changing worship modes
This is nothing new, but in recent months I have become more attuned
to the variety of so-called "innovations" in worship -- everything from
meditation to yoga to poetry (replacing liturgy) to interpretive dance (!) --
and I finally figured out one of the things that bugs me about it.
Understand that, at some level, if it works for you then it's no bother
to me except to the extent that you then interfere with me. But it doesn't
tend to work for me, and I realized recently a big reason why: I have barely
begun to plumb the depths of the traditional forms, and not only am I not
ready to stray beyond that, but I feel I would be incapable of understanding
a change of this sort if I didn't already understand the foundation upon
which it's supposed to be built.
(There are other reasons, including that some of this tickles my "weird" meter, but that's a separate discussion. I mean, there's plenty of weirdness in mainstream Judaism too. Like, rejoicing while waving three branches and a piece of fruit around? Really? But I digress.)
A couple things have brought this to mind:
First, the new Reform siddur, Mishkan T'filah, includes approximately twice as many alternative, "creative" English readings as its predecessor. Some of them are lovely poetry but terrible worship or prayer. One of these really jumped out at me at a recent Shabbat service. The service had a social-action theme, and in the sanctification of the day of Shabbat there was this reading that basically said "disturb us, oh God, for there is much wrong in the world and we need to do something about it". (It went on in this vein for a few paragraphs.) Now that's a fine sentiment to raise in another context, but not in place of the prayer that describes how special Shabbat is and how we should have rest and joy and all that. It misses the whole point of the prayer. This is not adding nuance or the like; it's just a bad fit. Somebody obviously thought this was a good idea, but how does this fit the rubric of the prayer service? It doesn't. Was that an important consideration? I thought it was supposed to be, but now I don't know. There are many readings in MT like this. (This is one of several reasons that I probably will not buy my own copy of the book. Others I will save for a separate post about MT.)
Second, I've been looking for some intensive learning program that lasts a week or so (i.e. fits in the vacation allotment). I was considering Shalom Hartman (also considered last year), but not this time (cost plus theme). I'm thinking about going to the ALEPH kallah this summer. From the brochure, it sounds an awful lot like the chavurah convention I went to last year. (This year's conflicts with Pennsic, so that's not an option.) The ALEPH program, like the chavurah convention last year, lists a great meny courses on topics that strike me as "new-age", though their teachers would probably use words like "innovative" and "creative". (This is the Renewal movement, so that's not out of character, I don't think. We don't have anything identified as Renewal here in Pittsburgh, so I don't have much experience.)
There's a lot of mysticism on the schedule. As I told one teacher last year at NHC (while dropping his class), I'm not educated enough to study mysticism. A fellow student gave me a blank stare, a "how could that be a problem?" look, which in turn gave me pause. A lot of mysticism is built on a firm torah foundation (my rabbi sometimes goes in this direction, for instance), and a lot...isn't.
ALEPH also has a lot of classes that say they're about worship and/or prayer -- and they're on topics like dance, drumming, nature, or bibliodrama. (That this last word exists kind of weirds me out.) Nonetheless, I did find some classes I'd like to take, assuming I can get into them. But I also wonder if the relatively low number of such classes is a sign that maybe these are not my people and I would be a bad fit for the program. (I don't want to be frustrated, nor do I want to impose my possibly-unusual desires on them.) I don't know; I wondered about that last year (I went on the strength of magid's recommendation, and the fact that she'd be there), and I had a lot of fun because there were enough of "my people" even if there was also a lot of other stuff going on. There were people doing serious text study (way above my skill level, in some cases), which didn't tend to show up on the class list. And kabbalat shabbat on Friday night was fabulous, better than almost anything I've experienced in Pittsburgh. ALEPH could be like that too.
Anyway, the reason I'm thinking about this in the context of change in worship is that things that start at conventions and retreats and the like tend to find their way into the broader community (like the projectors and jumbotrons that came from URJ biennials) -- and are these the kinds of changes I want to see in my community?
So back at the beginning of this entry I said that my problem is that I don't sufficiently understand the foundation yet. I've noticed that when we try to have classes or discussions to explore the foundation more, people don't tend to come. (I mean, I do, but...) While I am a latecomer compared to many, I'm probably also a more advanced student than many, so I don't think it's that everyone else already understands this stuff and has moved on. So what does that mean? I think it's likely that a lot of these creative changes, at least in liberal Judaism, are not built as firmly on the foundation as I would like. At the extreme, it's likely that some of this is just being made up without a care for tradition at all. Fine if it works for you, I suppose, but be mindful of your labelling and collateral effects. If I go to a Jewish worship service, I expect to encounter Jewish worship, not interpretive dance. Before we replace kiddushat ha-yom with a poem about brokenness in the world, shouldn't we try to understand what kiddushat ha-yom is there to accomplish? From there we could explore other approaches on that theme. Or we could make an informed decision that we have a problem with the theme (as the Reform movement did with the second paragraph of the Sh'ma), and discuss what a better theme would be. But to just toss stuff aside and add in new stuff willy-nilly does not make sense to me.
To be clear, I'm introspective in this post, not upset. I'm trying to figure out why I have the reactionas I do, and these are some of my observations. They might or might not be valid, but they're mine.
(There are other reasons, including that some of this tickles my "weird" meter, but that's a separate discussion. I mean, there's plenty of weirdness in mainstream Judaism too. Like, rejoicing while waving three branches and a piece of fruit around? Really? But I digress.)
A couple things have brought this to mind:
First, the new Reform siddur, Mishkan T'filah, includes approximately twice as many alternative, "creative" English readings as its predecessor. Some of them are lovely poetry but terrible worship or prayer. One of these really jumped out at me at a recent Shabbat service. The service had a social-action theme, and in the sanctification of the day of Shabbat there was this reading that basically said "disturb us, oh God, for there is much wrong in the world and we need to do something about it". (It went on in this vein for a few paragraphs.) Now that's a fine sentiment to raise in another context, but not in place of the prayer that describes how special Shabbat is and how we should have rest and joy and all that. It misses the whole point of the prayer. This is not adding nuance or the like; it's just a bad fit. Somebody obviously thought this was a good idea, but how does this fit the rubric of the prayer service? It doesn't. Was that an important consideration? I thought it was supposed to be, but now I don't know. There are many readings in MT like this. (This is one of several reasons that I probably will not buy my own copy of the book. Others I will save for a separate post about MT.)
Second, I've been looking for some intensive learning program that lasts a week or so (i.e. fits in the vacation allotment). I was considering Shalom Hartman (also considered last year), but not this time (cost plus theme). I'm thinking about going to the ALEPH kallah this summer. From the brochure, it sounds an awful lot like the chavurah convention I went to last year. (This year's conflicts with Pennsic, so that's not an option.) The ALEPH program, like the chavurah convention last year, lists a great meny courses on topics that strike me as "new-age", though their teachers would probably use words like "innovative" and "creative". (This is the Renewal movement, so that's not out of character, I don't think. We don't have anything identified as Renewal here in Pittsburgh, so I don't have much experience.)
There's a lot of mysticism on the schedule. As I told one teacher last year at NHC (while dropping his class), I'm not educated enough to study mysticism. A fellow student gave me a blank stare, a "how could that be a problem?" look, which in turn gave me pause. A lot of mysticism is built on a firm torah foundation (my rabbi sometimes goes in this direction, for instance), and a lot...isn't.
ALEPH also has a lot of classes that say they're about worship and/or prayer -- and they're on topics like dance, drumming, nature, or bibliodrama. (That this last word exists kind of weirds me out.) Nonetheless, I did find some classes I'd like to take, assuming I can get into them. But I also wonder if the relatively low number of such classes is a sign that maybe these are not my people and I would be a bad fit for the program. (I don't want to be frustrated, nor do I want to impose my possibly-unusual desires on them.) I don't know; I wondered about that last year (I went on the strength of magid's recommendation, and the fact that she'd be there), and I had a lot of fun because there were enough of "my people" even if there was also a lot of other stuff going on. There were people doing serious text study (way above my skill level, in some cases), which didn't tend to show up on the class list. And kabbalat shabbat on Friday night was fabulous, better than almost anything I've experienced in Pittsburgh. ALEPH could be like that too.
Anyway, the reason I'm thinking about this in the context of change in worship is that things that start at conventions and retreats and the like tend to find their way into the broader community (like the projectors and jumbotrons that came from URJ biennials) -- and are these the kinds of changes I want to see in my community?
So back at the beginning of this entry I said that my problem is that I don't sufficiently understand the foundation yet. I've noticed that when we try to have classes or discussions to explore the foundation more, people don't tend to come. (I mean, I do, but...) While I am a latecomer compared to many, I'm probably also a more advanced student than many, so I don't think it's that everyone else already understands this stuff and has moved on. So what does that mean? I think it's likely that a lot of these creative changes, at least in liberal Judaism, are not built as firmly on the foundation as I would like. At the extreme, it's likely that some of this is just being made up without a care for tradition at all. Fine if it works for you, I suppose, but be mindful of your labelling and collateral effects. If I go to a Jewish worship service, I expect to encounter Jewish worship, not interpretive dance. Before we replace kiddushat ha-yom with a poem about brokenness in the world, shouldn't we try to understand what kiddushat ha-yom is there to accomplish? From there we could explore other approaches on that theme. Or we could make an informed decision that we have a problem with the theme (as the Reform movement did with the second paragraph of the Sh'ma), and discuss what a better theme would be. But to just toss stuff aside and add in new stuff willy-nilly does not make sense to me.
To be clear, I'm introspective in this post, not upset. I'm trying to figure out why I have the reactionas I do, and these are some of my observations. They might or might not be valid, but they're mine.