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Machzor Blog: Cosmic Forgiveness

Somewhere between the tablet and the Tablet, there was a primitive invention known as the Etch A Sketch. You could take your mistakes, give them a hearty shake, and they were gone. A clean slate; you could start over. Unfortunately, all the brilliant, artistic work that you had created was also gone.

Teshuvah involves a certain amount of being shaken up. I do not imagine that I can keep all the neat lines of my life in place and just reset the one wrong turn. But, I do get to create another sketch of my life, another map of where I want to go.

We all understand that there is a limit to how much shaking a person can take. If you smash the Etch A Sketch on the ground, you won’t be able to make anything with it. Oh, but most of us are much more likely to think, “I don’t have to shake it that hard. Just a little nudge. Maybe I can just move that one line of my life…”

Real change requires a stronger push. Which leads me to wonder: just what are we asking God to do when we pray for forgiveness? What does it mean to say “S’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kaper lanu?”

One thing I am pretty certain of is that it does not mean three different things, as if God subjects us to three different processes. We relate to the expression “s’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kaper lanu” as a kind of collective statement of our longing. It is poetic, not descriptive of God’s actions. It is three shakes, because one will not do.

In fact, I can’t accept that God actually “does” anything, in a transitive sense, to us. Just what do we imagine is happening in this selichah-mechilah-kaparah process? That God resets something? That we hand over the Etch A Sketch of our lives to God on an annual basis and plead “Please be gentle when you shake us?”

 The translation “forgive us, pardon us, help us atone” seems to be an attempt to modify the traditional theology, but only partly. Where Gates of Repentance said “grant us atonement,” a parallel to God forgiving us and pardoning us, the draft Machzor asks God to “help us atone,” implying that the real action is being done by us. At least, the action in the third verb, because the first two verbs still frame the action as taking place on God’s side.

 I have no objection to the translation; just an observation about the direction toward which the language points us.

When the rabbis wrote “kaper lanu,” they must have been thinking about the atoning power of sacrifice, and asking God to apply that same grace to us, even though the sacrificial altar is gone.

That’s just not how I think of God. I embrace the poetry of “s’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kaper lanu,” but not because it describes an action that God undertakes vis a vis us.

I long for cosmic forgiveness. What’s more, I believe it is possible. Not an insincere forgetfulness of the past, but an honest return to the position of possibility. If anything, teshuvah ought to mean that we do not forget what we have done. Rather, we have learned from it, and, as a consequence, no longer attach emotional weight to our past errors. I remember where I drew that line, and I won’t make that same mistake again.

 Longing for cosmic forgiveness is not the same as a plea to God to remake us. I would like to say that this is somehow rational, but I know that it is not. Rather, it is a question of the starting point of prayer. Laying words upon words is itself a kind of sketch; not a request for God to shake it all clean, but the careful beginning of a new drawing of our lives.

I am willing to live with the ambiguity of outward-directed prayer for what I know must ultimately be an inward process. But forgiveness seems to me to be among the most transcendent, precious and rare experiences we can know. If I am fortunate enough to acquire a clean slate, I experience that as a gift. It is the way that we experience transformative moments in our lives that imparts meaning to our prayers. Prayer is not an assertion about reality, but a way of giving expression to our deepest hopes. God may not actually forgive, but I know what cosmic forgiveness feels like.

 Rabbi Laurence Elis Milder, Ph.D., is the Reform rabbi of the American Hebrew Academy in Greensboro, NC.

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

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Moving Trucks, Pallets, and the Jewish Future

Things I never thought my rabbinic school education would prepare me to do:

  1. Study sales figures on spread sheets
  2. Spend time considering the merits of 50 # or 60# paper
  3. Ask questions like “how many pallets will fit on the loading dock?”
  4. Regularly use terms like kerning, analytics, DRM (digital rights management) or FOB (freight on board).

As rabbis, we all have similar lists, even if the details are different. In the course of our careers, we’ve all acquired practical skills for which our pastoral and text-based educations did not prepare us.

Right now CCAR Press is in the process of a move from one warehouse to another. Carefully moving hundreds of pallets holding thousands of books, as well as all the associated customer and sales data, is no small task. The move itself has been preceded by months of planning, preparation and negotiations.  As you can imagine, there have been many meetings. Many, many meetings. We are eternally grateful to our wonderful, pro-bono lawyers from Proskauer and Rose.

The level of detail involved is staggering. Luckily the CCAR is blessed with a great team of staff members working hard to track all the details and put everything in place, from the categorization of customer types to the transfer of AR data to establishing the discount schedule to writing the wording that will go out on order confirmation emails. Like all of us, there are those moments when I jokingly say: and for this I went to rabbinic school?

photo-30Yet just like any rabbi who spends time rearranging chairs in the sanctuary, there’s a bigger end goal here. It’s not about the chairs or the trucks or the spreadsheets, it’s about what we do in order to fulfill our mission and plan for the future.  The point of this warehouse move isn’t to become a specialist in sales, fulfillment, and distribution. All of this work of transferring pallets and boxes and data is really about providing rabbis, cantors, educators, chaplains, congregants, and students with the material they need.  What drives all of this is the core mission of the CCAR:

The CCAR enriches and strengthens the Jewish community by empowering Reform Rabbis to provide religious, spiritual and organizational leadership as it:

      • Fosters excellence in Reform Rabbis
      • Enhances Reform Rabbis’ professional and personal lives
      • Amplifies the voice of the Reform Rabbinate in the Reform Movement, the Jewish community and the world in which we live.

The CCAR Press supports the overall mission of the CCAR buy providing high quality publications for our members and for the Jewish community. Moving to a better, more up-to-date, efficient warehouse is thus one piece of the How, not the What.

We all know change doesn’t happen in an instant – there will surely be some bumps on the road as we transition to new software and processes. Converting to a new on-line ordering system is going to take some time.  But we are sure that once it’s all properly in place, we will be able to serve our customers much better than we have been able to do up to now.

We also know that the balance is shifting from traditional p-books (printed books) to newer forms of content transmission.  There is much we are doing everyday to meet these ever-changing needs.  We now offer e-books for various devices, PDF downloads and apps, and will continue to offer more and more every year.  In the meantime, many people still want p-books, especially for liturgical purposes, and so we must house them somewhere and ship them out somehow.

All of us in the Jewish world are thinking about the Jewish future.  How can we best prepare for the needs of the future?  How can we meet the challenges of the future?  What skills should we be learning?  What questions should we be asking?  What changes should we be making?  Here at the Press, this warehouse move is one way that we’re working on building the Jewish future, by improving the way that we provide you with the resources that you will use to strengthen, teach, unify, and inspire the Jewish community.  This is especially important as we begin to plan for the printing, ordering, and shipping of Mishkan HaNefesh, the new CCAR Machzor.  As our trucks load up and pull out onto the highway, taking Mishkan T’filah and all our other publications to their new, state-of-the-art home, they’re carrying our future on those pallets.

 Rabbi Hara Person is the Publisher of CCAR Press. 

Find some good bargains at our Clean-Out-the-Warehouse Sale, 3 days only!

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Books Machzor Prayer Reform Judaism

Machzor Blog: Controversy For the Sake of Heaven

IMG_3949What do you we think people should want to hear rabbis speak about on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur?  Do they want to be comforted and soothed – reminded of the power of hope, the possibility of happiness or finding the means to peace? Or do they wish to be aroused and challenged by the brokenness in the world, the myriad needs of the Jewish community and the wrongdoing in their lives?

 The insight of one of my teachers in rabbinic school was that a rabbi’s job is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”  Most people I’ve met are fine with the first half of the dictum, but every year I hear from people who don’t want to come to services to be disturbed.  It reminds me of a joke about a new rabbi who sought advice from the synagogue Board about what she should talk about for her first High Holy Days.

 The president said, “Talk about something to do with being Jewish.”

“Great,” the rabbi replied, “I’ll talk about Shabbat.”

“Maybe not,” one Board member offered, “A lot of our members don’t observe Shabbat. They might take offense.”

“How about talking about Israel?” the rabbi offered.

 “What?!”, said several on the Board, “Do you want to create controversy the first time you speak? We have people here with such different ideas about Israel.”

“All right, I’ll talk about why people should study Torah more for themselves, not just send their children to Religious school,” said the rabbi.

“I don’t know,” some trustees said, “Why make people feel bad about what they don’t do.”

“In that case, what should I talk about?”

“Rabbi, just talk about being Jewish.”

IMG_4029Each person has different yearnings and needs for what they seek during the Days of Awe. Every one of us seeks both comfort and challenge, to be put at ease and goaded to action.  It is likely that at some point on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur you will hear a prayer, music or teaching you do not like, troubles you or challenges what you believe.  Instead of lashing out against those who offer a different point of view, use the strong feelings you have as a motivation for further reflection, conversation and respectful debate.

You do not need a rabbi or prayer to provoke you. Indeed, this is a time when our souls should be stirred. The weeks before and during the Days of Awe are a time for deep, inner, spiritual reflection. Honest self-appraisal (חשבון הנפש) cannot help but confront us with challenging questions. Have I been honest about my faults? Have done all I could for others?  Am I the man or woman I want to be? Is the person others see truly the person I am? What do I hide from others – and why?  Indeed, if you come to the synagogue expecting to be moved, but take no time before or during services for true self-reflection, the point of these days will be lost.  The goal is not to feel that we are bad. Rather, the purpose of these days is to become the best we can be and to seek a world that ought to be.

The Days of Awe, then, are inherently meant to trouble and disturb, to uproot and challenge. This is not, however, controversy for its own sake, but for the sake of Heaven. Such debate, our sages teach, will endure (Pirkei Avot 5:17).  May it be a time of good and blessing, but also one that forces us all to face the hard truths and unmet needs of our lives, our families, our people and the world. 

Rabbi Irwin A. Zeplowitz serves the Community Synagogue in Port Washington, NY.

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

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Machzor Blog: The Holy Days? Yup, It’s Time…

CloudsOur congregants usually know a good bit about the link between a Pesach Seder and freedom, that to be in a sukkah is to celebrate the beauty and fragility of our lives in nature, and that we honor bravery and frivolity on Purim, dedication and faith on Chanukah.  When asked about the High Holy Days, most know to focus on what it means to begin again with a New Year, to pray for the future of our world and community, and to do soul searching work in our strivings to try again to hit the mark.

Why is it that on these Holy Days our synagogues are full to overflowing – do they come just to observe the New Year and repent in public?  It is true; they gain strength in connection to one another and find comfort in doing the sacred work with others. I know that many of us lead great worship – but that can’t be the reason so many show up.  The cynic in me could say it’s because they’re “supposed to.”  But I have to believe that some are coming because they are searching for God. 

What kind of God, I don’t know – and perhaps they don’t know either.  But if they might not always articulate it, during the Holy Days our people are looking for a deeper understanding of God.  Our liturgy is certainly focused precisely on God – more so than the other holidays we celebrate; prayer after prayer, kavanah after kavanah, vidui after vidui.  Many of my congregants will tell me that they don’t believe, or that they believe in something more general and of the “spirit” — still they come and sit through hours of recitation, song, and sermon – all of which are focused on God.

What does this mean for us cantors and rabbis?  We often get so caught up in the choreography and the theatre, the seamless cues and flawless singing, the profound yet intimate sermons and reflective iyunim – that we forget that our congregants need tools to find their way to the Divine.  Do we as clergy focus enough on the challenges and opportunities we all have with the God of this liturgy?  Do we give our congregants the tools to dig deep into the realm of belief and faith?

They come to us with questions, even if not openly articulated: If God created this world, on this New Year, why is it so broken?  If God asked Abraham to sacrifice his beloved one, is the pain that I experience in life to be considered a sacrifice as well?  How can I be written into the Book of Life if I do not “believe” in the way I think I’m supposed to believe?  

We, as clergy, always find the timing of the Holy Days difficult (but they’re always right on time) – perhaps our frustration is also with the fact that we don’t have ample time to teach about these Days, to dig deep, to study the rituals and texts, to examine Un’taneh Tokef and B’rosh haShanah yikateivun – how can we live with such a powerful God, and still hear the kol d’ma’ma daka? 

IMG_2568The High Holy Days get lost in the shuffle of summer’s transition into fall.  We should use them as an opportunity to directly engage in a conversation about God, and the new machzor may be the tool with which we can initiate these conversations with our congregations: Conversations about belief, faith, and the different pathways to, and expressions of God in our lives. 

A few years ago Rabbi Rachel Cowan spoke to the Commission for Worship, Music and Religious Living, and reflected on the fact that many congregants don’t feel comfortable talking about God – they assume we, their clergy, have the God thing all figured out and therefore are embarrassed that they don’t and don’t know how to ask us.  Maybe now is the time to begin these conversations using the unique texts of our Machzor as our guide and facilitator.  Let’s begin again.

Cantor Rosalie Boxt is the cantor of DC-area Temple Emanuel in Kensington, Maryland, is the Director of Worship for the 2013 URJ Biennial, serves as a member of the URJ Adjunct Faculty and is on the faculty of Hava Nashira.  She is a past vice-president of the ACC, and serves on the Executive Committee of the URJ Kutz Camp.

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

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Machzor Blog: Waiting All Day for Yizkor

imagesThe hour of the day is late, but the seats in my congregation on Yom Kippur are full.  It is time for Yizkor, and despite the exhaustion and hunger draining us all, everyone is all here.  Many have been waiting all day – some, all year – just for this moment.

When I was a newly ordained rabbi, I had a hard time understanding Yizkor.  I had not experienced death or loss as an adult, thank God, and the power of Yizkor was a mystery to me.  I tried putting on the airs of a knowing wise rabbi, tried to put on my best well-modulated rabbinic voice as I conducted the service, but, honestly, Yizkor was an awkward hour for me.  Today, I can’t say I have any great chochmah about the mysteries of death and mourning much more now, but 15 years later, I do know some of my own losses.  I have sat with many more grieving people, held their loss with them, and shared their pain.  And as I grow older myself, I see the arc of my own life and, more and more, can project how, one day, it will reach its conclusion.  Like the rest of Yom Kippur, Yizkor is our ritual to help us confront our true doubts and fears about life.  As much as ever, we need our Machzor to be an effective tool to help us shape a meaningful Yizkor.

The poetry and readings of Yizkor in the old Gates of Repentance have taught me a great deal.   Their words echo in my mind throughout the year: “Scarcely ushered into life, we begin our journey to the grave…”  “If some messenger were to come to us with the offer that death should be overthrown, but with the condition that birth should also cease…”  “In the rising of the sun and in its going down…”  Gates of Repentance did set the stage for my generation of rabbis by teaching us what Yizkor could mean, how it could affect our lives.

And yet, updates are needed for the new machzor.  The Yizkor of Gates of Repentance (GoR) is crammed too full with words, at least for me.  It feels at times like a dry desert of words, when we need a spiritual pool to immerse in.  It still dwells too much on the martyrdom of the Holocaust, especially at its climactic moments.  The Psalms traditionally found in Yizkor are treated more like obligations than opportunities.  But music is critically important to the power of Yizkor.  The occasions for music in the GoR are almost all from the Classical, composed set, and very formal.   Elegant though they are, I believe today’s congregations appreciate more contemporary music, or music that is paired-down, even at Yizkor, and it would be helpful to have texts that facilitate this kind of music.  I fell in love with the Carlebach “HaNeshamah Lach” in GoR (page 485), and I thirst for more musical opportunities like this in the new Mishkan HaNefesh (the new machzor).  We might even ask:  Can the pages of a machzor encourage the use of niggunim?

IMG_4107Another note: The 23rd Psalm presents its own challenges, because the King James language is so well-known and beloved, but gendered, and the more modern gender-neutral versions are so clumsy (including, in my opinion, the recent attempts by the CCAR).   Leading a recent shiva minyan from Mishkan T’filah for a House of Mourning, I encountered quizzical looks and puzzled faces when we reached the new translation of the 23rd Psalm; the spell of the moment was broken by its awkwardness.  (“Where did ‘the valley of the Shadow of Death’ go?” one person wondered, let down by the new language.)

But the best words I speak on Yom Kippur are at Yizkor when I am simply silent, and just sit down.  A few years ago, I found instructions for a guided meditation at Yizkor that invites the congregation to re-experience their lost ones again, asking them to hear their voices, feel their touch, imagine the words they would share were they to encounter them once again.  We need the white space on the page to offer this experience at Yizkor.  More important than the words of prayer, the Machzor can facilitate our true experience of prayer.

Grief is very often accompanied by intense loneliness.  Sometimes on Yizkor I think the members of our congregations experience it in isolation, even in a crowded Sanctuary.  Our Conservative colleague Rabbi Harold Kushner writes that “the primary message of the twenty-third Psalm is not that bad things will not happen to us.  It is that we will never have to face those bad things alone, ‘for Thou art with me.’”  Although each person’s loss is personal and unique, often beyond expression, if the new Machzor could somehow build bridges among us all during Yizkor, and if it could help us feel that indeed we are not all alone, we would all be stronger.

Rabbi Andy Vogel is the rabbi at Temple Sinai in Brookline, MA, a 300-family congregation.  He was ordained at HUC-JIR in New York in 1998, and is a member of the Machzor poetry committee.

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

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Welcoming the New Machzor: Ideas for Purchasing and Engagement


MHaNefesh webAt our congregation in Atlanta, we have already made our arrangements to purchase the new Machzor – Mishkan HaNefesh – even though it won’t be ready until Rosh HaShanah, 2015. Why? First and foremost – this innovative Machzor will be transformative for our congregation.We have piloted drafts of the Machzor, and are excited to have the real thing in our hands for the High Holy Days.

But we are also making the necessary arrangements to welcome the Machzor into our congregation because the savings are simply too good to pass up! For congregations and institutions that make a 25% deposit by April 1, 2014– the double volume (one for Rosh Hashanah and another – a different color – for Yom Kippur) will cost only $25.20/ set. This is a 40% savings from the list price. That gives us all plenty of time to consider the manner in which we will pay for our new Machzorim.

CCAR has worked very hard to keep the cost of the Machzor as low as possible, and as close as possible to that of Mishkan T’filah. The decision to divide the book into two volumes is a direct response to feedback from Mishkan T’filah. With this kind of a large project, so much goes into the development of the material that whether it is bound in one or two volumes factors very little into the cost and is not reflected in the pricing.

Regardless, buying new prayerbooks is surely a challenge for most of our congregations and communities. But there are creative ways to make it possible. As you begin that journey, I offer the following possibilities:

For congregations in which individual members purchase their own prayerbooks:

 • Consider including the price of the Machzor in High Holy Day materials for 2013 or 2014.

 • Include the price of the Machzor on the dues statement for one year, at the beginning of the fiscal year.

 • Purchase the Machzorim, and sell them to members at the list price or higher as a fundraiser (for example, $36 or $50); use the income to purchase more Machzorim or other siddurim, such as Mishkan T’filah for the House of Mourning.

 For Congregations in which the synagogue purchases, stores, and keeps the prayerbooks:

 • Consider moving unrestricted endowment funds into a restricted prayerbook fund.

 • Find a donor to purchase the books, and put a book plate acknowledging that donation, or find 5-10 donors at a smaller level, acknowledging each in a book plate.

 • Allocate funds from the synagogue budget over the next three years.

 • Invite affiliate groups, such as Women of Reform Judaism or Men of Reform Judaism, to help manage or raise funds for the project.

 • Combine forces with a Kol Nidrei appeal (allow a check off for one or multiple Machzorim, which is not a big increase over whatever else someone is able to donate).

 • Hold a gala dinner (honor someone if you prefer), and sell bookplates instead of a tribute book.

 • Sell bookplates over the course of 1-2 years.

 • Allocate funds from annual events, such as Purim Carnival or Chanukah Bazaar to a Machzor fund.

 A final note: I have found that the best way to “sell” the Machzor is to “engage” with the Machzor. To that end, consider the following:

 • Consider piloting one of the High Holy Day services (Erev Rosh Hashanah, Rosh Hashanah, Erev Yom Kippur, Yom Kippur, Yom Kippur Minchah, Yizkor).

 • Incorporate poems, prayers, and readings into divrei Torah, Board Meetings, Shabbat services, bulletin articles, etc. (permission from CCAR requested).

 • Invite a member of the editorial committee to have a Skype conversation with your Board or Ritual committee.

 • Include links to RavBlog (Ravblog.ccarnet.org) – CCAR’s blog, featuring Machzor related posts – in your synagogue newsletter. Invite your members to subscribe to the CCAR blog so they can be part of the process.

 • Offer learning opportunities related to the Machzor using materials from Machzor: Challenge and Change, a resource pack of materials on Machzor themes.

For more information on ordering Machzorim, engaging your constituency, or participating in piloting, please send a note to Machzor@ccarnet.org or feel free to email me at pberg@thetemple.org.

Learn more about the new CCAR Machzor.

Rabbi Peter Berg is the Senior Rabbi at The Temple, in Atlanta, Georgia, and is the CCAR Membership Liaison to the Machzor Editorial Team.

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Machzor Blog: Parades and Prayer Books – Considering the Music in the New CCAR Machzor

Many years ago, even before I thought of attending cantorial school, I applied for a job with Macy’s department store in New York City to be an associate in the 346036616_640
division responsible for the Thanksgiving parade. As part of the interview process, I was told how planning for the parade goes on year–round, with the next year’s parade preparation beginning the day after the current parade concludes. The giant helium balloons are just barely in their crates, the marching bands aren’t even back on their planes, and the Thanksgiving festivities are being organized for the next year!

For many of us who lead services, the planning of High Holidays is a similar venture. True, there are no marching bands and giant helium filled balloons, but the preparation for these Yamim Noraim– the Days of Awe – is a continuous, ongoing process. As a cantor, I am constantly reviewing new music, thinking of new liturgical possibilities, and along with the rabbis envisioning how to bring the message of the High Holidays to our community in ways that will enrich all of our lives and touch our souls.

One of the challenges cantors face in the planning of our High Holiday services is the incredible wealth of musical material from which to choose. The palette of 991091
Jewish music is ever widening and broadening as each year new compositions are composed. One of our roles as shalichei tzibur – messengers of the congregation- is to determine which musical settings of our prayers meet our needs and the congregation’s in best portraying the text. An ongoing question as I
prepare for the High Holidays is: “Does this setting of this particular prayer meet the specific needs of my community at this moment in the liturgical arc of the High Holidays?” This requires that I cull through many musical settings of these prayers always attempting to find balance between tradition and modernity, contemporary music and Mi Sinai tunes, the familiar and the unknown.

At the present time, I serve as the cantorial representative to the CCAR’s editorial committee for a new High Holiday machzor. This new High Holiday prayer book will feature substantial changes from Gates of Repentance and is the first High Holiday prayer book written for the Reform Jewish community in over a generation. Based on the layout of Mishkan Tefillah, the new machzor features the now familiar multi-vocal approach to prayer by featuring Hebrew text, an English translation, interpretations of the prayer, and in many cases additional explanation and illumination. The new CCAR machzor not only presents modern interpretations of many of the High Holiday prayers, but it also includes many traditional ancient and medieval liturgical poems (piyyutim). As a member of this committee, I am constantly aware of not only of the theology and philosophy presented by the editors and authors of this new machzor, but I try to imagine what will the services actually sound like. As part of this project I wonder: How does the addition of new text and new prayers affect the sound, the music, and the melody of the High Holidays? Are we as cantors prepared to meet the musical, artistic, and liturgical challenges that a decidedly 21st century machzor proposes?

An illustration of these very real challenges is manifest in the presentation of the text for Avinu Malkeinu. Gates of Repentance includes some of its verses, but the new machzor attempts to include more of the traditional text as it informs the liturgical and theological movement from Rosh HaShanah through Yom Kippur. How will we adapt the much loved and familiar setting of Max Janowski’s Avinu Malkeinu to a new machzor, for example?

Listen Listen1

Will this traditional interpretation of Avinu Malkeinu fulfill our needs as a community of worshippers alongside contemporary interpretations of the same prayer?

Listen Listen2

Will comparatively new settings of Avinu Malkeinu better serve our needs as a congregation as they present a different view of the text?

Listen Listen3

Perhaps an Avinu Malkeinu that mixes traditional melody with contemporary harmonies will be an Avinu Malkeinu that provides the mystery and majesty we seek during these Days of Awe.

Listen Listen4

We as a community of clergy and congregants need to not only explore the musical settings currently available, but we need to encourage a new generation of composers to share with us their interpretations of our hallowed prayers. The new CCAR machzor will pose both considerable and exciting challenges to our High Holiday worship, and as a community we will meet these challenges by re-imagining tradition while considering the new. As we look forward to publication of the new machzor perhaps the words of Rav Kook may serve to guide us: “May the old become new and may the new become holy.”

  1. Avinu Malkeinu, by Max Janowski. Sung by Cantor Lisa Levine. From Gems of the High Holy Days.
  2. Avinu Malkeinu, traditionalmelody, arranged by Elliot Z. Levine. Sung by The Western Wind with Cantor Alberto Mizrahi. The Birthday of The World, Part II: Yom Kippur (WW 1872).
  3. Avinu Malkeinu. Composed and sung by Cantor Meir Finkelstein. From Sh’ma Koleinu.
  4. Avinu Malkeinu. Composed and sung by Cantor Ramon Tasat. From Teshuva Liturgical Explorations for the Days of Awe.

Cantor Evan Kent, a 1988 graduate of the HUC Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, has been the cantor at Temple Isaiah for twenty-five years.  Evan is also on the faculty of HUC-LA and is a doctoral candidate at Boston University where he is studying how music at Jewish summer camps helps to inform Jewish identity. In July 2013, Evan and his husband, Rabbi Donald Goor, will be fulfilling a life-long dream of making aliyah to Jerusalem.

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

This blog post appeared previously on the URJ Ten Minutes of Torah.

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Books General CCAR Prayer Reform Judaism

Machzor Blog: “I’m Not A Sheep”

IMG_0361“Please Dad, tell them I’m not a sheep.” Those were my teenage daughter’s parting words to me as I attended the first “Think Tank” in 2008 for creating a new machzor for our movement. All invited to that meeting were asked to reflect upon what we wanted to see in our new High Holy Day liturgy and convene congregants in advance to glean ideas as to what was meaningful and problematic in their worship experience.

What a challenge it is for the machzor editors to be responsive to numerous perspectives, while being faithful to Jewish tradition and creative in the spirit of Reform Judaism! Based upon the pilot editions, I believe they are definitely on the right track. Our congregation experienced both, the Rosh HaShanah morning service during a mock Yuntif service in April, serving apples and honey for flavor and we incorporated the Yom Kippur afternoon service into our actual worship this past fall. Many of the suggestions from that original Think Tank are incorporated into the draft editions. Let me be more specific.

Our congregation enjoys Mishkan T’filah. Having the traditional prayer, transliterations, creative alternatives and commentaries to enhance our High Holy Day GalaApplesHoney2
worship experience was desired. One of my members offered that just as a child likes to hear the same story read repeatedly, as a comforting part of bedtime ritual, he/she also likes different books. So too, our machzor needs to offer customary spiritually nurturing opportunities, whether through spoken word, Torah text or musical expression. Faithful translations that attempt to be literally and poetically correct invite access to tradition, along with creative alternatives, which add perspective. There is still a challenge to be careful lest a “contemporary” prayer be appropriate for 2013, but irrelevant 20-30 years from now. I am recalling the “coal miner’s prayer” from the UPB and Vietnam War era references in Gates of Repentance.

All will agree that Avinu Malkeinu is one of the central prayers of the High Holy Day experience. The cadence of reading and the melody that Moshe Rabbeinu whispered to Max Janowski are expected by our worshippers. Offering paths to the familiar, along with creative expressions is critical and our editors have done that.

But altering the Shofar service by scattering its three sections strategically throughout the service? What’s that all about? Going into the process, my members looked forward to creative, perhaps even radical thinking in the spirit and tradition of Reform Judaism to be part of the process. Much to my surprise, when we piloted Rosh Hashanah and experienced the new format, it met with almost universal positive reaction. Should this change become permanent, the first year will be a shock. The second year will be a bit disconcerting and by the third it will be Reform tradition.

Annually as the Holy Days approach, colleagues on line ask about Yom Kippur afternoon alternatives to Gates of Repentance. So I was delighted to pilot the service in that time slot this past year. Though we did not read Torah, a simultaneous study group, led by Rabbi Barbara Metzinger resonated to the teachings in Leviticus 18, which suggests that our people are open to Torah text diversity. One desire expressed by my members from 2008 was to focus on Jewish values. Having the middot allowed us to learn and grow, as well as creating the feel of what is typical during Shabbat. The two worship experiences should be different, but not completely.

 Our group wanted the editors to deal with the word “sin.” I know they are still struggling with how to best translate chet. So far they are not wrong, but may have missed the mark.

Finally, there are many theological issues to creating a liturgy that leaves room for the spectrum from customary beliefs to extreme doubt, as reflected by my microcosm of the movement. Some reject the words of Unetaneh Tokef and no matter how much you provide in teaching or metaphorical form, it does not fly. Still, others embrace it. Alternative theological opportunities abound in the early editions. But, alas my dear daughter, “We are Your flock; You are our shepherd.” is still to be found, but maybe, if you ask nicely, the rabbi may elect to read the Nelly Sachs poem on the other side of the page.


Bob Loewy is rabbi at Congregation Gates of Prayer in Metairie, LA since 1984, currently serves as Program Vice President for the CCAR and grew up in the Reform movement.

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

 

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Books General CCAR Prayer Reform Judaism

Machzor Blog: The Rhythm of the Page

The rhythm for the conversation was clear to me from the start.  As we began to pilot the new CCAR machzor, my congregation’s diverse volunteer group would discuss specific passages and the general tone. Topics would include the positioning of the Hebrew on the page and the very numbering of the pages.  I could predict the conversation’s rhythm, but not that our attention would be drawn to the very rhythm of certain pages.

The setting of the Al Cheit prayer was among those very pages.  Considering the list of sins in this prayer, we knew we would discuss content, but we also found ourselves pondering layout.  My congregants have been impressed equally by the machzor editors’ openness to considering items as diverse as the translation of Al Cheit Shechatanu and of the very rhythm of that prayer’s page.

Currently, most Reform synagogues use Gates of Repentance, first published in 1979 and updated in 1986.  I have had the honor of worshipping in over a dozen synagogues over the years, as a child, student, rabbi, and even just an adult worshipper.  The style of these synagogues has differed greatly in the music, the balance of Hebrew and English, and the general level of formality.  However, all of these Yom Kippur services have followed the basic rhythm for reciting Al Cheit, and some other prayers.  We have alternated the two languages

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continually down the page.  We have followed what I would call the “rhythm of the page,” whether we have read, sung, or alternated our way through Al Cheit. Sure, other prayerbooks, including the Reform Judaism’s earlier Union Prayer Book, don’t have this alternating rhythm.  Sure, there are Reform synagogues that don’t move back and forth between the two languages.  However, clearly what I have experienced is not uncommon.  Reform congregations tend to work our way through the prayer’s pattern by following the rhythm of the page.

The Al Cheit is a great window into the creative process of our editors.  At one early moment, we faced a very different rhythm of the page.  The page’s layout challenged our worship.  We could read or sing the Hebrew and then read or skip the English, but it was awkward to alternate in our familiar pattern.  My volunteers immediately understood one of the issues at play.  Our current machzor includes just Hebrew and English.  The pilot book juggles Hebrew, English, and transliterated Hebrew.  At one stage, the page presented itself as

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though in fuller form.  How might we balance these three aspects of the prayer on one page? How might we honor familiar modes of Reform Jewish worship? Yet, how might we challenge ourselves to pray in new ways?

How pleasant it was to discover a different, yet more familiar, rhythm of the same basic prayer in a later version of the machzor.  Here, all three versions of the words are included.  We preserve a layout that enables us to pray as we have for decades.  We are granted the opportunity to recite these prayers in other ways, if we so choose.  There is nothing sacred about a rhythm of

HEBREW       TRANSLITERATION

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However, there is something beloved and familiar.  Reform Jews have a remarkable ability to critique our very manner of worship.  Yet, those same worshippers enjoy a certain level of comfort in the practices of our synagogues.  A new machzor will encourage exciting new approaches and tones to our communal and personal prayers.  However, the editors of the ever-evolving CCAR machzor clearly are valuing the touchstones that shape our services. 

We can’t just talk about layout when developing a new machzor. We must also discuss the choices of what to include and how to translate each passage.  However, layout matters.  My congregation and I have learned that we are in search of a certain rhythm of a page, the very layout itself, that will enable us to connect and consider our lives as we recite Al Cheit and other prayers.  The machzor’s challenge is clear, yet even broader, because other prayers might call for other rhythms on the page.

Rabbi Andrew Busch serves Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.

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

Categories
Books Prayer Reform Judaism

Machzor Blog: How ‘Current’ Should a Prayer Book Be?

Machzor Page-spread

There are those who look to a prayer book to reflect – in language and in tone – the lives we aspire to live.  The words of prayer should uplift, sanctify, and elevate.  For others, when confronted exclusively with such language, they feel as though the prayer book is irrelevant, that it has nothing to real say, that it is, at best, a relic.

The 2-page spread format for this new machor, like Mishkan T’filah, enables us to do both.  Or at least to try.  And sure enough, many respondents to pilot versions of the Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur draft services responded by saying things like, “I found my own voice in this prayer book,” while others were offended by the very same readings.

Calibrating this balance between the real and the ideal can be tricky.

Just a single word can make a reading seemingly inappropriate for a prayer book, as the editorial team is learning from piloting feedback.  In a pilot version of Rosh HaShanah morning, a left-side reading from the Orthodox theologian, Yitz Greenberg, offered an alternative on the part of Emet v’Yatziv  (the blessing after Sh’ma that speaks of redemption) this reading:

Where does Israel get the strength –

The chutzpah –

To go on believing in redemption

In a world

That knows mass hunger

And political exile

And [refugees]?

 

How can Jews testify to hope and human value

When they have been

Continuously persecuted,

Hated,

Dispelled,

Destroyed?

 

Out of the memories of the Exodus!

(Where does Israel, “Jewish Courage in the Hope for Redemption,” Irving Greenberg, in Rosh Hashanah Readings: Inspiration, Information and Contemplation, Dov Peretz Elkins, Jewish Lights, 2010, p. 68.)

Many respondents commented that they didn’t want the word “chutzpah” in their prayer book, and suggested that it was chutzpadik for us to put it in there.  The word is too colloquial, too irreverent, they said.

On the other hand, there are cases where the language was perceived as so lofty, indeed so “highfalutin”, that it was experienced negatively as well.  For example, opposite Mi Chamocha, we put the following by William Blake:

Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau:
Mock on, Mock on, ‘tis all in vain!

You throw the sand against the wind,

And the wind blows it back again.

 

And every sand becomes a Gem,

Reflected in the beam divine;

Blown back they bling the mocking Eye,

But still in Israel’s paths they shine.

 

The Atoms of Democritus

And Newton’s Particles of Light

Are sand upon the Red sea shore,

Where Israel’s tends do shine so bright.

This poem by Uri Zvi Greenberg, was placed opposite Birkat Avodah (the “R’tzei – the fifth blessing of the festival Amidah).  Some felt it to be too racy to be read aloud in a synagogue, and it was removed from the second draft.

Like a woman who knows that her body entices me,

God, You taunt me:  Flee if you can! But I can’t flee.

For when I turn away from You, angry and heartsick,

With a vow on my lips like a burning coal:
I will not see You again –

I can’t do it,

I turn back

And know on Your door

Tortured with longing

As though You had sent me a love letter.

(Like a woman who knows, Uri Zvi Greenberg, translated and adapted by Chaim Stern, in Gates of Forgiveness, CCAR, 1980, p. 30.)

Some didn’t want the prayers to make them feel sad.  A reading and a poem about Alzheimer’s disease that paralleled the Zichronot section of the Rosh HaShanah morning service were disturbing to some.  In the reading, we included the following text:

 Let us use our gift of memory to remember all who are affected by illnesses that cause dementia, along with loved ones, friends and caregivers.  Let us find ways to share God’s message of love and blessing.

A poem by Donna Wahlert, entitled, Here Let Us: Late Middle Alzheimer’s Disease accompanied the text in the first draft of the service.

Here let us sit together

under the weeping beech

here let us talk about milk glass

chifforobes and elderberry wine

here let us sooth your ankles

swollen with childhood memories

we won’t remind you that your mother

has been gone for thirty years

that the house you want to go

home to is no longer there

that your children are drown and gray

that you are the last of your friends

here let us drink our wintergreen tea

and talk about this primrose

the thing spaghetti you had for lunch

the nurse who brings you Hershey bars

here let us not dream about the days to come

here let us sing you your mother

here let us sing you your children

here let us sing you home. 

(Here let us sit, Donna Wahlert, “Here Let Us: Late Middle Alzheimer’s Disease,” in The First Pressing: Poetry of the Everyday, iUniverse Inc., 2003, p. 123.)

There are readings that feel too raw to some.  Take, for example, Linda Pastan’s poem The Bronx, 1942

When I told him to shut up,

my father slammed on the brakes and left

me like a parcel in the car

on a strange street, to punish me

he said for lack of respect, though

what he always feared was lack of love.

I know now just how long

 

forgiveness can take

and that is can be harder than respect

or even love.  My father stayed angry

for a week.  But I still remember

the gritty color of the sky through

that windshield, and how, like a parcel

I started to come apart.

(The Bronx, 1942, Linda Pastan, Carnival Eve­ning: New and Selected Poems 1968-1998, NY: 1998, W.W. Norton, p. 274.)

Or, how about this alternative reading entitled, “Avinu Malkeinu: A Prayer of Protest”

Avinu Malkeinu –

Hear our voice:
Some of us have cancer.

Some have lost strength of body; some have lost memory and speech.

Some of us are in pain.

Some can’t find work.

Some of us bear the marks of human cruelty – inside, where the scars don’t show.

Some live with depression; some battle addiction; many feel alone.

Some have known shattered marriages, trust betrayed, hopes destroyed.

Some of us have lost the ones we love, far too soon.

And some of us have lost a child.

All of us have seen suffering in our midst.

All of us know the ravages of war – for which there are no words.

 

Avinu Malkeinu, why?
Avinu Malkeinu, are you there?  Do you care?

Avinu Malkeinu, hear our pain.

Hear our anger. Hear our grief.

Avinu Malkeinu, here is our prayer:
Give us the strength to go on.

Give us reasons to get up each day; give us purpose and persistence.

Help us to fend off fear and to hold on to hope.

Help us to be kind.

Don’t make us bow or grovel for your favor.  Give us dignity and give us courage.

 

Avinu Malkeinu –

Show us the way to a year of goodness.

Renew our belief that the world can be better.

Restore our faith in life.  Restore our faith in you.

(Copyright © 2012 by CCAR Press.  All rights reserved)

Can the Machzor simultaneously inspire, while speaking to the reality of our everyday lives?  Is there a place for sadness, regret, sensuality, anger, and doubt within the pages of the prayer book?  What do we lose by including such readings, and what do we gain?  What would be lost if we left them out?  We’re interested in your thoughts.

Rabbi Leon Morris is on the editorial team of the new CCAR machzor, and is the rabbi of Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor, NY. 

[Find out more about the new CCAR machzor.]