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Machzor Mishkan haNefesh Prayer

Using Mishkan HaNefesh in a Retirement Home

When I received access to the pre-publication CCAR  trial machzor Mishkan Hanefesh for use at the Lincolnwood Place retirement home where I was scheduled to lead Yom Kippur worship, I also took on the obligation to report my experience.  This is my report.

My focus on erev Yom Kippur was on “t’shuvah,” the return to a life of kindness, living generously, and forgiveness of self and of others.  I used the liturgy to teach “Musar Judaism.”  My sound bites were largely based on the key words of the Godlike attributes: “rachum,” “chanun,” “chesed,” as well as on Kol Nidre with its haunting melody, acknowlegement of sin, and appeal for forgiveness.  I used a recording of Richard Tucker chanting Kol Nidre.

It was received well.  The residents responded enthusiastically to the service, interacting with questions I posed and reading and singing avidly.  They joined in with gusto with its melodies: the High Holy Day nusach, the “v’al kulam,” the “Avinu Malkeinu,” the “Oseh Shalom,” and even the Debbie Friedman “mishaberach.”  At the end of the service, practically everybody stayed around to wish me a “good Yom Tov” and to tell me how much they enjoyed the service.

For Yom Kippur morning, my focus was two-fold.  My first focus was on the message of the opening prayers “Ma Tovu” (how good it is to be alive and praying with fellow Jews), “Modeh ani” (thankfulness for life’s blessing), and “Nishamah shenatata” (awareness of our finiteness and the need to make our lives count). My second focus was on the message of the Torah and Haftarah readings: “Atem Nitzavim” and “Is this the fast?”  They speak of how to make our lives count, particularly through “g’milut hasidim” which I translated roughly as “living generously,” and I embellished this with anecdotes. It was heartwarming to me to see one of the residents, who had to be wheeled in to the service, arise from his wheel chair to answer my call for a volunteer to accept an Aliyah. He stepped up to the Torah table, draped himself in a tallit and recited the b’rachot over the Torah.

Later in the day, I returned to the retirement community for Yizkor and for Ne’lah.  These were well attended.  Participation in discussion, prayer, and song seemed to be even better, if that was possible, than in the previous services.  The residents kept me after the conclusion of the service for over an hour taking turns to shake my hand, to wish me “hatimah tovah,” and to tell me what the service had meant to them.

I need to extend my sincere kudos to all those who are working together to make this new machzor happen.  Our colleagues performed a MONUMENTAL task, and I love it!  Kol Hakavod to them for their creative achievement!  I believe that in generations to come this machzor will take its place with previous prayer books of our Reform movement to define who we are and what we believe at this period of our Jewish experience in America!  In my opinion, a copy of this machzor, once published, ought to be in every major public Judaica library and in the hands of every liberal rabbi who leads a congregation in High Holy Day worship!

When I personally read the PDFs of the machzor, I was in sheer awe over the beauty of its content: its spirituality, thought-provoking discussion, stimulating readings, and comprehensive footnotes.  All of these were gems.  As a rabbi whose main employ has been as a clinical chaplain, I especially loved the innovation of the seven paths of grief found in the Yizkor service:  it stimulates reflection; it is potentially interactive; it acts as a catalyst for the grieving worshipper to break his silence and open to fellow worshippers his own personal journey through that valley; and it paves the way towards the support of a caring group beyond Yom Kippur.  No other machzor has ever done that.  In providing this material, and in doing so in this manner, our new machzor goes well above and beyond the traditional “Yizkor Elohim” silent prayers of which we are all familiar!  As a Jewish educator, I was delighted that the new machzor provides so much study material to be investigated individually or as a group beyond Yom Tov worship. It fixes so many little things that have long needed fixing, such as finally restoring “God” to the Jewish trinity in the popular song “Yisrael V’oraita.  Kol Hakavod!”

Mishkan HaNefesh makes an important contribution, and I am grateful to CCAR for allowing me the opportunity to use and enjoy this print worthy text. It meant so much to the residents of this retirement home to participate in their new initiative.

Categories
General CCAR Healing Rabbis

Don’t Let Me Struggle Alone: CCAR’s Rapid Response Line

We are blessed to have family and friends whom we rely upon, just as they rely upon us.  As rabbis, we also are blessed to serve others in the context of a community that widens and deepens our relationships.  Nevertheless, despite all the relationships that we have and nurture, unfortunately there are times in the course of our rabbinate when we and those we love find ourselves in a free fall.  That could be due to sudden illness or trauma, employment setbacks, familial problems, congregational or personal crises.  There are a host of ways and a variety of people within the CCAR which can help.  On the CCAR website under “Rabbis and Communities” there is a tab that reads “Personal Resources & Chevruta.”  Here CCAR members can find contact information for the Rapid Response Hotline for contacting me or our colleague, Rabbi Ruth Alpers.

Our colleague, Rabbi Richard Levy, paraphrased the “Ahavat Rabbah/Ahavat Olam” prayer found in Mishkan T’filah, “As You Taught Torah”. The prayer states a plea that we all feel at times in the course of our lives and rabbinate, “Don’t let me struggle alone.”  When the rug is pulled out from under us, we have the choice to struggle alone or to call upon assistance.  As one of the CCAR’s Rapid Response members, we are available whenever you or your family is in need.

What are some of the reasons why colleagues place the call to the Rapid Response Line in the first place?  It could be trouble with an employer or congregation, a family crisis, the beginning of an alleged ethical violation, marital or family conflict, job placement, and health issues, just to name a few reasons.  For example, colleagues have shared:

“Everything has been going downhill since my divorce. I was just told I will never see my kids again.”

“I can’t find a job, even after all of these months and years of trying.”

“I’m a dead man.  When does this stop?”

“I know my marriage is tenuous and my spouse needs stability, but I am in a dying community, and I don’t see as if we have any choice, or there is any way out of here.”

“My spouse (the rabbi) was asked to give a large sum of money back to the congregation if he wants to keep his job.  We’re being blackmailed.”

“I live in Shmini Atzeret, seventy-five miles, from a city. Can you refer me to a good psychiatrist whose office is close by?”

“Do I inform my congregation about this psychiatric issue in my life? And if so, how do I go about it?”

“I should have called you a while ago.  Where do I begin?”

Ruth and I are just two colleagues here to assist CCAR members as you will see on the website under “Rabbis Caring for Rabbis.”  The prayer, As You Taught Torah continues, “Don’t let me struggle alone; help me to understand, to be wise, to listen, to know.  Lead me into the mystery, Baruch atah, Adonai, ohev amo Yisrael.”

Rabbi Seth Bernstein serves Congregation Bet Aviv in Columbia, MD

Categories
News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

Praying for Rain: Marriage Equality in North Carolina

As we move toward Sh’mini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, we begin to pray for rain.  We change from morid hatal to mashiv haruach umorid hagashem.  So this is a good time to recall that other outpouring called for by the prophet Amos: v’yigal kamayim mishpat utz’dakah k’nachal eitan, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Just before Shabbat, justice and righteousness began to roll down in North Carolina.  Earlier this year, the CCAR and several of our North Carolina colleagues joined in a litigation to challenge Amendment One, the prohibition on same sex marriage in the state.  Several other colleagues wanted to join but could not do so for technical legal reasons.  The challenge had two elements.  First, it claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution barred a state law that prohibited same sex couples from marrying.  Second, it claimed that, even if that ban was otherwise constitutional, it ran afoul of the First Amendment, in that it threatened clergy who performed religious-only same sex marriages with civil penalties.

Last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that overturned Virginia’s ban on same sex marriage on Fourteenth Amendment grounds.  Because the Fourth Circuit also covers North Carolina, that meant that, as Daniel would have understood, the handwriting was on the wall.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, who was hearing our case, ruled that Amendment One violated the Fourteenth Amendment and had to be struck down.  This meant that he never had to decide the First Amendment claim.  It also meant that starting Friday in some North Carolina counties, and Monday in others, registrars began to issue licenses for same sex couples to marry, and marriage ceremonies started to take place.  Yesterday, another federal judge in North Carolina came to the same conclusion in another case.  Marriage equality in North Carolina is now a reality.

TomAlpertI used to practice law and serve as the amicus brief coordinator for the CCAR.  This meant that I had the privilege of being involved in our decision to take part in this case.  When I read Judge Cogburn’s ruling, I felt pride that our CCAR leadership and our courageous rabbis helped bring about this change for the better.  The attorneys in this case donated their time, and I felt gratitude for them.  And as I read of couples finally being able to marry, I sensed the rush of righteousness all the way from North Carolina to my home in Massachusetts.  May we continue to be inundated with it as we pray for rain at this season.

Rabbi Thomas Alpert serves Temple Etz Chaim in Franklin, MA. He was ordained from the New York campus of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in 2000 after a previous career as a lawyer.

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High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh

A New Year, A New Experience: Leading my First High Holy Days with Mishkan HaNefesh

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.

Categories
Death Healing Mishkan haNefesh

You Turn my Mourning Into Dancing

Yizkor on Yom Kippur is … not about human frailty or the futility of human endeavors. Yizkor on Yom Kippur is about the power of others to affect us, about our power to affect others, about the power of the dead and the living to continue to affect each other. Yizkor on Yom Kippur is … not simply about remembering the dead, by about attempting to effect change in our relationships with the dead and thus to effect change in ourselves and in our relationships with those who are still among the living.

(Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig, in the CCAR Draft machzor, forthcoming 2015, Mishkan haNefesh, Yizkor service)

I’ve missed a number of days of Elul to blog because my father-in-law died last Wednesday. After his funeral in Florida on Friday morning, my wife and her sister returned to sit shiva at our home in Massachusetts. What happened over those days was a reflection of how love, healing, and change are truly what the rituals of remembrance are about and enable us to do. For those who joined us for multiple nights of shiva, the change that occurred over those days as memories and reflections were shared was quite evident and powerful for many.

Without sharing the specifics here, the journey we took was one that first confronted the past, and acknowledged the challenge of engaging with memory in the face of difficult relationships. Yet, with the honesty of needing to acknowledge the challenges, the blessings that emerged from those life experiences were also evident.  On the following night, more family members gathered and a broader range of perspectives and memories were shared. There were many moments of laughter. There was a release – the laughter not only lifted the weight of some of the challenging memories but also opened up the banks of memories that were positive and powerful. And so, by the third night, new stories had been laid bare and had risen to the surface. There were words of forgiveness, acceptance, and love.  By the fourth night, in a beautiful, spontaneous sharing and connecting of memories and reflections connected to the words of specific prayers as we davenned (prayed) the ma’ariv (evening) service, there was a sense of completeness. We were speaking of a life lived, and memories that we carry with us, but embedded into the heart of the tefilot that were so much a part of Mordecai’s being that, when advanced dementia had taken almost all else from him, davenning was the only activity that he could still do, in short bouts.

In the forthcoming CCAR machzor, Mishkan HaNefesh, we find a version of precisely how we did our remembrances on the last night of shiva.  We are offered 7 paths, where readings, psalms and reflective texts are woven around the 7 thematic blessings of the Tefilah, or Amidah prayer, the central prayer of our Shabbat and Festival liturgy.  There is an abundance of material – many, many years worth of exploration and contemplation. There is a clear recognition that everyone remembers differently. There are ways to remember children who died too young. There is a prayer in memory of a parent who was hurtful. There are words to remember one who died violently. There are words to remember dearly beloved ones. And so many more.

As we return to Yizkor, year after year, we do not necessarily have to engage in the memories in the same way. With the passage of time and the ways we remember, may we, as invited by Rabbi Wenig in the reflection above, find the possibility to change our relationships with the dead and thus effect change in ourselves and in our relationships with those who are still among the living.

Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz serves Congregation Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough, MA. She dedicates this blog post to the memory of Mordecai Lavow, her father-in-law.

 

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Machzor Mishkan haNefesh Prayer

Buying Forgiveness on Credit

Avinu Malkeinu – one of the central prayers associated with the High Holy Days. I remember a congregant in my last community commenting on how uncomfortable she felt reciting the long list of ‘asks’ that this prayer contains:

Avinu Malkeinu – listen to our voice!
Avinu Malkeinu – let our hands overflow with Your blessings.
Avinu Malkeinu – do not turn us away from You with nothing.
Avinu Malkeinu – listen to our voice; treat us with tender compassion.


On and on it goes – these are just a sampling of the lines. My congregant asked, ‘Isn’t this the ultimate act of chutzpah? What right do we have to make these demands of God?’

She had a good point. And it reminded me of a story that I once heard Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi z”l tell. He describes a time when you would go to the General Store and you’d ask the shopkeeper behind the counter, ‘Can I have a ball of string?’ and the shopkeeper would go to the shelves behind the counter and bring down a ball of string. ‘Can I have a yard of cloth?’ ‘Can I have a dozen cans of this’ and ‘half a dozen boxes of that’.  So it would continue, and the shopkeeper would pull down all the items on your order list and pile them on the counter. At the end he would calculate the total bill. And, embarrassed but hopeful, the man would respond, ‘I don’t have any money to pay you, but may I take these items that I need nevertheless?!’

You can imagine how that would go in real life. But at the end of Avinu Malkeinu, we acknowledge as much in the closing line:

Avinu Malkeinu, chonainu vaaneinu, ki ein banu maasim – aseh imanu tzedakah vachesed, v’hoshieinu.
Avinu Malkeinu, Almighty and Merciful – answer us with grace, for our deeds our wanting. Save us through acts of justice and love.
(translation from the forthcoming CCAR machzor, Mishkan HaNefesh)

We ask for the response to our pleas to come as an act of grace. That’s not language that we are used to associating with Judaism, but it is, in fact, very present in our liturgy and many of our teachings. Ki ein banu maasim – because there isn’t anything in our deeds.  We showed up to the store without any money to pay for our requests.

Here is how I translate these words into more contemporary concepts that speak to our inner lives. When I really engage in the work of the High Holy Days and look deeply at myself, there is plenty to cause me disappointment. We are often pretty harsh judges of ourselves. And here we are, in an act of chutzpah, hoping that life will be good anyway. That we will be forgiven for our failings. Can we give to others what we ask for ourselves? Can we respond to others from a place of grace? We go to the store without credit, but one of the ways we can acquire credit is by paying it forward.

Living more of life with that awareness we understand that only through acts of tzedakah and chesed can we change the meaning of our lives. Its not about what we have or haven’t got. A lot of life ‘just happens’; we like to think we are in control, but that’s seldom the reality. So we’re never going to be able to ‘pay’ for our fate through our deeds. Because it doesn’t really work that way. Acting morally doesn’t buy us more life, but it does enable us to practice and to receive forgiveness because it gives us the tools we need to be authentically remorseful and try to make amends when we mess up. And that is the answer, from a place of grace, that we seek.  Remind us, as we pray, that we can change the quality of our existence, and the existence of others, through our acts. This is how salvation comes to this life and this world.

Avinu Malkeinu – our deeds are wanting; help us to do a little bit more in the year to come.

 Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz serves Congregation Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough, MA.

Categories
High Holy Days Mishkan haNefesh Prayer

Blessings are Expressions of Gratitude

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.

Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz serves Congregation Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough, MA.

Categories
Books High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh Prayer Rabbis Reform Judaism

Hin’ni: The First Step Into the High Holy Day Pulpit

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.

mishkan_hanefesh_520x250I 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.

Categories
High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh Prayer

To Be – I Am Alive Again: Further Reflections on Mishkan HaNefesh

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.

Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz serves Congregation Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough, MA.

 

Categories
Death Healing Rabbis

Mussar for Rabbis – Bitachon (Trust), Life, and Death

“Rabbi, I wouldn’t want your job,” congregants have often said to me, most often in connection with the rabbi’s proximity to death.  My response often surprises people:  “Being with those who are dying, and with families coping with the death of a loved one, is actually the most meaningful part of being a rabbi for me.”

Make no mistake:  The rabbi is not immune from feelings of sadness in the midst of mourners.  Having served more than two decades in one community, and now forging meaningful bonds in a new one, I frequently experience real personal loss at the death of a person who has become dear to me.

Still, the well-boundaried rabbi does not become consumed by grief at the death of a congregant.  With true caring for the person who is dying, or who has died, and for the family, the rabbi can play a unique role to bring healing.  The rabbi can leverage the liminal moment to draw people closer to the congregation, to the Covenant, and to God.  Most importantly, the rabbi can convey authentic faith, which I have come to understand most importantly as the middah of bitachon (the soul-trait of trust), thanks to my learning with Alan Morinis.

In significant measure, I take my cue from the Christian funeral, a comment I make in the context of a witticism I often share about Jews attending a Christian funeral:

A group of Jews gets in the car after a Christian funeral, after offering condolences to the family and kind, if not entirely sincere, words to the minister or priest.  The car windows are rolled up.  I have been in this car.  “Geez,” one person exclaims, “I thought we were going to Ploni’s funeral.  But I didn’t hear hardly anything about Ploni! Did we just attend Jesus’s funeral?”

Naturally, the Christian service doesn’t resonate to Jews.  We don’t share the theology proclaimed there.  We are not imbued with faith that Ploni has found the blessings of life eternal because of his/her relationship with Jesus.  That Christian funeral does not inspire bitachon (trust) in us.

IMG_2309The question remains, though:  Do our own funerals offer faith and hope to us and to our own people?

In our own day, people often ask why rabbis bother to give eulogies at all.  After all, family members are often eager to speak, and they knew the deceased better even than a rabbi who has shared a long relationship with the departed.  While I agree that the loving words of familial mourners are meaningful, and certainly called for (as in Proverbs 31), the rabbi can fill a role that most family members cannot.

I minister to dying individuals and their families, and I craft each eulogy, with a clear, rabbinical goal in mind:  I am there to offer bitachon, trust, despite the unhappy circumstance before us, that:

1) Life is an inestimable gift from God, exemplified by the life now ending or ended.  The dying or recently deceased person has made an important impact on this world which will not soon be forgotten and is indisputably not erased by death.

2) We who yet live can keep this person very much alive here on Earth by finding our own ways to live our dear one’s values.  I suggest that this responsibility to a person’s immortality on Earth is what we mean when we say that we are reciting Kaddish “for” somebody.  Literally, the Kaddish is an opportunity to praise God on behalf of one who no longer can do so.  We may interpret our Kaddish obligation more broadly as a duty to perform mitzvot, to offer cheesed (loving-kindness,) and tzedakah (righteous charitable giving), and/or to continue shalshelet hakabalah (the chain of Jewish tradition) on behalf of the one who no longer can do so, thereby granting immortality in this world.

3) Life after death for the departed in the World to Come is also a meaningful part of our Jewish faith.  This is the hard part, for countless reasons, not the least being that any honest discussion of Jewish theology in this regard doesn’t fit into a eulogy.   Still, I affirm that even poetic, oblique reference to eternal life in God’s embrace offers faith and hope that our funerals might otherwise fail to convey.

Serving my congregants at their times of greatest spiritual need, I have come to realize, has bolstered my own bitachon, my own ultimate trust in the Eternal.  Death is a difficult aspect of the human condition, from which rabbis are not exempt.  Striving to help others face death with faith serves as a constant reminder to me:  I must pursue tikkun middot, the repair of my own flaws, to deepen the meaning of my own earthly existence; I am charged to recall the goodness of my grandparents, of blessed memory, by striving to “say Kaddish” for them through my own actions; and I would do well to remember that I, too, am “but dust and ashes,” my body destined for the cemetery, my soul in the hands of God, a prospect I increasingly accept with bitachon, with faithful trust.

Rabbi Barry Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, AR.