Archive for September, 2006

Sep 22 2006

September Bulletin - HazzaNotes

Published by hazzan under Bulletin, Hazzan Notes

In a particular home renovation show on television, neighbors are asked to fix up a room in one another’s house. Two days and a thousand dollars later, each room is transformed, from beige walls to red. Old furniture is covered with new fabric, a mirror or plant is strategically placed and voila! A completely new perspective!

Having just moved into a new house, I have been thinking lately about building a Jewish home. What are its components? There are the physical indicators: a mezuzah on the door, a Kiddush cup in the hutch, Jewish books on the shelves, or Jewish art on the wall. Most importantly, in a Jewish home, God is our roommate. Each Jewish home is like a mishkan, the portable tabernacle built in the wilderness. God asked the children of Israel to build the mishkan so that the Divine Presence could dwell among them. We build a Jewish home by choosing to live a particular way: the choices we make about what to eat, how to treat one another, or even what to watch on TV (home renovation shows aside), all can be instructed by our tradition.

How else can we make our homes Jewish? One easy and low-impact “spiritual renovation” idea is to build a Jewish CD library. Invest in several CD’s and play them while doing a Jewish art project with your children or grandchildren, or while preparing the house for Shabbat. Some of our family favorites include the Klezmatics, Flory Jagoda, Debbie Friedman, and Craig Taubman’s “Celebrate” CD series (compilations for holidays and topics such as healing, peace, and even Jewish hip-hop). Try Israeli artists such as Chava Alberstein, Sarit Haddad, Naomi Shemer, Yehuda Poliker, Shlomo Artzi, and Acinoam Nini. For children’s music that is enjoyable for parents too, try Kol B’Seder’s Songs for Growing, Shlomo Gronich and the Sheba choir (Ethiopian Jewish children’s choir), The Sixteenth Lamb (compilation of Israeli children’s songs), and CD’s by Shira Kline of Shirlalala. For the nontraditional ear, try Joshua Nelson’s Jewish Gospel CD or the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda’s CD Shalom Everybody Everywhere. There is an abundance of new-age Jewish liturgical music from Rabbi Shefa Gold and Hannah Tiferet. For a taste of the old country, try From Avenue A to the Great White Way and listen to how Cantorial music formed the backbone of the American song book and the Yiddish theatre (and Cab Calloway singing Hazzanut! ). Naxos Records is also in the process of releasing an entire archive of CD’s of previously unrecorded music spanning the 350 years of American Jewish history.

Please contact me at Hazzan@ShaareZedek.org for assistance in locating any of these recordings.

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Sep 07 2006

September Bulletin - HazzaNotes

Published by hazzan under Bulletin, Hazzan Notes

There was once a little girl who had a daily routine. Each morning, she would slip out the back door, run into the forest behind her house, and find the same clearing next to the same tall trees. In the shade of the trees she would open her siddur and pray the same words, from start to finish. One morning, after many days of this, her mother asked her, “Why don’t you change your routine? Every day you go to the same place, and say the same words out of the same siddur.” The little girl replied, “My routine is the same every day, but every day, I am different.”

With a routine such as prayer, sometimes it is easier to simply change or abandon the routine rather than maintain it. Yet, how do we present ourselves renewed and changed every time we approach prayer? The girl in the story teaches us a lesson about kavannah – direction or intention. The attitude, expectation, and focus she brings to her davening each day is what changes, rather than the prayers themselves. She challenges us to appreciate the beauty of the routine itself – finding comfort in predictability yet remaining open to experiencing something new each time.

At this time of year, we engage in teshuvah, returning to ourselves. This is the time of year to examine who we are and who we have become, how we have affected those around us. We examine our routine, and look to change it for the better. We look at the habits we wish to establish, the habits we wish to break. We go through the routine of coming to synagogue and participating in communal prayer from the High Holiday prayerbook, the Machzor. The words of our tradition challenge us to pay attention, even as they soothe us with their familiarity. This year, as we prepare for another holiday season, I invite you to re-engage in the sacred words and melodies of the Machzor, to tease out new meaning and new contexts.

Once a year, we listen for the plaintive notes of the Kol Nidre and the Unetaneh Tokef. Once a year, we listen for the sound of the shofar. Each year, the words and the music jolt us into awareness. Even though we have heard and prayed these words so many times, heard the same notes of the Tekiyah, Teruah, and Shevarim, there is still a novelty about them. These sacred words and tones never seem to get old, even after thousands of years. The Machzor itself is a form of sacred architecture, with layer upon layer of poetry, text and song.

This year, how can we bring kavannah to our High Holiday prayer? We must prepare ourselves to listen and sing and speak the words of the Machzor as though they were the spontaneous outpourings of our souls. We say the words of the ancient paytanim, sacred poets, as though they were our words, magnified thousands of times through the generations. We try to feel God’s palpable presence as we appeal to the Holy One for a year of life and fulfillment. We sing the melodies with renewed vigor. We are moved to dance, moved to tears, moved to deep contemplation. We are moved to simply let the music and words wash over us like a giant wave. We are moved to choose this year as a year of action, or a year of compassion, or a year of righteousness, or a year of healing.

As the new year begins, may we find both comfort and challenge in the words of the Machzor. Take a moment today to think about the self you are now, and the different self you will be tomorrow, and the next day, and the next – and may we, like the girl in the story, bring a renewed kavannah to our daily routine.

L’shanah Tovah um’tukah – with blessings for a sweet and happy New Year.

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