Our Jewish Spaces

As a cantor that works in many different communities,  I have the opportunity to work with Jewish liturgy in a variety of settings.  I rarely show up in the same place twice in a week.  In addition to normal sanctuaries, which I hardly see these days,  I am in anything from a utilitarian meeting room, outdoors, and often leading small groups in someone's home.  When I visit seniors,  I might be the programming right before dinner in the dining hall, with servers moving around the tables giving medications.  

For High Holidays this year,  the community I served held services in a remodeled farmhouse for Rosh Hashanah.  The ceilings were low in there.  The bimah desk takes up nearly all the room there is near the ark.  I had a territory of about two square feet to work in.  Some of the congregants, if they arrived late, might have been seated behind a wall in the back.  As a spiritual artist, I rely a great deal on the interaction between myself and the community to inform my performance practice.  In a situation where it isn't possible to become attuned with the entire group, it was difficult to know, as things were progressing, if what I was doing was landing with the congregation.

For contemporary Jews, one of the things leaders talk about is that liturgy is something that needs to be interpreted, so that congregants are able to take it into their experience in a way that is meaningful for them.  That often means that leaders are focused on micromanagement of the ratio of English to Hebrew, and creative transitions that introduce the theme of the prayer and explain it without sounding like a lecture.  With enough experience in that kind of a setting, you would believe that our communities have lost the ability to participate without receiving some sort of message, through words or rock guitar, about the narrative arc of the service.

Another factor is total amplification, removing any sort of need for pitch variation or dynamic contrast in the deliveries of sermons or some musical selections.  The microphone has become another prayer leader, in a way, as it determines the delivery of everything we do.  If used, it rules every interaction between the leader and the congregation, even if we aren't deliberately thinking about it.  This, in my opinion, is one reason why interpretation of prayer has become as much or more a part of our liturgical experience than the actual act of praying.

Live streaming has become a popular way to drop in to Jewish services, but some times I sit and watch them and think: Why would anyone want to participate in what I am seeing on my screen?  And yet there are hundreds of people reciting along in the same style.  The monotone responses are a major part of congregational experience, particularly around High Holidays, because there is so much material, and so many different themes that leaders are trying to deliver, that the day can stretch on and the only consistent sound you hear is the rustling of prayer book pages turning.

In contrast to my amplified experience during Rosh Hashanah, for Yom Kippur the community rented a chapel of a local church.  It was a space that was built expressly for the purpose of liturgy, prayer, and spiritual singing over one hundred years ago. Without any amplification I was able to deliver every ounce of my understanding into the text and have it be received with all of the contrast, color, and nuance that is present in the emotional landscape of the liturgy.  The difference was profound not only for me but also for the congregation.  What I came to understand during Yom Kippur services is that even a group with no liturgical experience can be moved to participate with the right leader in a proper space.

Part of the difficulty of High Holidays is that most of the traditional melodies used to deliver text only appear once a year.  In some communities, no one knows them except the cantor and choir.  One example of this is all of the times the Kaddish, in one way or another, serves as a transitional element between parts of the service.  There is a different melody for the day and night, and depending on where it falls in the day.  If we are at the beginning or the end of the season, it might be different again.  In many circumstances, I confess to rushing this or even trying to have some of them be omitted.  This time, though,  in a marvelous space, the congregation went all in.  We had some moments where I understood something about Jewish prayer that I hadn't before:  It isn't entirely broken.  When I'm in leadership with a community that is willing to go there with me, we truly create a prayer that takes what's on the page and gives it the extra dimension of a common lived experience. 

I have never been quite so free to be myself as I was this past Yom Kippur.  Singing in a hall appropriate to the liturgy and to singing was a revelation for me about myself as a trained classical singer and prayer leader.  Prayer isn't broken.  We need to invest in our embodiment and commitment to prayer, in all of its fullness and richness.  Trying to explain prayer to people before they pray is not the answer.  It limits the possibilities and thoughts one might have in that moment.  In many spaces, we rely on technology to transmit our message.  On Yom Kippur, what I found is that in order to find the true intention of prayer, we need to understand that we can't let the medium overtake the message.  Like the documents of America's Founding Fathers, our Jewish ancestors could not have anticipated the effects of technology in our prayer spaces.  As leaders, we need to look at how we embody what we put forth.  We need to commit to the fullness of our ideas, not simply intellectually, but also taking it into a physical dimension, whether we are singing or speaking together.  Revitalization of Jewish prayer isn't just about making things more accessible.  It's about building a shared commitment between leadership and the community.

Jessica Leash is the organizer and cantor of Silicon Valley Jewish Meetup, a brand new community serving the San Francisco South Bay.  She will be ordained by Aleph Alliance for Jewish Renewal Ordination program in January of 2018.  She's available as a spiritual concert artist, independent life-cycle officiant, and offers private tutoring for B'nai Mitzvah families in the Bay Area.  To reach her, please email: cantor@ha-emek.org

If you would like to support her cantorial ordination fund, please visit her GoFundMe campaign at: https://www.gofundme.com/jessicas-cantorial-ordination