Prayer and the High Holidays

Services for the Ambivalent:Exploring Prayer and Jewish Spirituality for God-Challenged People

Go to www.panimhadashot.com to see our high holiday offerings.

I have had a lot of laughs and acknowledgment over the use of "God-Challenged people". I decided to offer these services as a bow to truth. The services of the high holidays are not only long, they are extraordinarily difficult to understand and to endure. The great majority of Jews today struggle to make sense of these prayers. And even if one has a mastery of the Hebrew and parts of the liturgy, the theology of the siddur presents a huge challenge to a thoughtful person.

For years during my time in the pulpit I would watch people come in for their hour and half and then check out when the sermon, or the shofar blowing, or the yizkor ended. How could there be a 'service' which acknowledged these challenges. I knew that most of these people did not relate to the prayers or did not have the education, skilll, or motivation to crack through their meaning. Is it possible to present a service which has depth but addresses the spiritual, religious, and cultural obstacles that these services present.

The Services for the Ambivalent are an attempt to do this. Here is what I plan to do.1. Simplify and Shorten. Most services are too ornate, complex. I want to get to core prayers, not overwhelm people with liturgy.2. Study and Explore. Use time during services to explore meaning, tradition, issues that arise from prayers.3. Debate and Reflect. Allow people to express doubt and debate the assertions and assumptions of the liturgy. People should be able to raise hard questions.4. Reaffirm and Reconsider: How can prayer become meaningful? Is there a way to reframe it that makes sense in people's spiritual lives? Can people come away with a respect for the spiritual attempts of the rabbis to address the issue of standing before God?

One of the key things that I will introduce at these services is making a sharp distinction between the Shema and the Amidah. I will treat them as two different types of experience. These two core sections of the Mahzor (HH prayerbook) follow one another, but in reality they are two completely different forms of religious expression. Understanding this is critical to appreciating the spiritual aims of Jewish prayer.

Why are these services free? A few years ago a woman told me that she never goes to synagogue because she refuses to pay to pray. I understand all the justifications for collecting funds and issuing tickets for the HH. Institutions have to survive. But maybe there is another way to address instituional survival without sullying prayer.

Prayer is first a matter of the heart. It is an approach, a petition. An entrance fee renders prayer a commodity, a protected resource. The issue is not so much money, but when money comes into it. The giving of funds should come as a form of gratitude for the opportunity to pray. First there is an invitation to pray and to gather as community. It is only after we have had the opportunity to do this that we may consider the material means to help sustain the community.