Jewish Worship

Entering Jewish History Through the Gates of Prayer

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Entering Jewish History Through the Gates of Prayer

 

A documental approach to Jewish history using selections from the prayerbook. The course is designed to expose the participants to the experience of the Jewish people at various points of its history through the imagery and language of common prayers that have become part of the communal setting.

 

The Kiddush as an historical document.

 

The kiddush recited over the shabbat wine allows us to glance at several historical phenomena. The text itself is Rabbinic celebrating Creation and the Exodus as historic events. It also allows for discussion of Reform Judaism which had at one moment deleted the phrase “from all the other nations.” The kiddush also reflects on the Jewish approach to time, and on the shabbat as a weekly “re-experiencing of Jewish history”.

 

The Vayechulu -Creation

 

This biblical account of the completion of creation is rooted both in the historical Torah text and is the foundation of the theme of creation is Jewish consciousness.

 

Michamocha – Exodus and Redemption

 

The Exodus with its theme of slavery to freedom is celebrated with the people’s reaction in the flight from the pursuing Egyptians.

 

Kiddusha – “Holy, Holy, Holy”

 

The text from the Prophet Isaiah highlights the theme of holiness, sanctification, and is a setting for a view into the role of the Prophets in Jewish history.

 

Boruchu – call to worship

 

The history of the Boruchu takes us back to Nehemiah and the return from the Babylonian exile. The people hear a review of biblical history. The theme is echoed in the blessings before the communal reading of the Torah scroll.

 

Kaddish – Mourners and the Hazi Kaddish

 

Written in Aramaic, The kaddish helps us understand the Rabbinic period through to approximately the 13th century when the Kaddish takes on the role of the mourner’s kaddish.

 

Yigdal – a Hymn to the living God

 

Written by Daniel ben Judah in the early 14th century, this hymn is based on the thirteen articles of faith of Maimonides. Maimonides is the ultimate rationalist of our Jewish thinkers. The Yigdal offers a glimpse at the challenges coming from Moslem and Greek philosophy, and the Jewish responses.

 

Lecha Dodi – Come to greet shabbat

 

Written in 1529, this hymn brings us to the Jewish mystical tradition and the enclave in Safed. Along with Shalom Aleichem, we experience Jewish creativity

 

Hatikvah – The Hope and Israel’s National Anthem

 

Naphtali Herz Imber’s poem of 1878 found its way with some alterations to become the national anthem of the modern Jewish State. It sets the stage for discussion of Reform Judaism’s varying attitudes to Israel.

 

A selection of Contemporary Jewish Prayers

 

Reflections of…

 

This consideration of Entering Jewish History Through the Gates of Prayer is limited in its depth and scope, not capturing all the creativity and accumulation of historical reflections, but is intended to be an review of the Jewish historical experience.

 

The course will include basic historical data, and resource material,

 

The Spiritually Dull

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Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel painfully describes the typical worship experience* “Our services are conducted with pomp end precision* The rendition of the liturgy is smooth* Everything is presents decorum, voice, ceremony. But one thing is missing LIFE. One knows in advance what will ensue. There will be no surprise, no adventure of the soul…Nothing unpredictable must happen to the person who prays. He will attain no insight into the words he reads. He will attain no now perspectives for the life he lives” (1)

Rabbi Heschel continues, “what was will be, and there is nothing new in the synagogue!” (2) How true are these words despite the countless hours spent in evolving “creative” or “original” services. Service innovators have tried creative writing, jazz music, rock music, acid rock music? dance, drama., multi-media, film, camp settings, retreats, and a wide variety of other creative tactics, including resorting to traditional prayer.

The failure of these techniques to be truly satisfying and therefore reused is understood by one reform rabbi who succinctly presents the underlying problem of all these creative attempts? “Our hang-up is that an experimental service can only touch the symptoms, but not the cause of our trouble.”’

By breaking into and disturbing the dulling routine of formal worship, these creative efforts provide momentary relief to the problem Heschel so acutely describes “people who are otherwise sensitive, vibrant, arresting, sit there aloof, listless, lazy. Those who are spiritually dull cannot praise the Lord.” (3)

The symptoms, however, are of the utmost importance to us. Indeed, at the present moment these data of our own experience are more useful to us than even thousands of pages written about what Jewish Prayer “should be” according to the texts. To start with what prayer or worship should be rather than to start with our own. experience? would’ be like a physician who refused to see his patients because they were sick, exhorting them meanwhile that they should feel better.

Using this medical-scientific approach, we must begin with the symptoms, probe deeper into the underlying causes, and then treat the disease. In allowing ourselves to get involved with such a task, we take on the responsibility of openness to recognizing and correcting whatever errors we might make* while searching for the underlying causes, we must be open to the validity of the symptoms and continue to treat them, for until we can eliminate the pain, we might certainly minimize it! Even the most superficial of the creative efforts confirm the experience of most worshippers, namely that something is not as it should be. To stop the creative efforts would be to deny the experience so many of us have, and it is the phenomena of the denial of experience – which seems the very basis of our problem.

Rabbi Heschel’s apt paraphrase of the psalms verse “the dead cannot praise the Lord1 “Those who are spiritually dull cannot praise the Lord” presents us immediately with two concepts , that must concern us, spiritual dullness, and praise of the Lord. -It is the contention of this writer that the spiritual dullness is the symptom of the problems involved in the whole matter of Praising the Lord. Indeed, in our contemporary world, the imperative of our traditional call to worship, “Praise Ye the Lord to whom All Praise is Due”, might well be seen as a prescription error.

point of concentration

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POINT OF CONCENTRATION:

Although Spolin does not give an exacting definition – P.O.C. is an isolated focus, or artistic discipline, used to build up a segment at a time toward an integrated whole. She does write:

“This singleness of focus on a moving point used in solving the problem…frees the student for spontaneous action and provides the vehicle for an organic, rather than a cerebral experience. It makes perceiving, rather than preconception possible and acts as a springboard to the intuitive.” Page 22

 Through the use of Point of Concentration, we move in our prayer study from specific words to specific themes to the whole prayer, and eventually onward to the whole service. Although discussions about God are always in order,

P.O.C. suggest limiting them to specific points within the prayer.

P.O.C. allows for discussion – concentration on specific problems of prayer –

i.e. love of God, which involves the issues of love-hate, how does God express love? Is love expressed by saying no? Dealing, for example, with hate, having students experience feeling hatred, and then love, might well have them learn that we can legitimately get angry at loved ones.

The goal of teaching worship and of specific prayers, whether in Hebrew or in English, to give the students the background for the specific aspects of the prayer script under scrutiny, so that they will be able to read these prayers with all their being – heart, soul, might, intellect, emotions, and imagination.

Physicalization

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PHYSICALIZATION

Spolin:              

“The term ‘physicalization’ describes the means by which material is presented to the student on a physical, non-verbal level, as opposed to an intellectual or psychological approach. ‘Physicalization’ provides the student with a personal concrete experience (which he can grasp) on which his further development depends,  and gives the teacher and student a working vocabulary necessary to an objective relationship.”

“Reality, as far as we know, can only be physical, in that it is received and communicated through the sensory equipment. The physical is the known, and through it we may find our way to the unknown, the intuitive, and perhaps beyond, to man’s spirit, itself.” Page 15-16

Understanding a prayer is best accomplished when the student is able to replicate the concrete human emotions which underlie the particular prayer. Through an in-class shared experience, the class is able to abstract and transfer itself toward the written prayer text. In the process, the individual words become alive and part of the organic interaction between the worshipper and the audience.

The Audience is GOD – The self in the universe

Improvisation for Jewish worship

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The validity of teaching Jewish worship as theater is underscored by the words of Viola Spolin, whose improvisation for the theater is a classic text of not only theater proper, but educators and group leaders attempting to foster creativity in their work with others. Spolin writes about the ripple effects of learning how to act:

“Because of the nature of the acting problems, it is imperative to sharpen one’s whole sensory equipment, shake loose and free oneself of all preconceptions, interpretations, and assumptions (if one is to solve the problem) so as to be able to make direct and fresh contact with the created environment and the objects and the people within it. When this is learned inside the theater world, it simultaneously produces recognition, direct and fresh contact with the world outside as well.”

Viola Spolin, Improvisation for the Theater…page 15

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