Category: Prayer

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Books Passover Pesach Prayer Technology

Passover Blog: Using Visual T’filah at Your Seder

Mah Nishtana halaila hazeh?  What makes this seder different from all others? 

For many families and synagogues this year, it will be seeing the haggadah in a new light.  This year, the CCAR Press is excited to offer a Visual T’filah companion to Sharing the Journey: The  Hagaddah for the Contemporary Family. 

Dan1Visual T’filah, grounded in historical Jewish practices and built on modern technologies, mingles text and images on the large screen for all to enjoy. The images help give deeper meaning and connection to the ancient words, and the words up on the screen allow us to lift our eyes, our voices, and our hands. Visual T’filah has become a popular way to enhance prayer services, and now it can enhance our Pesach seders, as well.

One of my favorite things on Pesach is to open the (printed) haggadah and see wine stains and crumbs from seders past.  It reminds me that in this ever-changing world, some things stay comfortably the same.  It’s the same story we retell year after year.  The same rituals.  And yet, I’m always excited to see what new materials, readings, and activities the seder leader will bring to the table.  While the story of redemption and freedom never changes, we are always changing, and finding new ways of reconnecting to the same story is essential to keeping the messages relevant and engaging.  The haggadah, after all, at its core, is meant to inspire us to ask questions.

Dan2A few years ago, a number of colleagues and friends participated in Tweet the Exodus.  Not only was it amazing to see the story told in 140 character segments, but some of the tweets contained links to exciting multi-media resources to tell the story.  A particular favorite of mine was a Youtube video of a family caught in their car surrounded by a massive locust swarm. (http://youtu.be/wxHOxCmbs-8). It was terrifying and awe-inspiring, and helped me understand better than anything else what it might have been like to witness this plague.  Can you imagine being able to share some of the other plagues this way? Or what about showing a short clip discussing what scientists have said most recently about the splitting of the Red Sea? You could even show a map tracking the 40 year journey of the Israelites stop by stop. Unfortunately, you can’t embed Youtube videos in a printed haggadah.  But you can put them up on a screen.

Dan3And that’s what I love about using Visual T’filah at a seder: you can add new readings, videos, and more to enhance the experience and enrich the story (without creating a handout and adding yet another item to juggle on the table).  You could insert a PollEverywhere (polleverywhere.com) into the Visual T’filah to ask your participants to vote on their favorite plague or even to pick the closing song.  You could ask participants to record a short skit ahead of time to be shown during the seder.  As long as you have the screen set up, you might even want to Skype in Bubbie who couldn’t join you at the seder this year.  In fact, the screen becomes a blank slate for including almost anything you can think of, and the Sharing the Journey Visual T’filah gives you the framework from which to unleash your creativity.

The nice thing about VT is that it doesn’t negate the use of your printed haggadot.  No matter your inclination or comfort level, everyone can be included. Many folks are accustomed to using print haggadot and will be resistant to giving them up.  And anyway, who can deny the fun of being able to flip ahead to count how many pages are left, or even the benefit of being able to linger on a reading or an idea on your own?

Sharing the Journey VT is designed for both large communal seders, as well as smaller in-home seders.  If you don’t have your own large built-in screens and projectors, smaller portable ones or even flat screen TVs will work perfectly.  In fact, an iPad and an AppleTV can be the perfect way for the seder leader to lead from her seat.

Sharing the Journey is also available as an ebook for iPads. (ccar.co/journey). One can follow along with the seder, just as in the book, but also find interactive features and embedded audio.  (Please note: we discourage disDan4playing the ebook on a large screen.  It is not designed for this and will be too difficult for seder participants to read.  Conversely, the VT is specifically designed to be projected and read from a distance.)

So while you’d never want to spill wine on your iPad, nor get crumbs up on the screen, we hope Visual T’filah becomes another tradition at your seder table, and a way to help all of us actually return to the table to finish the seder after the meal is served.  Chag same’ach!

 
Rabbi Dan Medwin is the Publishing Technology Manager, CCAR Press.

p.s.: A Seder Leader’s Guide, complete with two CD’s of music, is also available for Sharing the Journey.  In addition, the music can be downloaded from iTunes.  

Categories
High Holy Days Machzor Prayer

Machzor Blog: The Gates are Closing, and God’s Hand is Outstretched

The N’ilah service on late Yom Kippur afternoon is notable for its image of the Gates of Repentance closing their doors.  At this late and hungry hour, for the final time during the Day of Atonement, we are summoned to repentance.  The fact that many Sages argue we can actually delay our atonement to the end of the Sukkot holiday does not lessen the drama of the moment.

At the end of N’ilah, often as the sun has set, we will hear the final blast of the shofar.  We will also declare the most essential teaching of the entire season: God is Merciful!  We actually chant this seven times, just to make sure we get the point.  The Gates are closing, but the mercy of God never ends.

In our creative retrieval of oft-forgotten elements of traditional High Holy Day liturgy, the editorial team for the new machzor, Mishkan HaNefesh, have seized on a central image that is suggested by a traditional N’ilah poem: God offers a hand to meet us halfway in our journey towards return.

In our draft version we feature the following version of the traditional prayer:

You hold our Your hand to those who do wrong;
Your right hand opens wise to receive those who return.
You teach us the true purpose of confession:
to turn our hands into instruments of good,
to cause no harm or oppression.
Receive us, as You promised, in the fullness of our heartfelt t’shuvah.

As we note in the draft version, the prayer focuses on God’s constant presence and compassion, even when we have fallen away from God’s expectations for us.  We are never too far from the ability to make peace with God.  The gates do close, the day will end, but the opportunity for return is never taken away from us.

In the first month of the year 5246  (September 10-October 9, 1485), B’nai Soncino (the Sons of Soncino) began the printing of the first Hebrew prayer book, Mahzor Minhag Roma (A Prayer Book of the Roman Rite), in the city of Soncino.  This book’s “You Hold Out Your Hand” is the only prayer printed in large type throughout. Could this have been done with Conversos (also known by the derogatory name, Marranos) in mind, those who had been forcibly converted but retained loyalty to their Jewish faith?  If so, the gesture is a poignant example of the everlasting mercy that God extends to us.

The message is not only reflective of God’s mercy.  It is also a call to us to practice the same mercy with those who have hurt us.  When possible, we hold out our hand to them.  With such a hand, the gates need never close.

The core editorial team of the upcoming machzor include Rabbi Edwin Goldberg, Rabbi Janet Marder, Rabbi Shelly Marder and Rabbi Leon Morris.  For information about Mishkan HaNefesh or about piloting, write to machzor@ccarnet.org. 

Edwin Goldberg, D.H.L., is the senior rabbi of Temple Sholom of Chicago and serves as the coordinating editor of Mishkan HaNefesh.

This post originally appeared on RJ.org.

Categories
Books General CCAR Prayer Reform Judaism

Where Has This Week Vanished: Thoughts on Mishkan T’filah

I don’t remember when I first came across David Polish’s reading that now appears in Mishkan T’filah at least twice:  once in the Kabbalat Shabbat service and a second time in the Shabbat Morning service.

Most of us must have encountered the text many, many times.  “Where has this week vanished?  Is it lost for ever…Shabbat, abide.”

I have always liked it.  I have liked the feelings it evoked.  I have liked the way it suggested the core Shabbat opportunity:  “Help me to withdraw for a while from the flight of time…Let me learn to pause…Let me find peace on this day.”

At one point in the last several months, however, something about the reading began to disturb me.  Although I like the image of Shabbat peace offered by the piece, I began to feel uncomfortable with the opening lines.

“Where has this week vanished?  Is it lost forever?  Will I ever recover anything from it? …Will I ever be able to banish the memory of pain, the sting of defeat, the heaviness of boredom?”

The words are too sad.  Am I really that tired and out of sorts when the week comes to a close?  Are the six days of my week regularly painful or so difficult that I need the Sabbath as a respite?

Maybe sometimes.

But much of the time not at all.

That is why I tried an experiment with a small Shabbat morning minyan a few weeks ago.  When we got to the prayer, I indicated that we would read it aloud and then pause to absorb its meaning.  I also continued by saying we would then come back at the prayer to see if we could reframe it.

So we read the prayer together as written in the siddur.  We paused.  And then I said something along these lines,  “What if we use these Shabbat moments to look back on the week we have all had?  But let’s change the approach from what we’ve got here.  What if a modified Sabbath prayer asked this new question…Not ‘how has this week vanished,’ but ‘how has this week brought me blessing…what can I carry forward as I pause on this seventh day?’

The responses to the “new” prayer were moving.

One congregant immediately volunteered that she had traveled to another city in order to help nurse an old friend back to health.  She had come home the day before and felt energized by knowing how much her presence had helped her friend heal.

Another congregant told us about a blessing that had come her way in the form of a note from a grandchild thanking her for being her grandmother.

Another worshiper was a physician who had literally saved someone’s life that week.  Someone else had read a great book.  Someone else was building a ramp on the house of a handicapped neighbor.

Best of all:  We had all come together at the end of this productive week and this pause in our service allowed us to share these blessings.

I still plan to read the “vanished week” prayer with the congregation, but every once in a while I also want to lovingly turn it on its head:  not to sigh at what was lost but rather to smile at what was accomplished.

After all, if we start its week wishing each other a “shavua tov,” why not “end” the week by considering how (at least sometimes) the week really was “tov” or even better.

“How has this week brought me blessing?”

Shabbat shalom.

 Mark Dov Shapiro is the Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Categories
General CCAR Prayer Rabbis Technology

How a Whole Congregation Wrote its Rabbi’s Yom Kippur Sermon

The Genesis of a Social Sermon

Utilizing a process called the Social Sermon, I developed my Yom Kippur morning sermon this year in partnership with Facebook Friends, TED talkers and a group of insightful congregants. To be blunt, this year, the whole Congregation Or Ami wrote its rabbi’s Yom Kippur sermon.

Where Great Sermon Ideas Come From Rabbis explore sermon ideas from within the Machzor (prayerbook) and Torah, through conference calls organized by Jewish non-profit organizations, and at sermon seminars run by local Boards of Rabbis. Ideas are generated from Jewish text study, current events, issues in the public sphere, bestselling books, and powerful movies. Some clergy ask friends, colleagues, congregants for ideas. Deciding upon topics and themes for High Holy Day (HHD) sermons can be a multi-month process. The social sermon encourages rabbis to engage the congregants (and other contacts in the social media sphere) in the process of exploring the topic and teasing out important themes.

Fleshing out a Topic Over the summer, as our community struggled to deal with illnesses and deaths of beloved congregants, I knew it was time again to explore Unetaneh Tokef, the haunting HHD prayer most remembered for its opening lines: On Rosh Hashana it is written and on Yom Kippur it is Sealed… Who shall live and who shall die.  I read this text as a cosmic wake up call: God reminds us that “stuff” happens. Unetaneh Tokef forces us to face this reality and to decide: how are YOU going to deal with it? The prayer offers three responses to the severity of life’s decree of misfortune, pain and death. We may reach around (teshuva or repentance – by fixing our relationships with those around us), reach inward (t’filah or prayer – by finding our center and the truth within), and reach up (tzedakah or charitable giving – by lifting up others we lift ourselves).

PaulKipnes1But how did this play out in real life? What lessons do people learn from enduring the hardships or challenges that life throws out way?

Facebook Friends Chime In For assistance, I turned to Facebook (and Twitter) where my personal and congregational pages yielded some poignant answers to the question, What did you learn from going through hardship or challenge? Responses poured in from all around the congregation and around the country. The question struck a few heart strings as people posted publicly and some privately about the tsuris (problems) in their lives. Face-to-face conversations with other community members elicited many significant lessons learned. From these responses, as well as those from people I spoke with over the course of a few months, three categories of hardship rose up as being particularly challenging: financial ruin, turmoil from dealing with children with special needs, and horrible medical diagnoses.

TED Talks Provide Inspiration Around that time, I was watching some TED Talks and became inspired by the stories I heard. About people in challenging situations, who found meaning and purpose nonetheless. The most moving sermons include powerful personal stories to illustrate the central message. It occurred to me that rather than my telling those inspiring stories, I would ask a few congregants to tell their own stories. After all, High Holy Day services offer just the forum for Jewish TED Talks. Thus was a sermon born.

I invited three congregants reflect on what they learned personal through their personal challenge. Their initial drafts were poignant. Each participant had learned powerful lessons on how to overcome the “stuff” of life on which Unetaneh Tokef focuses. Guiding the speakers to understand how their experiences embodied teachings similar to those in Unetaneh Tokef, I worked with them to weave references into their sermonette.

Simultaneously, I crafted a short introduction – utilizing a sledgehammer, if you believe it – to sharply make the point that Unetaneh Tokef comes as a Divine wake-up call. Like a sledgehammer, Unetaneh Tokef comes to break down the walls of naivety and denial that keep us from accepting a simple truth: that between this year and next, so many will live but many will die. Some will experience success; others failure. So many will encounter the unpredictability and pain of life. We are left to discover how do we keep ourselves from becoming angry, embittered, and crotchety, from giving up?

Congregants Tell their Own Stories At different points in the service, these congregants and our President shared their stories:

Their presentations were poignant. Worshippers sat at the edge of their seats, listening in silence. Certain moments were unforgettable: When Eric and Jill Epstein spoke just after their 14 year old son Ethan led the congregation in prayer. When Mike Moxness was moved to tears as he recalled the overwhelming mix of sadness and gratitude. When Congregation Or Ami President Hedi Gross, in the traditional end-of-service Presidential sermonette, recounted her Jewish spiritual journey, including their struggle with fertility issues, unexpectedly reemphasizing the theme of the sermon and service.
Suffice it to say, the responses to the Jewish-TED-talk/HHD-social-sermon touched and moved so many worshippers.

What Lessons were Learned?

  1. Social Sermons Work: A number of worshippers later described the Facebook discussion on Facebook as a meaningful way to get them to prepare for the Holy Days.  Others reflected on the Facebook discussion as an inviting way of previewing am upcoming sermon theme.
  2. Jewish TED Talks Inspire: In comments about the High Holy Days, this multi-speaker sermon topped the list of worshipper kvells (positive comments). Unanimously, post-service comments called the congregant presentations inspiring, powerful, very real, and intensely thought-provoking.
  3. Rabbinic Tzimtzum Fosters Deep Reflection: As clergy “pull back” from their up front role as sermonizer to work in partnership with congregants to craft a Jewish teaching, the message becomes that much more influential. In an increasingly DIY (Do It Yourself) Jewish world, involving other Jews in the teaching/preaching/liturgy leading roles cements their relationships to the community, the synagogue and the rabbi.
  4. Weaving in New Technologies and Methods Animate Communities: Darim Online and The Convenant Foundation introduced me to the Social Sermon. TED Talks inspired me to invite congregants to speak. Just Congregations of the Union for Reform Congregations taught me about listening campaigns. eJewish Philanthropy constantly pushes me to explore new perspectives and methods. Visual T’filah of the Central Conference of American Rabbis propelled me to rethink the entire worship experience. Finally, Rabbi Eugene Borowitz’s 1973 essay, Tzimtzum: A Mystic Model for Contem­porary Leadership, has long goaded my rabbinic style to pull back to invite others in.
What’s next? Already, congregants are wondering which congregant speakers will elucidate which themes next year.  And so am I!
But I do not expect to wait until the High Holy Days to invite my congregation to write my next sermon!
Rabbi Paul Rabbi Paul J. Kipnes is the spiritual leader of Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, CA.  This post originally appeared on his blog, Or Am I?
Categories
High Holy Days Machzor Prayer Reform Judaism

Machzor Blog: To Sin or Not to Sin

Machzor logo

The editors of Mishkan HaNefesh, the new CCAR Machzor, have thought long and hard about the Hebrew word chet — often rendered as “sin” in English translations of the Machzor.  During the piloting process, some respondents have wondered if the editors’ intention is to eliminate from the Machzor the word ‘sin.’ We have chosen to take a more nuanced approach.

First, it is important to note that the word ‘sin’ does in fact appear multiple times in Mishkan HaNefesh. For example:

In the Erev Yom Kippur service, it appears on p.41b, several times on p.46b, (“it transforms one’s deliberate sins into merits”; “the years of sin are transformed…”; “propel the sinner toward God. Sin is not to be forgotten…” etc.); several times on p.48b (“We sin against You…”; “Who shall say…I have not sinned?”; “Our sins are an alphabet of woe”), p.55a (“Forgive my sin, no matter how great”) and p.65b (“the day when God helps us and forgives our sins”).

In the Yom Kippur morning service, it appears on p.5 (“cleansed of their sins”), p.15 (“Be your sins like crimson…”), p.22 (“must specify the sin”). p.23 (“have tasted sin”), p.25 (“humans inevitably fail or sin”), p.156 [the Viddui – “You have fallen because of your sin”), p.157 (“I admit my sin”), p.160 (“claiming to be free of sin”), p.161 (“a willingness to recognize one’s own sins”; “the isolation of sin”; “the sins are listed alphabetically”; “Everyone confesses all the sins”); p.169 (“For the sin we  committed against You…”); and “p.170 (“we stand together…to confess our sins”).

In the Yom Kippur Mincha service, it appears on p.7 (“to make atonement for the Israelites for all their sins”); p.16b (“You will hurl all our sins…”); p.36a (“the sinner”; “sin, remorse, retribution”; “desisting from sin”, etc.); p.36b (“sinfulness,” “the sin of another”); and p.51b (“We sin against You…”; “Who shall say…I have not sinned?”; “Our sins are an alphabet of woe”).

We haven’t yet completed the draft services for Avodah, Eleh Ezkerah and Neilah, but it is likely that the word “sin” will continue to appear as our work goes forward.

The more important question, from our perspective, is whether the word “sin” is always appropriate to describe the various misdeeds enumerated in the Machzor. For example, look at the Al Chet in Erev Yom Kippur (p.47a), and ask yourself if all (or any) of the acts listed there are, in fact, sins. They include “insincere promises,” “speaking foolishness,” “empty talk,” “acts committed through our routine conversations,” “insincere apologies,” and “thoughtlessness.” Or look at p.50a in the Yom Kippur Mincha service, where acts listed in the Al Chet include: “a selfish or petty spirit,” “stubbornness,” “cynicism,” “unworthy thoughts and ruminations,” “offensive speech,” “taking advantage of others,” “through eating and drinking, ” and “losing self-control.”

The dictionary defines “sin” as “deliberate disobedience of God’s will; transgression of a religious or moral law; something regarded as shameful, highly reprehensible or utterly wrong.”  We would characterize certain acts as sinful, such as murder, rape, child abuse, betrayal, deliberate cruelty, and, under some circumstances, adultery and theft, but others, it seems to us, are better described by other English words. We are fortunate, as English speakers, to have at our disposal a language far richer in vocabulary and semantic variation than the Hebrew of the prayer book.

Mishkan HaNefesh attempts to capture many shades of meaning in a nuanced way by using a large variety of words to translate the three primary Hebrew words for wrongdoing (chet, pesha, avon). We do not believe, as some have suggested, that we are minimizing the severity of wrongdoing or portraying all wrongdoing in a therapeutic light. Note that the words we use to capture these different shades of meaning include “evil,” “wickedness,” “depravity,” “crimes,” “brute power,” “malevolence,” “guilt,” “shame,” “failings,” “offense,” “brokenness,” “immorality,” “destructiveness,” “malice,” “wrongs,” “treachery,” “transgressions,” “mistakes,” “cruelty,” “missed the mark,” “stumbled,” “fallen,” “failure,” “harm,” “misdeeds,” “errors,” “defiant acts,” “inner darkness,” and, of course, “sin.”

In all our work on the Machzor, we remember the tremendous variety of people who will be in our congregations, and the misdeeds they will be remembering. Those engaged in viddui and teshuvah may include sexual compulsives who have betrayed their spouses thousands of times, wife beaters, serial rapists, soldiers who have engaged in torture, embezzlers, addicts and child abusers – but also 13 year olds who have been rude to their parents, teased another child on the playground, made snide remarks behind a teacher’s back or cheated on a test, as well as adults who have inflated their resumes, been inattentive to an elderly aunt, received multiple speeding tickets, pilfered office supplies, neglected a friend with cancer, been ill-tempered with their spouse, failed to get to the gym often enough or paid less than their fair share of temple dues. These are certainly not admirable acts, but we hope you would agree that to describe the full range of human misdeeds by the word “sin” simply empties the word of its meaning.

We hope, in fact, to restore some sense of power to the simple English word “wrong.”  There is a difference between right and wrong, and the Machzor wants us to remember that. So do we.

Rabbi Janet Marder is Senior Rabbi of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, CA.  Rabbi Shelly Marder is the Rabbi at the Jewish Home in San Francisco, CA.   They are both editors of Mishkan HaNefesh, the new CCAR machzor.  

Categories
Ethics News Prayer Rabbis

No Text is Worth a Life: A High Holy Day Pledge

As we turn to thoughts of a new year and a new start, here is a pledge to refrain from texting while driving. Texting while driving is responsible for a quarter of all car accidents today, and is six times more dangerous than drunk driving. Please share this pledge from the High Holy Day pulpit, or make it part of your personal Rosh HaShanah spiritual preparation. Perhaps be making this verbal oath in a sacred space amidst a community of witnesses, we may contribute to saving lives.

 

Whoever destroys a single soul destroys a complete world.

Whoever preserves a single soul preserves a complete world. – Talmud Sanhedrin 37a

 At this season we ask: who by fire and who by water?

Today we also ask, who by texting while driving?

An epidemic is sweeping our country.

DWI, Driving While In-text-ified causes 1.6 million accidents a year.

Driving While In-text-ified causes 330,000 injuries per year.

Driving While In-text-ified causes 11 teen deaths every day.

75% of teens say Driving While In-text-ified is common among their friends.

Half of young drivers have seen their parents Driving While In-text-ified.

Driving While In-text-ified makes you 23 times more likely to crash.

Driving While In-text-ified slows your brake reaction speed by 18%.

Driving While In-text-ified is the source of nearly 25% of all car accidents.

Driving While In-text-ified is 6x more likely to cause an accident than driving drunk.

Driving While In-text-ified is the same as driving after 4 beers.

Driving While In-text-ified is the same as driving blind for 5 seconds at a time.

At 55 mph, that’s like driving the length of a football field completely blind.

Who by fire, who by water? Who by texting while driving? On this holy day, as we reflect on our deeds and resolve to better ourselves and the world, we invite you to put your hand on your heart and join us by repeating this sacred pledge:

 

We will not Drive While In-text-ified.

We will use only hands-free devices in the car.

No text is worth a life.

No text is worth a life.

No text is worth a life.

We will not Drive While In-text-ified.

יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְפָנֶיךָ יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ. שֶׁתּוֹלִיכֵנוּ לְשָׁלוֹם. וְתַצְעִידֵנוּ לְשָׁלוֹם.וְתַדְרִיכֵנוּ לְשָׁלוֹם. וְתִסְמְכֵנוּ לְשָׁלוֹם.

וְתַגִּיעֵנוּ לִמְחוֹז חֶפְצֵנוּ לְחַיִּים וּלְשִׂמְחָה וּלְשָׁלוֹם

 Yehi ratzon milefanecha Adonai Eloheinu veilohei avoteinu v’imoteinu shetolicheinu leshalom vetatzideinu leshalom vetadricheinu leshalom vetismecheinu leshalom vetagi’einu limechoz cheftzeinu lechaim ulesimchah uleshalom.

May it be Your will God of our fathers and mothers that You should lead us in peace and direct our steps in peace, and guide us in peace, and support us in peace, and cause us to reach our destination in life, joy, and peace. Amen.

Rabbi Zoe Klein serves Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles, CA.

Categories
Books Prayer Rabbis Reform Judaism

Mishkan T’filah for Children: Do Students in K-2 Need a Different Siddur than Students in Grades 3-5?

This question has been raised by several people and it is a really good question.  When our committee sat down to work on the new siddur Mishkan T’filah for Children we asked ourselves (as good educators do) “What are our goals for this siddur?”  As we explored that question through many discussions we came to the conclusion that we would, in fact, need two siddurim.  That one siddur for grades K-5 would not work well.  The reason is something which we have learned from the Early Childhood Education world.  The following is from the NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children).

ccar-mishkantfilah-frontcover-2-children_1“Developmentally appropriate practice, often shortened to DAP, is an approach to teaching grounded in the research on how young children develop and learn and in what is known about effective early education. Its framework is designed to promote young children’s optimal learning and development.  DAP involves teachers meeting young children where they are (by stage of development), both as individuals and as part of a group; and helping each child meet challenging and achievable learning goals.”

DAP does not just apply to early childhood education, but to all education.  Simply put, we need to understand where children are developmentally and meet them there if we are going to be successful in engaging and educating them.  This applies to their intellectual, social and SPIRITUAL development.  If you spend time with a 6 year old and then spend time with a 10 year old it does not take long to see that they are in very different places developmentally.  A six year old will be a much more concrete learner while the ten year old is starting to think critically and will ask questions like “Which came first, Adam and Eve or the dinosaurs?”

The amazing comChildrenTalitmittee of rabbis who worked on this siddur quickly came to the conclusion that one siddur would not work for all ages.  Different developmental needs needed to be met by creating two different books.  The book for the younger children, which Michelle Shapiro Abraham did an incredible job creating will reach our youngest children at a level they can understand and connect to.  The book for the older children will have more Hebrew, English readings at a different level and questions which will engage our older thinkers.    The goal was the same for both – to engage children and families in prayer and encourage their spiritual growth.

 

Rabbi Paula Feldstein serves Temple Avodat Sholom in River Edge, NJ

 

 

 

Categories
Israel News Prayer Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

I Am The Egg (Wo)Man: Reflections on Rosh Chodesh Av with Women of the Wall

“Jerusalem has greatly sinned, therefore she is become a mockery. All who admired her despise her, for they have seen her disgraced;and she can only sigh and shrink back.”

–Eicha (Lamentations) 1:8

The first 9 days of Av are seen in traditional Judaism as days of, if not mourning, then solemnity. We do not feast, we do not celebrate; we are once again living through the days leading up to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. And, as many have already noted, one of the most significant statements the rabbis make about that destruction is that the blame cannot be placed on Roman shoulders. Why, they ask, was the Temple destroyed? Because of sinat chinam–baseless hatred. And so Monday morning, as I looked at the faces of the Haredim crowding the Kotel plaza, as I looked at the faces of these men and women who are supposed to be my kinsmen (and women), I felt not anger and not hatred, but deep, deep sadness.

It seems that the same cannot be said from the other side. It is not sadness that compels one Jew–one human being!–to call another Jew a Nazi. It is not sadness that sent a hard-boiled egg flying through the air as a projectile, landing solidly (and not comfortably) on my neck. And it is not sadness that raised male voices to drown ours out.

Talking with a mentor last night, I asked. I asked about the deep anger, and hatred. I said: I just can’t understand. Why? Why such deep anger and hatred? And she, who comes from a far more traditional world than I do, said two things. First, the part I know but hate to acknowledge. There are people–and I refuse to paint the entire Haredi world with one brush, just as I wish they would not paint all liberal Jews with one–in that world who truly believe, to the depths of their soul, that I come to Jerusalem, I come to the Wall, I come to the world, to destroy Judaism.

But, she said something else that, rather than enrage me, gave me some hope. She said that their anger came from a place of fear. That these men and women are looking around and seeing a changing world. They are seeing a world that is increasingly adapt or die, and they choose–time and again–not to adapt. And so I thought back over the faces I saw in that space. And I thought to myself–maybe there is one girl, or one boy, there who looked at us and saw not rodfim, those who seek to do harm to Judaism and the Jewish people, but who saw something new. Maybe there was one boy–or one girl–who looked up and saw in my face, or the face of someone standing next to me, something familiar. Maybe there was one girl–or one boy–who heard in my prayers something exciting. Maybe someone there looked up and saw new possibilities, a different way to live, a living and breathing Judaism.

I happened to be standing next to one of my mentors during the tefillot, and she later shared with me the conversation she had with a little girl standing near her–a rabbi’s daughter. This little girl asked the simplest–and of course most difficult–question to answer. Why, she, asked, were the men on the other side of the barricade trying to drown out our prayers? “The women sing so beautifully,” she said. “Why would they do that?”

IMG_2645The men on the other side of the barricades alternated between screaming and blowing whistles to disrupt us, or simply trying to pray louder. I preferred the latter. Because there was a moment, maybe just before the egg jolted me back to reality, where I was able to live in a different reality–a vision of a Jerusalem that is truly ha-banuyah (rebuilt). In that moment, the voices of women were raised in prayer and song, and the voices of the men were raised as well. And I imagined–just for those moments–that together the voices of Israel, the voices of the Jewish people, reached straight up to heaven.

There is much to be said, and much anger to be shared, over the erasure of women’s voices and women’s bodies from the public sphere in Israel, over what seems to be a campaign by the Haredi community to silence women. There is much to be said, and much anger to be shared, over the role of the Haredi community and the rabbanut in controlling religious life in Israel. There is much to be said, and much anger to be shared, that even despite a clear court ruling, we were barred from the Kotel itself for the first time in 25 years. Others have and will say it better than I can. Because on Monday, for me, anger was not the predominant emotion coursing through my veins. Hatred was not the overriding feeling of the day. Sadness was.

But, that being said, I have to point out the feeling is NOT mutual. Only one side has interest in listening to the other, only one side speaks of shared space, and only one side uses vehement hate speech and physical violence to stake its claim. And the government, despite the progress in court, continues to cater to only the one side, the loudest side. And with all of my idealism, all of my hope–I simply don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know where that can go.

As a Reform Jew, I have long struggled with the meaning and ritual of Tisha B’Av. I have learned and studied over the years; this week at the Hartman Institute, we wrestled with the notions of and texts on communal mourning. I do not wish to see the Temple rebuilt speedily in my day, and so what do I do with this holiday?

Yesterday might have given me an answer. I mourn not for what was, but for what could be and isn’t. I mourn for the fact that I, by virtue of biology, am denied full access to the Kotel. I mourn for the fact that this land that I love, this place whose vision was to be a home for the Jewish people, cannot get itself past a single definition of Judaism–even as its people define themselves in all shades of grey. And I mourn, perhaps most of all, for those voices, male and female, that could be rising up to heaven (or wherever I believe the Divine resides) together, indistinguishable by gender or religious definition, simply united in hope and in comfort, in petition and in praise, in sadness and in joy.

The next Rosh Chodesh we will usher in will be Elul, the month of penitence and preparation for the High Holy Days. I will be back in the United States, though my prayers and heart will be with Nashot HaKotel, the Women of the Wall. And as they–and we–pray the words of Psalm 27:

Only this do I ask of God,

Only this do I seek: to live in the house of Adonai all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of Adonai, to frequent God’s  Temple.

I will be praying that that house, that beauty, is wide and rich and imaginative enough to hold all of us—male, female, Haredi, Reform, and everywhere in between–in one room, with one voice and one vision.

For the sake of Jerusalem I will not, I cannot, I must not be silent.

rabbi_sari_laufer_headshotRabbi Sari Laufer serves Rodeph Sholom Congregation in New York City.

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Machzor Blog: A Yom Kippur Feast

On a Shabbat morning this past April, members of my congregation test-piloted the Yom Kippur Morning Service for Mishkan HaNefesh.  By design, we did not read Torah or Haftarah in order to maximize our time together to explore aspects of the service that were unfamiliar to congregants.   I tried to minimize my own instructions and commentary about the prayers (not an easy thing for me to do!) in order to allow the service to unfold without my serving as a filter between the service and the worshipper.

Immediately following the service, and before we broke for lunch (deliciously transgressive on “Yom Kippur”) congregants broke into four groups, enabling participants to respond to a series of questions posed by the editors of the machzor.

The responses were overwhelmingly positive.  Comments included:

The poetry moved me to tears.

We liked that the poetry was drawn from a variety of writers, especially women!

The classic Hebrew prayers were kept but people liked that the accompanying        readings were different and uplifting.

The new machzor did a good job modernizing the text.

The service also included readings from people other than rabbis such as     Richard Feynman, a physicist.

There were multiple points of view which resonated for different people.

Even someone who was not Jewish found a universal message in the machzor.

The readings made the congregation participate rather than act like an audience.

The Un’taneh Tokef commentaries made it more meaningful.

Mishkan HaNefesh felt much more flowing than Gates of Repentance, which seems very rigid. This new machzor is more personal and engaging.

Not surprisingly, there were also critical comments about the service.  Some criticisms were superficial, relating to the page lay-out that undoubtedly will be corrected in the final version.  Other comments were more substantive, expressing disagreement with the content of some of the poems and translations.

Following our piloting of Mishkan HaNefesh’s Yom Kippur Morning Service, one congregant plaintively asked me, “Do we have to go back to using Gates of Repentance?”  Talk about a hunger for meaning and substance during the High Holy Days!  Clearly the vast majority of my congregants welcomed the spiritually focused, contemporary language and interpretations offered in Mishkan HaNefesh.

On a personal note, I was thrilled with this new service.  I had not piloted any of the previous services from Mishkan HaNefesh and I am thoroughly convinced that the language, poetry, interpretations, and theological dimensions contained in this new machzor will inspire my congregation.    I look forward when in 2015 the final edition of our new machzor will offer Reform Jews a deeper embrace of the transformative power of the Yamim Noraim.

Avi Schulman is the Rabbi of Temple Beth Torah in Fremont, California.

Learn more about the new CCAR Machzor.  For more information about participating in piloting, email machzor@ccarnet.org.

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Machzor Blog: Liturgy with a Coat of Many Colors

Several years ago one of my congregants captured the essence of a discussion about a future Reform Machzor by saying, “I would like the liturgy to be like a coat of many colors.”

All of us present for the conversation understood.  This congregant was referring to the way in which the standard High Holiday liturgy mostly presents a single image of God.  “He” is enthroned on high; God rules, decides, and forgives a very frail humanity.

Before Mishkan Hanefesh had taken shape, my congregants and I were hoping for a Machzor that went beyond the “black and white” theology presented in the historic liturgy.  We were hoping to move, you might say, to “full color,” to the multi-faceted way in which Jews of the past have explored divinity, prayer, and life as well as the ways in which contemporary Jews continue that process.

The good news from my perspective is that, on the whole, my prayers and those of my congregants are on their way to being answered.

Back on a chilly Sunday morning in April, we used the new pilot service for Yom Kippur Morning and found much of what we experienced moving, challenging, and relevant.

Opposite Mi Chamocha, we encountered a reading based on the Mechilta’s assertion that the mighty God can sometimes be a silent God.  Later in the Viddui another text began with these words, “It is not easy to forgive God…The human suffering that surrounds us feels utterly unforgivable.”

There was sweetness too among other readings.   A beautiful poem on the page facing Ki Anu Amecha played with the metaphors of God as a Shepherd or Master.  The text invited worshipers to imagine God was a caring Gardener (1) and to consider what it might be like to experience love and tenderness from such a divine source.

From my perspective, several translations also elegantly reframed the connection between God and humanity.  “Avinu, Malkeinu, enter our names in the Book of Lives Well Lived.”  “For all these wrongs, God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, help us atone.”

As you can tell, I liked this new presentation of the Yom Kippur liturgy.  Perhaps because my congregants have spent so much time with me considering and reconsidering faith and theology, they too were intrigued.  There was less formality in this proposed Machzor.  God isn’t as high.  Then again, we humans are not as low.  Both parties play a more balanced and significant covenantal role.  Both parties are where they need to be in order to have the kind of encounter that can make the High Holidays as meaningful as they really ought to be.

Mark Shapiro is the Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Learn more about the new CCAR Machzor.  For more information about participating in piloting, email machzor@ccarnet.org.