[Prior Letters (55-58) provide the Introduction to the script and its first three Acts, each of them a significant contribution to North American Judaism: 1. A Union of Congregations, a Community of Communities; 2. The Insistence on Principle and Purpose; 3. Focus on both our North American Diaspora and Israel – seeing Jewish Peoplehood as having two centers, an Ellipse, not a Circle. We now come to the fourth such contribution: Meaningful Worship.
As in the other acts, I am combining the script that we used for the final production with earlier drafts that contained additional material which we cut to save time. Braces {as here} indicate that omitted material. For dramatic effect, we replaced it with brief videos of personal recollections, which I have omitted.
The discussion of Mishkan T’filah was written by its editor, Rabbi Elyse Frishman, who contracted covid and could not attend. Her words were read by Cantor Jill Abramson.
Compared to the other acts, the script here is more descriptive than liturgic/poetic; more content heavy, that is. The impact of the act came largely from the incredible music, planned and executed by a variety of musicians, under the guidance of Cantor Rosalie Boxt.]
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Act 4: Meaningful Worship
The will to worship is innate:
Born the minute human beings emerged upon the earth;
An expression of the human intuition
that there must be something more.
It is our upward, outward reach beyond ourselves,
The soul’s insistence on eternity.
It is, as well, a sacred ritual statement
of who we are and who we strive to be;
Not just prayer as words, but prayer as worship.
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{Before Reform, worship was largely the rote repetition of prayers, often mumbled in a hurried fashion so as to complete the reading of all the pages in a prayer book. That form of prayer was, no doubt, meaningful to earlier generations who thought God demanded it and who built a monumental edifice of regulations for how, when, where, and by whom, it should be done. Modern Jews, for whom that edifice collapsed, demanded another rationale, which saw prayer (among other things) as an aesthetic exercise in reflecting Jewish identity. How we pray is who we are; as Jewish identity changed, so too did prayer itself. Each new prayerbook is a snapshot in time.
[On screen: snapshots of sample pages for each prayer book]
The Union Prayer Book, back in 1894 and 1895, reflected newly minted Reform Jews trying to demonstrate, for themselves and others, a Judaism that was not the ghettoized existence of their past. Like churches round about us, we too had our “ministers.” No one wore a yarmulka (a kippah we later called it), let alone a tallit (which back then we called a tallis). Neither the language nor the bimah had room for women. But we prayed in flowing English, with a message that was elevating. The music and diction reached beyond ourselves, and on every page, it seemed, was the prophetic message of hope.
By the 1970s we were connecting to Israel, Jewish Peoplehood worldwide, and Jewish tradition through the ages; simultaneously, we were integrating a feminist critique of our prayer-book texts. So we wrote Gates of Prayer, with tradition recovered; where men were not the only humans; and where God was not a He, a Lord, a Him. The Hebrew changed from the Ashkenazi of our European past to the Sefardi of modern Israel – not ahavoh rabboh, but ahavah rabbah, not yisgadal v’yiskadash shmeih rabboh, but yitgadal v’yitkadash shmeih rabbah.
But the real breakthrough came with reforming worship itself, not just the prayer-book words but the music and manner of praying them. Many of us now wore yarmulkahs (well, kippot) and talleisim (now, tallitot), and when women joined our ranks, we abandoned the old and boring black and blue on white, for colors, pastels, and geometric designs of every sort.}
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1999: the biennial in Orlando,
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, our Union president,
recalls proclaiming a worship revolution.
[Video: Rabbi Eric Yoffie]: “Worship belongs to the congregants, It belongs to the synagogue. It belongs to the people….Change came fast because people were ready because they were open. Because once they were given permission, they embraced this with enthusiasm. Heartfelt worship, it turned out, was at the top of their priority list. Certainly within ten years, Shabbat worship in Reform Judaism was utterly different from what it had been.”
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And then there was the music!
[Video: Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller]: The appeal the NFTY music had on us teens impacted the synagogue in ways we didn’t even anticipate. That aliveness, that informality, that fun, that dynamism, that catchy beat, for our American ears had real spiritual, emotional appeal. The prayer became real. The prayer became mine and yours and we could sing it again and again. And it wasn’t leader centered as much. It was congregational centered. It was meant for all of us.”
Of all the names worth mentioning from those days,
one stands out:
a teen from Minneapolis,
Debbie Friedman
[Video: Debbie Friedman, “Sing unto God…”; then music medley, live, with congregation singing]
[Video: Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller]: “Debbie Friedman understood in her writing, in her performing, in her prayer leading, in her teaching, the perspective of the common worshiper. She understood how we heard music, she understood how we approached a prayer. She understood that we needed to sing, we needed to wrap our mouths around these sacred words. She was interested in the human experience and the spiritual experience and there was a direct connection from her heart and her mind to her music.”
In 2011, The Hebrew Union College
renamed its school of Jewish music,
the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music.
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Worship is our Jewish mirror on the world.
Sometimes, the mirror cracks, beyond repair:
it no longer reflects the people, the place and the time in which we live.
Prayer becomes boring once again,
like someone else’s story, not our own,
rote recitation, a soulless performance
for what was meant to be the soul’s privileged moment.
But change does come.
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Rabbi Eyse Frishman: In 2007, the iphone emerged!
Our society was searching: how might we better communicate?
Consider Mishkan T’filah our new device for prayer.
As we invented, we asked 21st century questions of you:
“What do you seek?”
“What might you learn?”
“How will you feel included? Inspired?
There is no single path to meaningful prayer;
congregational customs vary.
We removed instructions that enforced a single mold.
We removed italics,
so you could choose to pray in unison or privately.
We added commentary for insight,
and full transliteration to make Hebrew entirely accessible.
The two page spread is our commitment
to diversity of belief and full participation.
We continue to ask: “How might we support your faith journey?”
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I am a Reform Jew because Reform worship touches my life, connects me to others, and invokes the presence of God.
I am a Reform Jew because I love services that provide music, spirituality, and community.
For those mysterious moments when our soul touches the divine;
For those services when we are graced
with insightful Jewish wisdom and inspirational Jewish music;
For those times when we leave prayer knowing that we belong,
that we are loved, and that we matter;
Anachnu modim lakh:
We praise you, God, and give you thanks.
[Music Live: Halleluyah – Debbie Friedman]
Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, Ph.D. 