Erev Rosh Hashana Drash 5770
September 21, 2009
Nahman of Bratslav said: “On the day that a person does teshuvah, he rises above time, and he elevates all days above time….. for teshuvah is the nullification of time.” And so – here we are once again, at Rosh Hashana. It seems like less and less time passes between one Rosh Hashana and the next! I almost went to the extreme of saying that Rosh Hashanas run together – but that wouldn’t have been an accurate statement, because we’re all familiar with the feeling of being yanked away from sacred time, when we walk outside and witness the world going on with its business as usual. When Nahman talked about nullifying time, he was zoned into a different way of being with people. To him, the past and the future could cease to exist, because he could bring all of his faculties to bear. For him, there was just the present; and seeing things through this set of eyes, he – and anyone else who had this clairvoyant power –would always be where he started out – fresh, unscathed, full of possibility.
But nowadays, I wonder if this a good thing, to be so focused on the present? The Brazilian writer Ignacio de Loyola Brandao considers us poisoned by the media – so that, in the present, we seek nothing but celebrity, or the celebrity status that attaches to being mindful of who we think we are and how we’re representing our feelings to an imaginary public. So what can it mean today to think of deep spiritual knowledge and awareness only in terms of the present? And is it such a good thing that the way we fancy ourselves as Jews today amounts to what we can “cobble together” right now? Why are we so inept when it comes to accepting the weight of the past? What leaves us so ill-prepared, so arbitrary, when it comes to thinking about a Jewish future? ……Nahman didn’t know what we’re up against today.
Yet, right now in here we are awake in a way that maybe he could identify with. We’re present at the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe. Something happens, when we come in here together! In contrast to this, contemporary life is distracting. The world we move about in gets in the way of establishing the deeper bonds with one another we will be affirming over the next ten days. The Havurah intends to bring water to a poor village in Nicaragua and we’re looking for everyone’s involvement. Give whatever you can… just get involved; do something about poverty that is global and experienced in the developing world like nothing you’d otherwise believe here in this country. The rich nations – our own behavior vis a vis our squandering of resources that belong to everyone – are implicated. In here we realize these things. And yet, when we leave this hall we can become distracted by a present that overwhelms us. The trick is to stay focused.
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Chutzpah, Voluntarism and Spirituality
September 5, 2009
In a pivotal but lesser known teaching, Nahman of Bratslav taught his followers that not everything was up to the teacher. He urged them to bring something new, of their own, to the Torah he presented. It would be best, of course, (he reserved some honorary status to himself!), if they mastered what he taught them. However, if that were not possible, he encouraged originality.
This teaching might suffice to base the work that lies in store for Havurah on creativity and imagination. But Nahman adds something else: he refers to the errant quality of our thoughts. It seems that it’s the view of the spiritual master that our proliferation of ideas – about goals, about art, about virtue, about fantasy – is a blessing and a curse. And it’s up to us to direct the power of our minds to a higher purpose. Especially if we consider what it means to be postmodern Jews, we are constantly breaking things down and reconceiving them. Not all our ideas or the combustible energy we bring to celebrating our great minds will bring us home. To be at home will require us to be intentional, truthful, and at rest.
At the Yamim Noraim (the Days of Awe), we come home to ourselves, as individuals and as a community. More than ever, in the Havurah we recognize this to mean that our diversity refers not only to color or gender or to status, but to imaginative prowess and volubility. We are producers of Jewish life. Everything depends on us expressing ourselves, but putting in the effort to work cohesively. To the extent that we can organize ourselves and play a role – whether it be within the context of advocating for debt relief for impoverished nations or in terms of bringing in new music and actually singing – we will work effectively. If we embrace spiritual practices instead of leaving them to others – we will have an impact. If we listen to one another reverently and empathically, we will nurture hope and habits of kindness. On the other hand, if we just make noise, it will be an indication of our failure.
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Songfest
July 24, 2009
Don’t miss our two August Erev Rosh Hashanah Dinner rehearsals for singers. In order to participate, we need a commitment from you for at least one of them…. They are on Wednesday nights, August 5th and 26th, at Havurah. A third mandatory rehearsal will take place on Thursday night, September 10th. Singers and all musicians welcome…
Want to know a secret? Once upon a time, Havurah was light years ahead when it came to liturgical music. We played outstanding original arrangements that set our hearts soaring. It was not an infrequent occurrence on a Friday night, when a new guitarist stepped up and taught a song or a prayer. At the High Holidays, we were greeted by any number of musicians playing together and encouraging us to join in. But over the past 15 years, everybody else caught up. If you set foot inside a thriving minyan in New York or Boston or Philadelphia or San Francisco – and certainly in a number of cases in Jerusalem, you will no longer get just davenning. There is heartfelt beautiful music everywhere.
What’s more, this music is integral to prayer. It’s no longer music as performance; it’s adopted by the shaliach tsibbur, the person leading what used to be the standard progression of opening, then closing, one psalm or bracha after another. Clearly, Shlomo Carlebach is responsible for much of this revolution, but there is the role played by women leaders, and there is a whole new generation of awakened rabbis. They realize that the old dualistic notion of the ones in charge of a service producing something for an audience was stale. So, for instance, last year I was in Jerusalem and ran into one of our own former Shabbat School kids (now 24), and he invited me to come along with him to his own minyan. He casually let it drop that he himself was among the Torah readers that particular week, so how could I miss it? The minute I arrived, the average age of the minyan leapt upwards around ten years. I put on my tallit and got settled in, and found myself davenning along with a leader who sang herself through most of the morning prayer. It was all done relatively traditionally, with little fanfare. The assembled group of twenty year olds formed an arc around her, letting their voices rise in beautiful harmonies. The tunes were familiar ones, welcoming me in. And, by the way, our own Havurah kid all grown up, read Torah quite competently, which made me proud.
Now I can no longer wait for this music to find its way in to what we do on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. We have fabulous musicians (many of them!), and some gorgeous voices. So I’ve taken it upon myself to bring in the tunes I’ve heard elsewhere, to teach them and make them a part of what we do on a regular basis.
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