I pray, words wash over me. The ideas they carry fill my brain. The images they convey float through my mind. The feelings they evoke dance in my heart. But I don’t even notice the letters that comprise them — the shapes and the lines — because I’ve been trained to fuse them into words, and to treat the words only as springboards to ideas, images, and feelings. I rarely pay attention to the letters themselves; they simply dissolve as my eyes pour over them.
What a jolt, then, to turn to Page 14a in the draft of the Yom Kippur Evening Service in Mishkan HaNefesh, the new CCAR machzor currently being piloted. That’s where I re-discovered the Sh’ma. Just as in Mishkan T’filah, the lettering of the Sh’ma gets special treatment. It’s the largest in the book and the font is distinct, at once elegant and archaic. It unfurls like a parchment buried for millennia, unseen by human eyes until just now, by me. It demands my attention.
The font evokes the calligraphy of a caravan-leader’s map, with its curvaceous lines and serifs. At the same time, it’s modern, clean, and strong. The lines swoop to the left, creating the feeling of forward movement. The black of the top line is darker than the second, mimicking the volumes with which we sing them.
The unique font of the Sh’ma helps me see how Hebrew letters are constructed from fundamental strokes. It shows me the ‘yud’ in the ‘vav,’ and the ‘vav’ in the ‘tav’ and ‘chav sofit.’ ‘Hay’ contains a ‘reish,’ and there’s an ‘ayin’ in the ‘sin.’
Some letters in this shema are pictograms for me. The ‘lamed’ looks like a tulip, celebrating spring. The ‘shin’ reminds me of a Viking vessel, crashing through the ocean. In the ‘sin,’ my husband sees God’s “hand” holding the world. The ‘reish’ is a cat, rresting on a mantel, purring contentedly. The ‘mem’ is the same cat, stretching after her nap, meowing energetically. The ‘mem sofit’ is the bearded face of an Assyrian trader.
Torah is written in black fire on white fire. That image, from the Zohar, asks us to pay attention to the negative space created by a letter, not only its form. Negative space is the space that surrounds and penetrates a subject. It provides boundaries and contrast. When we notice it, we come to understand that Torah is shaped by what’s missing as well as what’s there. The negative space in this font is bulbous, bounded by curving lines. It’s as if blocks of black have been burrowed into by critters. The lacunae look like little cul-de-sacs, adding to the sense of travel.
No matter how it’s printed, the Sh’ma unifies all Jews, bringing us together like the tassels of a tallis. When we recite it, divisions of time and place disappear. We are all One. This font, at once ancient and timeless, invites me to see with the eyes of the ancestors and to contemplate the hearts of our descendants. It reminds me to broaden my scope.
I’m excited for my congregants to encounter the Sh’ma afresh in Mishkan HaNefesh. As the Sh’ma is supposed to do, it calls us to pay attention.
Rabbi Dean Shapiro serves Temple Emanuel in Tempe, AZ
For more information on Mishkan HaNefesh or on piloting, please write to machzor@ccarnet.org
