May 2009 • Sivan, 5769 www.kolotchayeinu.org

congregation kolot chayeinu • • voices of our lives Leaving the Page

EDDY Ehrlich

I’ve got my siddur. check. lift, blow, choke, I’ve turned to the announced or sigh page. check. they do sharpen If I read the page, they can move I’m reciting. they might rise When I examine the text, I’m and maybe maybe even fly from studying. my mouth, my bowstring, my If I listen to the cantor lead, I heart. am audience. and I will have become pray-er. When I join in with the congre- gation, I am an arch-er who with will I am singing. and with spirit But praying? loads an arrow What to do?….What to do? and aims for myself, for pray-er. I am an arch-er and my bow floats BARUCH blah blah blah la la before me. la UNIVERSE oy la la blah oy This prayerbook is a quiver but blah SHALOM la blah blah its pages are dull arrows. They AMEN are not yet mine. Elijah the Prophet being fed by ravens from "Descriptive catalogue of a collection of objects of Jewish ceremonial Objects" I must taste a word touch a note borrowed from my neighbor in this issue and rip that page with my teeth to own them and their succulent Leaving the Page...... 1 Why I Stopped Praying and marrow From the Rabbi...... 2 Started Again...... 10 And when with them, Tachlit...... 3 Blackbirds...... 11 I lick, stir, pinch, Sincerity...... 4 Traveling Man...... 12 twist, stroke, suck, ‘We Shall Do and We Shall Hear’ Why I Don’t Pray...... 13 or hum, Movement and Prayer...... 5 Lost and Found...... 14 snort, drag Good Vibrations...... 6 Fruit Flies – A Prayer for Birkat flick, chew, gnash, nudge Siddur 2.0...... 7 HaChamah...... 14 swallow, shove, sway, spew, breathe, heave, hiss, hug Prayer in Margins and The Predicament of Prayer...... 15 and the Pathways to Prayer...... 8-9 On Being Called for an Aliyah...... 15 FROM THE RABBI

Dear Friends, And though the smaller gathering is still a joy at Kabbalat Shabbat, Shabbat morning services have grown too large to fit in a circle. How can any siddur – any written prayerbook – encompass all This larger and more diverse congregation expresses many needs: that we want prayer to do? Any prayer or song or ritual moment different God language, clear introductions for newcomers to Jew- or word of Torah or outstretched hand may be deeply moving to ish prayer, enough tradition and Hebrew for those with background any person sitting in the sanctuary at any time during any Shabbat and skill and notes for everyone to enrich our understanding. service. I smile to look out at the congregation and see the faces – A few years ago, Kolot graduated from cut-and-paste siddurim many kinds of people, some deep in thought, some worn with care, when we were invited to be one of many draft-using sites for the some alive in love or friendship, some seeking comfort or wisdom Reform movement’s Siddur-in-development, Mishkan Tefila. A or connection or a new thought, some bored, some sleepy, some group of us met to give feedback to those who created what is now knowing what our next word will be and some the finished siddur. It was a good step up for our awash in confusion. congregation, but two things made it clear that When Kolot began, we did not have we needed to evolve yet again: The books began any formal prayer. We had monthly meet- to fall apart! And they too began to seem a bit ings that included Torah study and planning skimpy: Why didn’t it have songs? Some ver- for what we would eventually do. When we sions included the full Sh’ma and others did not; began to meet as a fledgling community, we ditto for the full haftarah blessings. It was time started with Shabbat dinner, which included to explore our next step. the Shabbat blessings, songs and music and And so we find ourselves in the spring of stories. In September of that year (1993), we 2009 (5769). After analyzing five siddurim that opened a tiny Children’s Learning Program. had potential to meet Kolot’s many needs, the I was frankly more enamored of Torah study Siddur Selection Committee chose three Photo courtesy of Ellen Lippmann than of prayer, believing with Dr. Louis siddurim to explore in more depth. Each Finkelstein that “when you pray, you Shabbatot, for two months each, whenever speak to God. When you study, God speaks there is not a B’nai Mitzvah, we are using each to you.” I was also hoping to develop a com- C “candidate” Siddur. We have recruited a large munity of non-formal Jewish learning and feedback team that has volunteered to pay strong community connections, based in a Communal prayer special attention and fill out feedback forms. Kolot-owned and operated café. We spoke After their feedback and more mulling by the of prayer services happening informally in is a complex dance congregation as a whole, we hope to arrive at that dreamed-of café, but did not place much consensus about which book to select. emphasis on them. This is a major step for Kolot Chayeinu. But soon we began holding Shabbat morn- ...involving many For the first time we will be purchasing a new, ing Torah study, and it felt wrong to do that hardcover siddur for our community. We hope without some prayers surrounding our learn- participants...and in it will enhance and enrich our prayer and ing. The prayer grew as people wanted bless- last for many years. But none of us have any ings that addressed their lives, joys and fears illusion that a prayerbook creates prayer on its and then as the mourners’ kaddish seemed the background the own, especially not the deeply felt prayer and necessary. Then it began to seem odd not to song we strive to create. begin with some morning prayers after our unfolding story of Communal prayer is a complex dance or customary blessing for food. (We always began play or opera, involving many participants, with food and still do, and I remain convinced many words, a lot of music, strong and subtle that there are few better ways to make a tran- the congregation. symbols, and in the background the unfolding sition from the workaday world to the world story of the congregation. The siddur – any of intentional community, prayer and study.) siddur – can only be what its name implies: So it was that the first of several Kolot an order, the structure that holds us all in the cut-and-paste siddurim were born, along with c dance that is our prayer. It helps to know what holiday celebration booklets and song sheets. prayer may come next, but no book can say Some long-time members are still nostalgic for those booklets, how I will feel saying that prayer on that Shabbat, or how it will be remembering, I think, the joy of a small circle of prayer in which sung or whether we will stand or sit or dance or stamp our feet or there were no strangers for long and prayers and blessings really hold a hand as we do it. The siddur is not a script, it is an outline were directed at each individual. and “aleinu” – it is up to us – each of us - to fill that outline in every Those booklets seem overly sparse to me now – in need of great- er choice, more tradition, prayers for many occasions, and songs. continued on page 12

2 VOICES stayed with me. My praying was polished, were mine. Some, I could totally get be- Sincerity but insincere. I was a Bad Jew. hind, like Yotzer, Ma’ariv Aravim, and the Ten years later I moved to New York to Nisim b’Chol Yom, because I already gener- By Miriam Attia attend Drisha’s Beit Midrash program, in- ally felt grateful for many aspects of my life, tending to land myself in rabbinical school and I was comfortable thinking of God as “ uring the reception after I the following year. Good rabbinical school the power that keeps the laws of physics became a Bat Mitzvah, I candidates pray regularly, I figured, so once working the way they do. There were other received several versions of there I did my best to learn to pray with prayers, however, that remained inaccessible the following compliment: the Jews of Manhattan’s Upper West Side. to me. The Kaddishes left me cold, as did D“You’re so sincere when you pray!” I didn’t I followed my classmates to Ramath Orah, the Kedusha and several other parts of the know how to respond. B’nai Jeshurun, and Hadar. But “Gates of Amida. I just didn’t know what to do with The first thing that almost flew out of Prayer”, the only siddur I had ever used, all that remote talk about God’s greatness my mouth was, “Aren’t you?” If I had inad- was nowhere to be found. Everyone here when it wasn’t illustrated with some specific vertently shown myself to be more sincere experience that I had had or could at least than other people who’d presumably been imagine having. developing their praying skills far longer When we prayed aloud, I could say to than I, did that mean I’d hit the ceiling myself that I was doing it for the sake of early? That whatever prayer-sincerity I’d C bonding with the community. When we developed was as much as I could ever hope No one ever prayed silently, though, it was just me and to have? Was all the challenge gone from the words and if I didn’t have a good sense Judaism, just when it was supposed to be of what the words themselves meant (the beginning? told me I had to English translations always seemed to opt The next thing I wanted to say was, for poetry and inoffensiveness at the cost “That’s what you think.” I had devoted a mean what of accuracy), or if I understood them and good deal of time learning to chant the disagreed, then I was just lying to myself. prayers and the parsha fluently and clearly And what was the point of that? with no mistakes. I loved doing it, but there I said I was dating a Christian. He told me was a big difference between polished pre- about his approach to prayer and it made sentation and actually meaning what I said. my head spin. “You mean you just kneel I had studied the meanings of the prayers, down and talk directly to God?” I asked sure, but they weren’t mine; I wasn’t exactly c him. “You make up your own words? And pouring out the deepest yearnings of my God talks back? Seriously?” If God exists at heart as I progressed through the Shabbat either davvened from Sim Shalom, which all, then surely God is the power behind the morning liturgy. I didn’t want to deceive had paragraphs and paragraphs of liturgy workings of the universe! How conceited people into thinking I was more sincere I’d never seen before (but which everyone to think that God is going to pay attention than I really was, but how should I have else seemed to know), or they used the Art directly to me every time I decide to pray! prayed so as not to deceive them? Scroll siddur, which left me utterly lost. But then the fellow suggested that I ask The third thing I didn’t say was, “What And the worst part was all that silence! God whether or not I should go to rabbini- difference does it make to you whether I’m I didn’t understand the point of so much cal school, and to listen for an answer. I was sincere or not?” In Hebrew School we’d silent prayer. I wanted to sing the tunes incapable of turning down that challenge. been taught to read and chant and under- I knew with the people around me. Why So one afternoon I went out to find a stand the prayers, and had been encouraged throw out all those pretty melodies and secluded area where I would try to speak in (and praised for) nothing but mastery replace them with hurried whispering? At directly with God. of the text. No one ever told me I had to least when we sang or chanted together, I found a likely spot among some trees mean what I said. Before I led the prayers I could put my voice behind the prayer but it was too out in the open. I went to that morning, it had never occurred to me and feel sincere; I didn’t have to examine where the trees were clustered more thickly, before that the service leader is not only a whether the words were actually coming but there I couldn’t see enough of the sky. bouncing ball on a Karaoke screen, but also from me rather than merely sliding through I moved to another spot where I could see the one who, like it or not, sets the tone for me. When the melodies went away, only my more sky, but there the buildings were vis- everyone else. Gosh, had all those people thoughts were left, and usually those were, ible, and I didn’t want any visual reminders been influenced in their prayer-experience “What page are we on?” or “Am I doing it of civilization. So, I stood in an imperfect by an unintentionally faux-sincere 13-year- quickly enough?” The silent prayers exposed spot, closed my eyes and tried to speak. old kid? What was wrong with this world? me to myself, calling me out for the fake It was terrifying. Where could I begin? Eventually, I realized that my elders that I was-- a creampuff who liked to pray Anything I thought to say seemed, in light probably had meant something more like, for the pretty music. of the nature of my Interlocutor, not good “It’s unusual for someone of your age to But I got more comfortable with the enough. The question I had set out to ask care enough about the liturgy to bother new liturgy and learned how to pace myself, suddenly appeared insignificant, and what’s enunciating.” Still, the unsettling realization though I still didn’t feel as if all the prayers continued on page 11

3 VOICES ‘We Shall Do and We Shall Hear’ Movement and Prayer

By Arthur Strimling

he first time I actually prayed I prayer books and increased the intensity of the Method, in which the form is supposed was in a play, the Yiddish clas- our shukling. to flow from feeling. We started with the sic, THE DYBBUK, which The games wore out quickly because, words, the relationships, the sense of time takes place in a 19th Century even though I had more prominent and and place, the style, even gestures or pieces TPolish shtetl. The production empha- challenging things to do in the show, these of costume, and in the process of exploring sized the intense community of the play’s nightly interludes had become my favorite the knowable tangible elements, discovered world, so the large stage at the Public the deeper subjective lives of characters. I Theatre was always populated, two or worked with directors who would cho- three things going on at once, with even reograph movement – ‘lift your arm; do it the most private moments taking place in C again; again, now faster.’ and that was the public space. total direction. Nothing about motivation Early in the play several of us gathered Prayer is at or feeling, just do it. It was then my job to upstage right to daven while the main ac- ‘fill’ the movement with intention, feeling, tion went on downstage left nearer to the least as much in character and all the rest. I also studied audience. The actors were all Jewish, but martial arts and Yoga, which start from none of us could daven like a Hasid so we direct physical actions – ‘stand this way; took field trips to 770 Eastern Parkway to the muscles and move this way; ‘don’t ask why, just do it, participate-observe with the Lubavitch- you’ll understand later.’ And it works. You ers. They welcomed us with missionary the breath and practice and practice a move, learn finer and zeal: I’ve never had so many invitations to finer details – plant your feet this way, move dinner. I got the shukling down pat – feet from your center, be aware of your center -- together, bend knees, bob slightly, bow the sound and gradually or suddenly it becomes part from the waist, straighten, repeat and repeat of a greater whole – your breath becomes and repeat; focus on the book held close in, as in the words. part of it, you feel the expansion or contrac- twist occasionally, vary speed, always high tion of power and spirit, then some emo- intensity, compete to be the most fervent tional connection and perhaps ultimately Hasid. But to me these were just moves, a connection to Chi or the universe or the no more meaningful (and less fun) than c divine … or God. the swordplay I learned for Shakespeare Years ago I visited an Alzheimer’s respite productions. Having been raised in the moments. It felt something like a medita- group on the Lower East Side for immi- certainty that belief in God was a sure sign tion but not quite, because meditation is grant Jews far gone in dementia. Few could of a weak will and a fuzzy mind, I was im- inward and this had this added intention tell you their name; most spoke in word sal- mune to prayer. But as an acting problem it of trying to make the audience see prayer. I ad. It was Friday noon, and the lunch was was interesting. thought, ‘the audience is sort of a stand-in preceded by a brief Shabbat service. The so- We had to sound like we were praying for God, because if I was really praying I cial worker gathered the women around the but in a way that didn’t interfere with the would be trying to make God believe I’m table and lit the candles. Instantly, as if on action going on downstage. As you may sincere.’ That’s the thing about acting: if cue, they began the ancient gestures, sweep- know, when actors have to make a group you do something over and over, it gets to ing their arms over and around the light, sound, they mutter, `rutabaga, rutabaga, you even if you don’t want it to. At some each in her own unique individual form rutabaga,’ or `umbrella, umbrella, umbrella,’ point the thought just entered my head: `I evolved over decades. They appeared trans- which makes a hubbub that sounds like wonder what it would be like if I actually formed, uplifted, joined to their own long talking...or praying. But after a couple of tried...praying?’ pasts and ours. Before they had been shuf- weeks of this we got bored, so we did what I didn’t know any Jewish prayers, in He- fling, mumbling, lost; for those moments actors do to cope with endless repetition brew or even in English. But I was doing they became fully human, proud, linked in -- crack each other up without the audience a lot of meditating, so I tried chanting the time, space and spirit to something great knowing. It’s a fine art. Instead of ‘ruta- heart sutra: `Om, gate gate paragate paras- and profound in our history and humanity. baga,’ someone would stage-whisper-sing amgate Bodi svaha.’ Over and over, while I And I thought about the Dybbuk and how `If the red red Robin should dav, dav, daven shukled. And it worked! For the first time I had been lifted by those absurd moments along, along.’ Or ‘Shukkle off to Buffalo.’ in my life, I felt I was actually praying. of movement and sound and realized that We hid our snickers and snorts behind our My acting training was the opposite of continued on page 12

4 VOICES since I had established that I could, in fact, Good Vibrations be comfortable praying in a language that I didn’t understand. By Jeany Heller So, I made to make my first attempt at praying in Hebrew at Kolot Chayeinu. here was no prayer or spiritual- est in my family’s spiritual pursuits. I trusted Rabbi Lippmann, whom I had ity in my household when I That is, until, when I was in my mid- known for many years, to keep me safe in was growing up. My parents twenties. I was in my first job after graduate this weird world of Jewish prayer. I felt that made the decision to raise school and a coworker suggested I take a if she was comfortable praying in Hebrew, Tmy siblings and me as secular Jews. On yoga class with him. That was my first ever then I could be comfortable, even if I didn’t the few occasions when I was exposed yoga class, and boy, did it send me!! I felt know what it was that I was saying. to Jewish prayer (basically at the b’nai the exhilaration of my first relaxation pose Much to my surprise, I found that mitzvot of relatives and friends) I was not and suddenly I understood the appeal. It praying and singing in Hebrew had the impressed. No one ever seemed moved was trippy! same effect on me that chanting and sing- by the prayer, everyone was bored, and So, like the rest of my family, I started ing in Sanskrit had had. I could feel the I wondered if anyone even knew what doing yoga and meditation and visiting calm and good vibrations of the ancient the Hebrew they were praying in meant. ashrams to learn from real gurus. Often Hebrew sounds wash over me. In addition, I thought it was pretty unsophisticated the meditations involved chanting in the it gave me something that I was missing that people would pray in a language that ancient Indian language, Sanskrit. It was in the Hindu rituals – I felt connected to they didn’t understand – who knew what explained that the sounds were developed my ancestors. I was saying the prayers that they might be uttering? Maybe they were thousands of years ago by the spiritual my Chasidic grandfather and all those promising to do things that they had no masters and the vibrations of the sounds who came before had said. I felt the joy in intention of really doing, or promising have a salutary, meditative effects. I found Jewish prayer that my Chasidic grandfather allegiance to a god that they didn’t believe that to be true as I chanted, feverishly at felt. Though my father might not feel the in. I was determined that if I was ever to times, feeling the good vibrations wash all same way, this was good fro me. It still is pray, I would at least know what the heck over me. good. It has made me a better and wiser I was saying, and at least have some feel- Then it hit me -- I was doing what I person. And, as I learn more and more ing behind the words. had told myself I would never do – praying Hebrew, I am kind of glad that I don’t When I was in high school, one of my in a language that I didn’t know, promis- understand most of the prayers and songs older brothers dropped out of college and ing to do who knows what to who knows since the literal meaning is often something became what I would describe as a hippie- whom! And I didn’t mind! In fact, I loved I would not be too happy saying out loud in type, which included having a guru and it! I loved the calming effect that the chant- English. moving to an ashram. My mom then took ing had on my mind and body. But after a So I bow to the wisdom of our ancestors an interest too and started doing yoga at the while, I felt a little silly. I mean I was pretty who developed this system of prayer and same ashram. Then, another of my broth- much practicing the Hindu religion (in a worship, and I am proud to be a Jew who ers, the one closest to me in age, also took dumbed down way), but I was Jewish. So, I prays in Hebrew. ■ on a guru and moved to an ashram. I found decided the next logical step would be to try it all really silly and did not take any inter- to pray in the language of my own people, In Praise

By Hannah Henderson-Charnow & Alice Markham-Cantor

I praise the lily pads on the cool dark pond I praise the stars of my destination light that dance through the window pane I praise the weeds I praise the moon, that globe of solace and I praise you and me I praise the ants, and the dragonflies I praise the robin’s egg blue I praise our similarities and the butterflies color of the sky in July and differences Yes, most importantly the butterflies I praise white puff sheep and the storm and I praise my cats wide eyes clouds one day I pray for my unopened math textbook The promise of us to all hold hands I praise the bubbles and the soap greener leaves and the scent of dawn’s sweat for you and I are temporary pronouns I praise the blank hood of night I praise the sun. and the golden shafts of But all is an adjective

5 VOICES it is entirely provisional and lacks any kind How would Kolot institute Siddur 2.0? Siddur 2.0 of pretense that it is indeed a “final prod- We could begin by discarding the notion uct.” The fact that the books are thin, soft that we need to purchase a Siddur, and By Robert Mordecai Berkman covered and riddled with stains are a sign define what we want in our prayer book. that we are not “fixed” in our worship, that Which version (or versions) of the Aleinu or the past year, a Kolot com- we have not committed to any specific type do we want? Which prayers require translit- mittee has tirelessly traveled the of liturgy, and if they somehow disappeared eration? How should it be formatted to world in search of siddurim. In tomorrow, they would not be missed: we are make our service accessible to those who my opinion, their valuable time not defined by them. haven’t learned how to read Hebrew yet? wasF wasted. However, it is not a bad thing to start What poetry should we include? Which The last thing Kolot, or any congrega- thinking about defining our liturgy a little songs are essential? Do we really need four tion that is concerned with the nature of more tightly, because we are, after all, different translations of Psalm 149? Should worship and spirituality, should be doing Jews! But like many congregations, we are we have an extended version of the Yotzer? right now is purchasing a prayer book. It entirely unique and forward-looking, and In Siddur 2.0, these are not monumental is not that I have anything against prayer a forward-looking congregation deserves decisions we will have to live with for the books: I am the proud owner of several a forward-looking prayer book. What we next 40 years, because in Siddur 2.0, we of them. But, as the Rabbi has pointed need is Siddur 2.0. can change when we wish with whatever out, any siddur that is chosen for use by Siddur 2.0 transcends the idea of what we wish. Additions can be published on Kolot will involve compromise: some will a prayer book was for the previous 1,000 the web, downloaded on our comput- have more explanations, others will have years. Siddur 2.0 makes use of current ers, loaded onto our iPods, printed in our different fonts and formats, while all will technology to collect the prayers, commen- homes, and placed in our Kolot binders. have varying ratios of Hebrew to English, tary, graphics, translations and poetry we Siddur 2.0 doesn’t live in a set of milk crates and Hebrew to transliteration. Indeed, any love best. Siddur 2.0 never shows its age, in the basement; it is accessible on the web, siddur we select will involve “settling” on because materials can be added, deleted, loaded onto our laptops and readable on our content chosen by a team of experts who edited and refined. Siddur 2.0 exists in a Kindles. Whatever new media comes along, decided for us what our worship should variety of media, from PDF files on our Siddur 2.0 is ready for it. look like. It is, at best, an artifact of an website, to Podcasts of niggunim, songs and Siddur 2.0 is an investment in wrestling earlier age. dvar Torah. Siddur 2.0 is a living, dynamic with the idea of spirituality and prayer as an Like anybody who believes that perfec- prayer book that allows us to worship with- ever-changing expression of that spiritual- tion still exists, I believe that we should not out compromise. It is the final stage of a ity. Let’s start working with the tools of “settle,” especially because there is no reason process of codifying what began more than the future, not confining us to those of the to do so. Remember, we’re really going to two millennia before. past. ■ be “stuck” with whatever siddur we decide upon for a good 30 or 40 years. These books are made to last. And last. And last. It’s quite hard to imagine: if one of these books is adopted, I’ll have to read this darned thing week in and week out until I’m in my eighties. That’s a very frighten- ing prospect! Do I really want to look at the same prayers, the same translations, the same commentary, the same poetry, the same graphics, the same cover for the next four decades? Does anybody? I can’t imagine so. Settling upon a siddur implies that our worship is “fixed,” that we are ready to com- mit to the same way of doing things year after year. Okay, we all know that Ellen and Lisa know how to keep things fresh and our participatory services ensure that there will always be new voices, new ideas, new thoughts. My fear is that we will become quickly become dissatisfied with our prayer books and that the goal of services will be to escape what is weighing us down. Our current siddur has its charm in that Books in the Pardes Beit Midrash. Photo courtesy of Trisha Arlin

6 VOICES A Pathway through Prayer Prayer in the Margins and

tanding at trailhead always makes me nervous. I know where I am, I know where I am going, and I even have some sort of map and markers to fol- there. Instead, you begin with, “Hello! How are well-worn path that it may or may not be, differ- Slow. But what will happen between now and you?” Then you open up and begin a real discus- ent days/ and travels bring different connections when I return to this place at the end of my sion. Thus, we get and give the opportunity to and unifications, sometimes to God, sometimes, journey remains a mysterious unknown preg- praise (and appraise) our lives with one another. to others, sometimes to self and sometimes to all nant with possibilities. Will the view be good So too in Psukei D’Zimra do we praise God. We things all at once. at the top or will there just be clouds and mist? reflect on God’s wonders and glory and we also Spurred on and renewed by this reminder Will I get lost on the way or will I find some are drawn to reflect on our own as well. of the wonderfulness of the task at hand, we thing beautiful, some piece of the natural world As we climb higher, the travel diary contin- continue to our destination: alone time with God. or some piece of myself? ues to the Barchu and the Shema--the Call to Like many hikes, we often start off together but Prayer is an act of ascending a mountain. The worship and our central prayer of identity. In the arrive at the top staggered, on our own. Only you, top of the mountain is, as Rabbi Lawrence Hoff- Barchu we look to our travel companions and ask knowing others are nearby who support you, can man and the Prophet Isaiah eloquently explain, one another-are you ready to do this? And they climb this final ascent to God on high. A final set is knowing God. That is what we all are after respond, yes, I am ready. And we are off. We are of softly spoken words to strengthen our resolve- when we pray. The Siddur or prayer book is our climbing, we are praying...and like any worthy Adonai, open my lips that my mouth may declare map, and as much as we might walk with others in prayer, everyone hikes their own trail. And just like a path in the woods we make take once, twice Introduction to the Commentaries or even each day, every experience on that journey is unique. The environment we are in changes and from My People’s Prayer Book, Volume I so do we. The destination on this journey is both known By Larry Hoffman (Used by permission) and unknown. The zenith of this adventure is the Amidah, the standing personal prayer where it is “...I reflected on the sheer joy of read our classic texts, we tread the paths just you and God standing together in face-to- studying a traditional Jewish text...what a of prior readers, in search of spiritual face dialogue. Prayer is a two-sided, interactive wonderful habit we Jews developed once nourishment...You are invited to share discussion. This adventure is exploratory. Who upon a time: writing a text in the middle our path, and even to break new ground are you? Who is God? The more each of these of the page and then filling up the margins yourself, passing on to others your own entities is known, the more intimate the relation- with commentaries. Every page becomes marginal notes, should you wish... ship. The more you talk and communicate, the a crosscut through Jewish history. Jewish My People’s Prayer Book...will be closer the bond. In this conversation, we all have an agenda, a set of topics we want to discuss. We Bibles come that way; so does the Talmud; deemed a success if it provides the have specific items to ask for ourselves and for and the Mishnah; and the codes. We never spiritual insight required to fulfill ...a the community, we have much to apologize for, a read just the text. We always read it with prophecy (Isaiah 52:6), host of ideas we hope for and so much...so much the way other people have read it... that through our prayers, to express our gratitude about to God. But exactly To be a Jewish reader, then, is to My people may know my name what is on these lists and exactly what topics join the ranks of the millions of readers That they may know, therefore, in that day, precisely will come up in the moment of meeting who came before us, and who left their remain unclear until we are there. That I, the One who speaks, But like a good expedition, we do not begin comments in the margins...When we Behold! Here I am.” at the apex; we make our way there. Morning tefillah (the Hebrew word for prayer) begins with journey, this one is challenging. We come to the your praise...shoosh, I have come this far, I hope I getting up, washing, gathering the day’s accoutre- Shema, Hear oh Israel, Adonai is your God, can make this last final push!!!! And then, we are ments and traveling to the trailhead. This is called Adonai is one. As we push through, we pause on there, at the top, standing before God. Meekly, the birchot hashacher, the morning blessings. a plateau and remind ourselves together what we with three small steps forward, we approach. We Once upon a time, these were the prayers one said are doing here! Why are we doing this? To unite, bow in reverence as we introduce ourselves. You en route to the synagogue. This list of blessings, to be one. For some, the oneness is with others know me, I am the child of these ancestors and central to this section of the prayer service, pro- through time and space that have said and will you listened to them. Please, hear me too. We vides us with a checklist of what we need to pack say these words, seemingly through all time. For continue: God, you are really pretty amazing. You with us for the day. others, the connection is with the people, fellow give life to everything (including me!) and, fur- After we have warmed up our journey travelers, there in the room. Perhaps it is to the thermore, you are holy, holy, holy. And then, you continues upward. We enter into the zone of music, the traditions, the familiar comfort of hav- launch into the meat of the discussion. I have had Psukei D’Zimra-Psalms or Songs of Praise for ing walked this way before which unites us back some things on my mind I have been wondering God. Think of any conversation you have with with our selves. And for others still the oneness about lately...can we talk? someone. You often talk with one another with is with God. We unite and connect to the holy, We converse. We humbly step away. We sit an agenda in mind but you usually don’t start the sacred and the awesome. And on this journey, silently for a moment absorbing the awesome-

7 VOICES bear to stare into one eye. You know me? He smiles a huge smile, blushing, grinning, shy. We chitchat blithely about life as people walk by, BY RachAEl avert their eyes, trains rolling in and out. For a Pathways to Prayer Bregman moment I see us standing there, talking like old friends, laughing and intimate. I wonder how others around us see this. He is monstrous to look at but for a moment, they see me seeing him as normal. Can they too see the humanity of this beautiful man alone in the subway playing Praying with My Feet – poker to keep sane? My train comes; I squeeze his hand warmly like a hug and wish him well and blessing, then step in the train and pull away into My Own Journey in Prayer darkness, dissolving in to tears. As the sobs keep coming and I become the “In this mode of davekut [becoming one with Much of this information I have taught to several spectacle below the city, I wonder, how did I God], your will, your deed, becomes God’s...his of you! The ideas behind prayer are ones that I know to do that? I consider God told ME to say or her action is God’s [action]. By repairing things believe in. I know we pray to communicate with those words, at that time, in that place. God, here, we repair them above...this personality is God as a replacement modality for sacrifice. Wendell and I were one in those moments. Did I a doer, an achiever, a fixer, someone who wants (So I believe praying should involve some sort see God when I looked into Wendell’s face? No, to repair the world...we cannot make God do of sacrifice.) I know which prayers were added but I felt God looking at that man beyond and what we want, but by thinking, doing or praying when, why and by whom. Sometimes I think within that face. Seeing God is frightening, what God wants, we become one with God and I know too much as I read words...someone awesome and painful. No wonder the Israelites ourselves.1” else’s words reflecting someone else’s idea of flitted back away from the Mountain when God I am studying to be a rabbi and I do not like what prayer should be and the belief within our spoke the ten utterances directly to them. Sinai to pray. history that if we all say these right words in the can really mess you up, yet we cleave, stick and Well, that is not exactly true. If prayer, as right way at the right time we can save the world adhere to it. Again and again we come close, fall Kushner describes it, is union with God, then I (whatever that means). But God told someone back and return. LOVE to pray. I want to pray all the time. This is else to say these prayers, using these words And so, in services at school I sit in my usual what I think prayer (with a lower-case “p”) is and at these times, God did not tell me. God told seat surrounded by my usual friends, laughing what Prayer (in a Temple of some sort) aspires to someone to dance around the Sanctuary with our usual laugh, watching the others of the com- be. The times in my life when I have noted God’s the Torah, kissing it, bowing towards; a message munity, like a tableau in their regular, set places. I presence or even have felt united with God are I never personally received. hear the familiar tunes and the words, ingrained some of the most meaningful, wonderful and God, tell ME what to say!! Tell ME where to in me like my own name. I know this way, I know beautiful moments. But they do not seem to stand, tell ME when to say it!! this path, I’ve walked it many times before. I happen for me inside of a Sanctuary for prayer, Yet I know the presence of God and feel look at my friend to the right nodding off during but rather within sanctuaries for people. connected to it. Is this not what prayer is, union the sermon and my friend to the left, bristling at The Hebrew word,” davekut” (unity with God), with God? And so I wrestle, torn between a the recitation of Kaddish. God is there, too. I shares the same root as the words in modern compulsion to be a part of the prayer around me am one with them, this place, these words, this Hebrew for glue and tape. Uniting with God is (I want so badly to be part of this group that is music, these people, my people, my God, is one. a powerful act that binds and adheres me to the IN with God) and a revulsion to the service (but I For a moment I hang on to this feeling and pursuit. Somewhere within the struggle for union was not invited to join this club.). Some days my absorb the dust of their prayers. Then I leave the is where I cleave to God the most. Please, God, reaction is so strong I actually need to walk out room to go out and walk with mine. when I struggle and wrestle with you, please do and take my prayer journey elsewhere, often to Rain in Your Soup: Reflections on Selfless- not leave me. As I yell at God and turn away in the streets. ness in Sukka by Lawrence Square Kushner, de- anger and frustration, like a child with a parent, Below New York City in the subway station, livered at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute I pray in my heart, please just stick with me, just I see a man, Wendell (the second syllable ac- of Religion, New York City on 12 October 1989/ hang on to me while I try so hard to pull away cented, not the first.) He is dark, tall, broad and 13 Tishri 5750 . ■ and separate. solid. I have seen him before in photographs of So what happens in the Sanctuary that I the homeless with his bulging eyes, the result of do not like? I have learned, from my Rabbi his hyperthyroidism. I turn away, repulsed, turn and teacher, Larry Hoffman, about the his- back and smile my biggest smile...Hey, I know tory and development of our prayer service. you! I proclaim. I look him in the eye. I can only

ness of what we have just accomplished. Sweating, are in the Aleinu. You know, we remind each other, end of this journey with the Mourner’s Kaddish, muscles shaking, overwhelmed by the power of and ourselves it is incumbent upon us to do this-to remembering those who are with us in spirit- what we am able to do!! Quiet, inward turning, we praise God for all this great stuff that we have, whose strength and presence is with us, in us and listen for an answer, we absorb what has occurred, that we are, that we can do. Perhaps the answer to shapes us, whose being forms our being. we prepare to descend. our Amidah prayer is contained within the Aleinu And with a Closing Song, we brush off the The others catch up with us now. We come prayer...pray as if it all depends on God, act as if it dirt from the hike, we smile and rejoice in what we back together, perhaps singing, perhaps laughing all depends on you. have done, and slowly turn our thoughts to the rest and dancing. Together, we come down. Now we We come down the mountain. We mark the of the day. ■

8 VOICES someone declared that drawing from the Why I Stopped Praying nude model was a sin (I was an art student.) and another bemoaned that his Jewish mother was, “still living without Jesus in her and Started Again life.” Years passed. I belonged to no group, By Mike Cockrill until I found myself watching someone chanting and gliding a silver pointer gently few years ago, when I read against sin and suffering, though some over the words of a Torah unrolled on a about a suicide bomber who prayers were more mundane. One could table. And this is the good part — every- drove his car into a group of pray to saints for specific needs, like Saint one had a different opinion on what God young boys receiving candy Anthony if you couldn’t find something and meant. I smiled inside. I had found a place. Afrom American troops in Baghdad, I amazingly, it would work, you’d find the I was with my wife. We had a child. In time stopped praying. thing you were looking for! The big prayer I began with my family to observe Shabbat. I didn’t stop attending temple and, of course was for forgiveness and salva- Yet no matter whether I was ponder- drawing my arm around my wife while we tion – a prayer that could only be answered ing a crucifix, watching farmland from my said the family blessings, I continued to when you were dead. car or listening to a Jewish friend chanting light Shabbat candles every Friday night. Torah, prayer was never in doubt. God was But my mind was drifting, troubled — Truth. God was compassion. God poured thinking about a God who I had come down his grace upon us. Then, there was to believe was not concerned with me or C candy in Baghdad. anyone else at all under the vast elegant sky. I’m sure there is a simple explanation for This is a terrible place to be, when you’ve Prayer was central to why God did not stop the suicide bomber, always found comfort in prayer, and it’s why a seed of doubt was not planted in the suddenly gone, broken. belief – prayer bombers brain, why no impediment was Apparently, the suicide bomber was thrown up: Free Will. We have choices – heading for the US convoy, an easy target the greatest gift bestowed upon humankind because the soldiers had stopped and were and guilt all wrapped and the greatest curse. I know all this, but out of their trucks. Young boys gathered where does that leave prayer? Prayers for around, a lot of boys, though that didn’t together. peace? health? for a just and fair world? matter to the bomber. According to my be- What of prayer, the orphan of belief? lief, God was watching and He watched as I need to pray and I want it back. So I 26 children scooping up candy were blown will continue to light Shabbat candles and to pieces. So I stopped praying. At some c say Kiddush on Friday nights. I will draw point you just push yourself away from the my arm around my wife and repeat our table and say,” Okay, I’m out.” When I was sixteen I stopped going to family blessing. A young person said to me Four years have gone by. Four years of church. I’d tell my mother, “I’m going to recently, “Why bother lighting Shabbat reading the commentary at the bottom of church, bye!” and I’d turn left instead of candles and saying the blessings? It doesn’t the page in the prayer book and thinking, right and drive the car out to the farmland do any good. It doesn’t bring peace to the “How does this work?” How can one be of Northern Virginia were my grandmother world.” I said, “It brings peace to me,” even so totally committed and filled with joy was born. I would drive around for an if only for a moment. and awe as the words in this prayer book hour listening to the car radio thinking of This is a good place to start – with a suggest? nothing, watching the white horse fences measure of peace and choices. There is a But just the other night, after a long going by, daydreaming in peace. It was a choice to be silent, a choice to speak out, silence, I said, “God, I miss you.” It sounds better place to be than listening again to a choice to hope and dream or a choice to absurd. I want to pray to God even though the same priest and contemplating the same submit to the will of others. Choices bring I believe He will not respond and will wooden crucifixion hanging over his head. responsibilities and awareness that decisions not be moved. My words are as pennies The sculpted figure on the cross was very have consequences. I suppose rather than dropped by children down a well. My “School of Sixties Suburban Modern with asking for God to fix something we are prayers fly into oblivion and nothingness. a Retro-Twist of Existential Pathos” which supposed to make the choice to fix it our- Yet, I’ve decided I’m going to pray to Him was pretty good, but I’d looked at it enough. selves. We were given the power to create anyway – or Her. (I’m calling him a him for Later, my closest high school friend and the power to destroy – and a Law upon now. Call him a her if you want. See if She introduced me to a Pentecostal group he which to base and measure our actions. cares.) had taken up with. I joined them for almost Freedom is an awesome responsibil- I was raised Catholic. Prayer was central a year, but the entire enterprise proved very ity. In prayer I can turn to God and talk to belief -- prayer and guilt all wrapped hard sell, aggressive and judgmental. Ques- about it. ■ together. We prayed for penance and we tioning anything meant that the devil was prayed for the dead. Prayer was a weapon sitting on your shoulder. I finally left when

9 VOICES woman. She was just like one of those the Blackbirds little black birds, and even more mysterious. Later we drove to Ein Gedi, the oasis By Lisa B. Segal where it is said King David hid from Saul, (and maybe even brought Bathsheba to swim and relax). It was packed with lackbirds singing in tourists, but after hiking in the oppressive the…” bright morning heat, we leapt into the cool, glorious water sun provided a high point splashing under the waterfall. Once we’d on my trip to Israel last cooled off, I noticed the young Russian summer,“B a surprising source of spiritual bird in black, sitting alone on a rock, hat nourishment, and a lesson about prayer off, skirt hiked up a little with her feet in and connection. the water, taking photos of the flowers and This was my first trip to Israel, traveling rocks. I approached gently, asked if she’d with friends and colleagues from my semi- like me to take her photo. She said yes, nary. Some had visited many times; I and a and then we talked. Dina is a Russian Jew few others were excited “first” timers. We who recently spent six months in NY at are all seminary students, so, not surpris- ingly, we did a lot of praying: in our hotel rooms every morning, at Robinson’s Arch, on the other side of the Western Wall, C where men and women can pray freely together. It was touching and centering to She was be with this community, traveling all over, meeting a wide range of Israeli’s, arguing and learning and experiencing pieces of this watching us... complex, dense, beautiful place. After about a week we took a trip to moving her lips Masada. The night before our pre-dawn hike up the mountain we drove through the desert to Arad, a funky pioneer town. After with our prayers. dinner, three of us took a long, fast walk from our even funkier hotel down to town in search of a late-night ice cream. It felt c great to be out of the bus, talking and rais- ing our heart rates on such a beautiful, cool clear night in the desert. It was so quiet, and I really felt present – and while I was JTS, studying towards the Rabbinate! We also very far from home, I felt connected – talked of her passion for Judaism and Israel to the stars, to my friends, to Arthur (who and New York, and her hopes to become a I’d been able to talk to every day, thanks to Blackbirds at Masada. Rabbi, which was an impossibility for her Skype), and to this country that had been Photo courtesy of Lisa B. Segal. in Russia. We took pictures together, she so remote all my life. met our group, and we exchanged emails, We woke at 4 a.m. and piled into our the moment we stopped. As soon as we hugged each other and wished each other bus, driving silently through the desert, were done, they flew off. great luck in our pursuits. watching the colors shifting on the sands And it wasn’t just birds sharing our The black birds are called Tristrams, and rocky peaks. We got to the base of intimate service. We were actually a bit of and someone in Israel told me a midrash Masada as the sky turned a little red and a tourist attraction to the increasing hoards that these birds, like Eliyahu Ha Navi pink, scrambled past the Birthright buses, at the top of Masada. As we prayed, a – sometimes called “the bird of heaven” - and walked up the mountain. group of gorgeous Russian Birthright kids fly through the world and appear at key At the top we wandered about a bit, parked themselves a few feet away, flirting spiritual moments. These birds and Dina caught our breath, and found a great spot and giggling and vaguely noticing us. One awoke something in me of the mystery of overlooking the Dead Sea, facing the young woman sat a little separate from Israel, the pull of it, the pull of history and quickly rising sun, where we set up for our them, dressed in a long skirt and hat, head the pull of prayer, of connecting with God Shaharit service. As we started praying and to toe in black. She was watching us, taking and connecting with each other. There was singing, a flock of little black birds alighted photos, shyly, respectfully attentive; moving something in Dina’s quiet witnessing and nearby on the stone walls of Masada. They her lips with our prayers. the birds’ accompaniment of my prayer that sang and chirped…and prayed? on the wall As we toured the site, we kept turning a helped connect me to that mystery. ■ above us from the moment we started to corner and seeing this lithe, magical young

10 VOICES According to Wikipedia, prayer is the and how long it takes us to get there, are act of communicating with a deity or spirit in Traveling marked, not by a clock, but by being to- worship. It is difficult to write about prayer gether and by those special Shabbat prayers without first contemplating belief. Can one and blessings. pray without believing in a higher power? Man On the anniversaries of our parent’s Can you extol Adonai without believing in deaths, we light Yiskor candles. We do not By Phillip Saperia our unique God’s existence? invoke God’s name nor do we recite bless- Prayer in Hebrew is, for me, protective ing, but it always seems to me to be an act behavior. I mostly know what I am saying if For my whole life before I go to sleep of prayer—this time a prayer of memory I concentrate, but prefer the shelter of rote each night, just as I turn out the reading and connection. When invited, we rise and and rhythm of Hebrew prayer. It comforts light, I recite the Shema—in English and recite Kaddish; a prayer of memory, but me. Walking into a temple or synagogue in Hebrew. Sometimes I invoke a blessing on largely a praise of God. Who can remain any city, almost anywhere, I know the order, those I love or express thankfulness for a unaffected by its rhythm, its alliterative and words and music of prayer. I can wrap my- particular person in my life or happening onomatopoetic qualities? self in a tallit, bend and sway at appropriate during my day. When relatives recently were very ill, I times and be encircled by the calm and When flying in an airplane, I find myself tried to say the psalms in English. It took a protection of connection—connection with chanting the Shema on takeoff and reciting lot of searching to find one I was comfort- community, with my history, my people the Shechayanu at landing. It’s my own able saying. It reminded me that awareness and all those around me at that moment in form of automatic pilot, but I do it, whether of specific prayers could rob them of their time. I think about it or not. efficacy. I entered the covenant in prayer, before Every Friday evening, Shabbat begins As for belief, I have a continuing consciousness, and learned the rules of for us (and the weekend, I might add, with struggle with it and with the notion of prayer, which I continue to personalize. I all that implies about putting the work God. What is clear to me is that when I was Bar Mitzvah’ed and married in prayer week and its worries aside), when we light pray, I pray as if I believe in God. Prayer and I continue, even in my most secular and the candles, bless the wine with prayer and then is not only an outward expression, b rebellious moods, to revert to prayer when bless the challah. Those moments, earlier or ut also an inner journey. I guess I’m a least predicted or expected. later, depending on where we find ourselves traveling man. ■

Sincerity continued from page 3 it was good to have done something scary listening and so I myself can do the work more, the very idea that I should try to and to still be in one piece. Better yet, God, that God would have done. engage God in conversation was, I felt sure, if there is one, had the chance to stop me And even though I haven’t received so unacceptable to God that God would and didn’t, so at least I wasn’t acting against any recent comments about how sin- refuse to answer just on principle, if there some sort of Eminent Cosmic Disapproval. cerely I pray, if someone did remark on it even was a God at all. What was I think- Since this experience, I’ve tried the now I think I could smile and accept the ing, trying to do this without the help of direct-prayer method only a few times compliment. ■ other Jews around me, the Torah in its ark more. I’ve never received anything more in front of me, and the book of approved answer-like than the same old silence. It’s words in my hands? I waited a moment cathartic and I have enjoyed the post-prayer we shall do continued from page 4 more, hoping something miraculous would relief as I would enjoy a post-exercise glow, happen to take the pressure off. In the still- but I don’t think it’s a good way for me prayer, real prayer, is at least as much in ness, feeling simultaneously shocked at my to make the important decisions in my the muscles and the breath and the sound own audacity and foolish for halfway be- life. My boyfriend says I must be doing it as in the words. lieving, I haltingly articulated a question. It wrong. But every time I work up the nerve And that’s how I pray – the physi- wasn’t polished, but it was certainly sincere. to try again, it’s just as terrifying and silence cal and vocal forms lead me into the After saying all I could think of to say producing as it was the first time. Still, the meanings and feelings. Repeated enough, I held still and concentrated hard, waiting experience has given me a glimpse of how the action transforms me. Repetition is to see if any non-Miriam-like ideas were I can transform my regular prayers into the river that flows toward truth, spirit, going to enter my head. There was noth- something more powerful and sincere. That sometimes even God. ing, only the overwhelming sense that the sense of confronting God-if-there-is-one And as often happens I discover universe really had no interest whatsoever was never part of my prayer before but the knowledge rooted right there in in whether I go to rabbinical school or when I work up the nerve to invoke it, it in- our story: at Sinai the Hebrew people not, and that it was really just up to me. If stantly puts everything else into sharp relief. say ‘We shall do and we shall hear.’ In I wanted to do it, I should just go ahead I’m so gripped by the idea of God listening other words do the actions, follow the and do it. God didn’t mind. In fact, God that God barely needs to listen at all; I can forms and the ‘hearing,’ the meaning didn’t care. I was a little disappointed, but imagine how God would react if God were will follow. ■

11 VOICES it’s just not something I do. Maybe if I had Why I Don’t Pray been raised observantly, or if I had praised more and pleaded less when I did pray, if I By Arthur Goldwag had loved rather than merely feared God, it would be that way for me too. hen I was a kid I prayed Pharaoh Sanders’ tenor saxophone, in the The God I choose not to pray to is all the time. I prayed for shattering wisdom of the Book of Job— the source of the infinitely vast and the world peace and univer- intimations of what Christians called the impossibly intricate—of the Spiral Nebula sal understanding; more Mysterium tremendum and what the Hasids and the double helix; of redwood trees in Wspecifically, I prayed that my grandparents that I encountered in Yiddish stories called nature and the dendritic trees in my brain. and my parents would live forever, that my Ein sof (without end). When I was a sopho- We stand in relationship to each other, this dying cat would stop coughing, and that more in college I read W.T. Stace’s Time God and I, but we don’t have a relation- my classmates would forget to torment and Eternity (1952) and the phrase “that ship, any more than one of the cells in my me. When I got a little older, I prayed to than which there is no other” really stayed liver could relate meaningfully to me. propitiate the Almighty. I thought that if with me. By then I had stopped praying It’s not that I don’t feel the breath of the I made myself sufficiently craven, I could altogether because I no longer believed in a eternal when I look at a sunset or into my shame Him into pulling His punches. I God who was a projection of my fears and children’s eyes. I do. But if I prayed, I don’t apologized so often and for so many things desires, but provisionally at least in one who think that I would. ■ that I had to devise a special shorthand was truly other and genuinely incommensu- to get them all in. I was obsessive, to put rate with me. it mildly—in fact I was perseverative (the I know that many people approach Kolot Chayeinu clinical term for the uncontrollable repeti- their spirituality in a completely different tions of words or gestures). Nowadays they way and I have no argument with them. Staff medicate kids who act that way and that’s I have a dear friend, a Lutheran minister, Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, Founding Rabbi not a bad thing. who rolls up his sleeves and wrestles with Lisa B. Segal, Chazzan/Music Director In time, I learned to still the chatter in demons from time to time and actually Ora Wise, Director of Education my head. I stopped worrying so much about carries on two-way conversations with the Diane Kirschner, Administrative Director Molly G. Kane, Student Rabbi being punished and stopped asking for spe- living Christ. I know Jews—believers and Ronda Zawel, Shabbat & Facilities Coordinator cial dispensations. Once in a while I expe- non-believers alike, many of them members Efrat Baler-Moses, Administrator rienced moments of real exaltation—in the of Kolot—who derive tremendous satisfac- Daniel Halperin, Custodian beauty of James Joyce’s prose, the timbre of tion from I don’t disdain prayer; davening. Board of Trustees Adrienne Fisher, President Seth Borgos, Treasurer rabbi continued from page 2 Cindy Greenberg, Secretary Rachel Hyman, Vice President [on hiatus] week. If we do it the same way every time, natural world, of light and darkness, we are Margie Fine, Exec. Committee we will quickly grow bored. But if it is too allowed the chance to hear the voices of Phyllis Arnold different each time, we will be confused, angels singing God’s praises. In a note in Sally Charnow unmoored. This dance, as all dances, needs the siddur Kol haNeshama, the first of the Adam Deixel Ellen Garvey balance, and it is the prayer leaders’ job to three we are trying out, Rabbi Sheila Peltz Ellen Honigstock provide it. Weinberg wrote: Grace Lile I am excited at the chance to try out Josh Rubin three new siddurim, three new kinds of Who are holy beings? Shira Sameroff outlines with new prayer and song and They are beloved, clear of mind and courageous. Laura Srebnik meditation offerings. We all need some Their will and God’s are one. Robert Usdin help to renew what we have done for many Raising their voices in constant gratitude Teachers years and this process offers one such help. they marvel at every detail of life, Sarra Alpert, Assistant Director Rachael Bregman suggests that prayer is Granting each other loving permission to be Jenny Aisenberg like climbing a mountain. She is a moun- exactly who they are. Jesse Ehrensaft-Hawley tain climber, I am a cave dweller, as I hope When we listen for their sweet voices, David Fainsilber we can hear the echo within our own souls. Aram Rubenstein Gillis to go inward deeper and deeper, not up and Leah Schwartz out, as I enter into prayer. With the angels’ voices echoing, I am Shalva Wise As we explore these siddurim, I try to Jaime Leah Wynn still sure that God speaks to me when I read under the familiar and unfamiliar Ryvka Bar Zohar study. But Shabbat after Shabbat, weekday words, to hear the voices of those who Voices Staff prepared this particular book and those after weekday, holy day after holy day, as I pray in this community I can also – from Trisha Arlin, Editor who will be using it. In the prayer called the Sarah Sills, Layout & Production ■ Yotzer, which leads us toward the Sh’ma, time to time – hear God speak to me. and which focuses on God’s creation of the

VOICES 12 enough to listen for the invitation. And, Lost and Found once in a while my Small Mind relaxes so deeply that Big Mind’s energy seems to fill By Stuart Garber me completely. . . . I am searching. me, when prayer “works” best, I’m aligning Last week I wrote some lines for this with an internal sensing/feeling state that I feel lost. I’ve been off work for a couple essay on prayer in a notebook and I have no I can somehow locate, like doing biofeed- of days with a cold, and the head-fog, the idea where it is. I look in all of the obvious back with a tallit and a siddur instead of a loss of routine and the loss of the chance to places first, and then in the not-so-obvious. machine. practice my craft has left me un-railed. No luck. It’s gone. I’m on my own. Jewish mystics speak of the dance As I sit, finally, to write, I bring more In the midst of my searching, a realiza- between mochin d’k’tan and mochin d’gadlut. attention to this feeling instead of trying to tion begins to arise in my awareness, like Small Mind and Big Mind. Small Mind wish it away. As I do, I notice that I’m not sunshine breaking through clouds: I don’t is our everyday, egoic consciousness, our feeling lost any more. In fact, I feel deeply need the notebook. I remember, not exactly personality, through which we identify present - not exactly comfortable, but the words I wrote, but the awareness I’d had with our personal history and focus on our certainly here. And, if my life has taught me that I drew those words from, and I know endless to-do lists. Big Mind is both the anything, I know I need to fully embrace that I can begin writing from this aware- transpersonal dimension of ourselves that is where I am now, to say “yes” to what is – to ness, which I feel again now. I experience connected with the entire web of creation, feel my alignment with the Source of Be- this shift as a change in perspective and a and the Source of that web. (This view is ing, and what the Stream of Life that flows change in my feeling state: I feel lighter, very similar to Buddhist ideas, which is from that Source has brought me to - in or- relieved. And I experience it as a change in in part why so many Jews find Buddhist der to begin to feel my way into what’s next. sensation as well, as a feeling of unwind- practice so appealing.) Hineni. Here I am. ing at the base of my skull, like morning When I pray, a big part of what I’m Baruch HaShem. ■ sunshine streaming through a window. “aiming for” is to open myself to Big Mind. Smiling, I make my way to my computer Sometimes that means I’m in my Small and begin to write these words. The sense Mind, reaching, calling, yearning toward of the shining sun is still there in my head. I a distant Source. Sometimes I’m dancing pause now to let myself feel that, to let my- ecstatic, as if with a lover, a friend. Much self fully arrive in the moment. As our Jew- of the time I can’t even slow down long ish meditation teachers like to say: Hineni. Here I am. That which I was searching for was already present, waiting to be remembered. Fruit Flies – A Prayer for . . .

Mystic teachers of all traditions talk Birkat HaChamah about our relationship with what we call By Trisha Arlin G-d, the Source of Being, in exactly this way. And they go further: the Holy One- God: Eternal, Infinite, Awsome, and Vast Unknowable! ness is searching for us with even more Is/Was/Will Be fervor than we search ourselves. So, rather That which is now whether I understand it or not. than straining to find connection with the That which was before everything I think of as real was here. And that which will be left Source of Being, why not ask ourselves how after everything that I think will last forever is gone. we can let ourselves be found? Can we just, for a moment, drop our agendas, our petty The fruit fly lives a lifetime in a day and says its Shabbat prayers every half hour. We get our judgments, our attachment to comfort and three score and ten and we say our Shabbat prayers once a week. The sun lives billions of certainty, and just simply be with the naked, years and we say a prayer on its behalf once every twenty-eight years. unmediated fullness of what is real, right So Eternal….how often do you say your prayers? now? What is it, then, to pray, if what we’re Speaking of which, God, if I haven’t mentioned it before? I’m really scared. I need some- reaching toward is already present? For thing to hold on to, something really big and solid. But also small enough for mortal me to me, it feels most of all like aligning myself. comprehend. But, with what? The Source of Life, the So this morning I gratefully pray with the sun, precisely because, like me, it is not eternal. Absolute? These are BIG, by definition im- possible to imagine and conceptualize. For It just looks that way to us fruit flies. Amen.

13 VOICES when none of that happens, and I can’t The Predicament of Prayer seem to pray - I go to synagogue anyway. And I sit and fret and grapple. I realize how By Rachel Hyman fortunate is my opportunity to help create a community where people can transcend and A confession – I envy the believer, the embrace community, to shut the door on doubt all together and support one another. one who can use the word worship and not the mundane of the work week, to stave off And then I come back the next Shabbat feel self-conscious, the one who uses the the alienation that is often this city and this and give it a try again. Maybe one day belief word spiritual and it strikes deep meaning. world. I leave him out of it. will shower me and the man with the beard But I am not that person. Prayer works a funny way on my spirit will finally vanish. But even if he never Do I worship? I go to synagogue -- all – it lets me dial down my hyper vigilant ra- does, I have learned to accept my struggling the time. tional practical analytical busy mind and get and find joy in feeling embraced by a place I have co-chaired the worship and ritual a peak at peace, a flash of transcendence. that grounds me in the imperative of work- committee many years, read countless books Sometimes a solution wafts by to a problem ing for peace and social justice. ■ about prayer and liturgy, taken theology I didn’t even know I had. classes. Over the years and throughout all of And on the usual Shabbat morning this study I have tried mightily to overcome my childhood notion that God is the man with the beard and staff sitting on a cloud. He never did it for me. I used to think I just needed to get past “him,” past that image On Being Called for an and it would all fall into place. Then prayer would be easy and worship would be a comfortable concept. Yet I can’t seem to get Aliyah past him. So for now, I just ignore him. So By Stacey Simon what do I have to say about prayer if I have to ignore the man in the cloud? I like to help make things happen at Ko- of people must be willing to take on more It has taken me years to say that I lot, and on many levels, for many years I’ve public roles too – and maybe the connec- pray. Mostly I say that I go to synagogue. had the chance to lend my voice here and tion between the individual and the group Sometimes I pray - whenever I can I do. there and give what I could give. But, as is strengthened when a person stands up, But I don’t seem to have much control over much as I like to pray, I haven’t spent much comes up, gives voice to this or that to the when I am actually able to pray as opposed time in front of the community in public congregation as a whole. I was asked to to reciting words. I pray to call myself to roles, preferring to just sing from my seat, come up and say/chant an aliyah, a blessing conscience to keep me more generous and or from the back, or talk to people behind that serves an obvious liturgical function as ethical than my small self slips into being the scenes, one-on-one, panim el panim. the blessing before and after the reading of without constant reminders, to be in the But it seems that in order for certain Torah. At Kolot Chayeinu we do aliyot in beauty of music and collective singing, to things to happen in Judaism, a fair share some kind of rotation, often as a chance for individual milestones to be recognized, or for someone who’s connected to an aspect of some element of the story of the parsha. At a moment when many of us here are probably more focused on that meaning, different people are brought up closer to the center of the action. So here I am in front of you, not know- ing exactly why Ellen chose this week to ask me up to bless and to speak. But I do know that I value being seen and heard by the wonderful people in this community, even if it’s more often one-on-one. I generally like being of use, so I’m happy to be saying a blessing that keeps the service moving toward whatever wisdom we can gain thru Torah this week. And I’m happy to an- nounce by my presence in front of you that I am here, and part of this community where through our collective small acts we often do great things in the service of God. ■ Tashlich in Prospect Park. Courtesy of Kolot Chayeinu.

14 VOICES VOICES 14 Congregation Kolot Chayeinu 1012 Eighth Avenue Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215

C For many of us the Kolot Chayeinu needs your participation march from Selma to during this time of economic uncertainty. Montgomery was about Our members believe in living our ethical values in our own protest and prayer. community. That’s why our High Holy Days services are free (like this copy of VOICES) and open to everyone and why our dues structure is Legs are not lips and flexible and does not bar anyone who cannot pay. However, a large walking is not kneeling. percentage of our budget comes from contributions so we ask, if you are able, to pray with your donations and give whatever you can to And yet our legs uttered the community. songs. Even without Donate online at kolotchayeinu.org/donate/ or send your check to: words, our march was Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives worship. I felt my legs 1012 Eighth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215 were praying.” 718-390-7493

– Abraham Joshua Heschel c www.kolotchayeinu.org