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Every Shabbos, one of the senior members of our synagogue comes to Shul and prays with the intensity and love of someone half her age. She sits near the front, and from her side of the mechitza, she makes her displeasure known if the person repeating the Mussaf Shemona Esrei isn't singing enough.
I would cheer her on if it wouldn't bring undue stares in my direction.
When people come to a synagogue to pray, all come with their own approach and their own goal. Connecting with prayer is extremely difficult, even for the most religious, frum-from-birth Jew. There are so many factors - understanding the words, pronouncing them right, helping the rest of the congregation to understand, and equally important, the intangible "getting into it."
How do we "Get into it" when we're davening? It's especially difficult on Shabbos when we're not making requests, we're just thanking Hashem for giving us this day of rest and reviewing the sacrifices we would be bringing if we had our Beis Hamikdash (Holy Temple). If you know what every word means, great. That still doesn't mean you're getting into it. If you pray in English, good for you. That still doesn't get you there, either.
Some people need to meditate on it for a few minutes in order to build their enthusiasm. Some need to shuckle with their whole body and transfer that energy into their words.
Others, dare I say most, need to SING.
Singin' ain't easy. When you've been saying the same prayers over and over again for years, it's awfully tempting to hide behind the halachic idea of "Tircha D'Tzibura" (not imposing an excessively long wait on the congregation) and rush through it so you can go eat lunch. That Shabbos lunch is something special. You can almost smell the Cholent, the smoked turkey, the potato kugel... it's all beckoning you away, whispering in your ear, "Daven faster! We need to be eaten and you and the rest of the congregation are hungry!"
It's not the food talking. It's your Yatzer Hara (evil inclination).
We need to sing... especially during the Mussaf Shemona Esrei, when Shull is almost over. It's been a long morning and our energy is waning. Singing brings that energy back. It joins the congregation together spiritually and physically.
Physically? Yep. Ever heard the song, "What do you do with a drunken sailor?" It's a "Sea Shanty." It has a repetitive refrain of "Hoo-ra and up she rises, Hoo-ra and up she rises!" What's the point? The point of Sea Shanties was to give sailors something to sing while they worked that would keep them in the same Rhythm. When they were all on the same beat, the sails and the rigging worked a lot faster and the boat ran perfectly. The same thing applies to a Shul. When we're all singing together in the repetition of the Mussaf Shemona Esrei, our sails are at full mast and it's full speed ahead.
Want to take a stop watch and time a singing Mussaf Shemona Esrei versus a non-singing one? Guess what. You can't use a stop watch on Shabbos. However, I guarantee you that you can count the minutes on one hand and have fingers left over. Want to call that an imposition on the congregation?
So, if you're on the short list of people who get the opportunity to lead the Mussaf service, and you hear the voice of a sweet, aged women in your left ear telling you to SING, how about if you go ahead and SING?! You know what? Soon enough you'll hear everyone joining in behind you. Keep it going through your repetition, and suddenly you'll be at the helm of a ship powerful enough to sail straight to Gan Eden.
Or don't sing, and get to lunch a minute faster. Just make sure you wake up the rest of the congregants on your way out.
Editor's note: I haven't posted here in months because I haven't had much to talk about. Until something exciting happens or until some more stories surface, I'm going to try and make a concerted effort to put some of my own thoughts here - as I was inspired to last night.
Tisha B'av has fallen this year on Sunday, August 10th. My father's yahrzeit always falls four days after Tisha B'av on the 13th of Av. This year it will be on Thursday, the 15th of August. Because of the way the calendar worked out this year, it left me with an obligation to lead the congregation in Maariv at the end of the Shabbos erev Tisha B'av.
I had already done maftir on Shabbos and read the Haftorah in the cantillation of Eichah, having practiced singing the sad notes and understanding the words sufficiently. I had lead the congregation in the Mussaf service on Shabbos, which I always try to imbue with lively singing. That day was no different. Even though it was Shabbos Chazon (The Shabbos before Tisha B'av), it was still Shabbos. It wasn't until that night, that I was to fulfill my obligation to lead the Motze Shabbos Maariv before my father's yahrzeit that I felt overwhelmed.
As the Rabbi walked up to the ark to shut the wooden doors, hiding the paroches (curtains) as is customary on Tisha B'av, I was reminded that Tisha B'av is a day when Hashem retreats behind his Mechitzah shel Barzell, his iron wall, as tragedy befalls his people. It's our day to weep and show our sadness for both Holy Temples, lost to our own sinfullness. I stood at our Omud at the front of the Shull, looked at the wooden barrier now obscuring our holy ark, thinking of this iron wall and what powerful prayers it must take to penetrate it. I thought about the people standing behind me. There were Rabbis, righteous donors, people with Torah pedigrees reaching all the way back to Har Sinai, and lay leaders who live and breath Torah. And then there was me. Just plain Sid - obligated to lead the evening's prayers by the timing of my father's yahrzeit. So many people in the room that could have done it, and Hashem seems to have arranged the calendar so that it has to be me.
More than ever, I felt very humbled to be standing at our Omud. All I could think was "Who am I to request anything? Are my prayers powerful enough to break through solid iron?"
As I finished up that evening, I knew who I was. For once, I was humble. That's how we should approach Tisha B'av. Humility, it seems, is all we have left. If generations prior to ours - generations with Torah giants like the Chofetz Chaim, the Steipler Rebbe, The Chassam Sofer, et al, couldn't bring Moshiach, what chance do we have? Every generation that passes takes us farther away from Mount Sinai. Yet we can bring Moshiach. Maybe we can't attain their level of knowledge and holiness, but humility is within everyone's grasp. Reach for it and see if Moshiach doesn't come following.
As I stepped out of my car this morning on the way to work, for some odd reason, I turned to check and make sure my headlights were on. I'm not sure why I did it. The previous day, I had turned them on because it was dark and rainy out, and almost forgot on my way to work. That day I also turned around and checked, saw that they were still on and turned them off.
(As a side explanation, my car was made in 1968. The headlights don't go off automatically.)
This morning it was sunny. I hadn't turned my headlights on. So, I don't know why I checked. I do know that I saw a glint on the pavement in front of my car. I stopped for half a second and took a closer look. It was a silver hoop earing. I shrugged it off and started walking towards the building. Then, I stopped again. I remembered Rabbi Friedman giving a drasha about the mitzvah of returning a lost object. According to the Torah, even if you're leading the troops into war, you're supposed to stop what your doing if you see a lost object. You're supposed to stop what you're doing, even if it's just someone's lost button in the middle of the street.
Could you imagine an army commander stopping a battalion, picking up a lost button and shouting, "ATTENTION! WHO LOST A BUTTON?!" The Torah's awfully clear on this one, and it seeped right into my conscience. I turned around, went back in front of my car (against my own negative inertia - it was freezing outside) and picked up the earing. All the time, I was thinking, "Why am I doing this? This looks like a cheap earing. Oh yeah. Mitzvah."
I clutched the earing tightly in my hand and made my way into the building. As usual, I greeted the people at the front desk, but this time I stopped and held out the earing.
"I found an earing in the parking lot. I thought I should go ahead and bring it here."
Suddenly one of the other young ladies at the friend desk turned to us and said,
"Keep it here. Someone came up here yesterday and said they lost an earing."
Wow. Every lost object belongs to someone. While HaShem may want us to drop everything and do what it takes to find the owner of that lost object, it became clear to me this morning that if you put out a little bit of effort, HaShem will take care of the rest. If it was this easy to fulfil the Mitzvah of returning a lost object, one can only imagine how much help we get from HaShem on other, seemingly difficult Mitzvos.
Over the next few days, I'd like to post some stories I've heard or experienced about Rabbi Schecter. If any of my readers have stories they'd like to submit, please send them. Here's what I know of his history with B'nai Israel. I'm not a math scholar, but I know that Rabbi Bornstein served as Rabbi for nearly 50 years, which means that Rabbi Schecter was here during a very formative time for the Shull. He was instrumental in the creation of the Hebrew Academy of Tidewater, a story which I'm sure sounds very similar to the formation of Toras Chaim many years later. After Bnai, Rabbi Schecter went on to Ner Israel Yeshiva, where he raised funds and learned.
This story always seemed a little humorous to me, but I'm going to tell it with a serious bend. It's short, but I think it says a lot about Rabbi Schecter and how deeply he maintained his connection to the Norfolk Community, even though he had been away so many years.
Rabbi Schecter would visit maybe once a year on his usual tour of duty collecting funds for Ner Israel. One such visit came several years ago. The board of B'nai Israel had just approved a plan to demolish all of the building except for the sanctuary and the minyon room behind it, in favor of building a new educational wing, social hall, kitchens, atrium and minyon room. It was a momentous moment for the Shull and the future looked bright. So much thought, time, effort, and energy had gone into it and I was so involved, that I just assumed the world knew about our plans.
The next week, Rabbi Schecter was in town. I arrived early for our Mincha minyon, and I was staring out the window of our old Minyon room when he walked up behind me.
I turned, looked at him, grinned and gestured out the window.
"I can't believe we're finally going to tear it down."
A look of sadness crept onto his face.
"They're tearing it down?!"
I was stunned for a second. I didn't realize no one had told him about our plans. I stuttered a stumbled for a few seconds as I tried to explain that it was a good thing. New classrooms, an all new facility, and a level of excitement never before seen at Bnai Israel.
It didn't quite do the trick. I felt kind of bad, and years later after Rabbi Schecter's passing, the story re-emerged in my mind, demanding some mental resolution. I think I got it.
You see, as we tore down that building, I noticed something. There was a line in the bricks - the kind of line you'd see if the bricks had ended and then were added onto later. Rabbi Schecter was there when our "old" building was brand new. He left when it was still new. He must have had a vast storeroom of memories of kids learning in that education wing - the very education wing where the Hebrew Academy was founded. He must have had memories of the kitchens and the social hall in its original granduer. The promise of a new facility doesn't replace the loss felt by those who took pride in the old one.
The most beautiful piece of this story is that Rabbi Schecter felt that lose. His connection to the Shull was so strong, that even after 50 years, he still felt it was a part of him. He still looked upon it like his own child, and he felt a sense of responsibility towards its health.
Today, as we mourn the loss of Rabbi Schecter, those of us with a deep connection to Bnai Israel should feel as though we've lost a family patriarch.
It started out simply enough. Shmuel Itzhak had a question. He saw it in a sefer he was reading and he wanted to see how many people in our congregation could figure out the answer. So, he had it written on the bottom left corner of our Shul's announcement sheet right before Shabbos.
A few people noticed, read it, and some found the answer. Shmuel revealed the answer to all of us as Shalosh Seudos. What made the whole thing exciting was that it grew. Soon people became engrossed in finding the answers.
Then the kids got into it. They were digging through sefarim, asking their Rebbes questions, begging for hints... The Shul was alive with kids and parents trying to one-up each other and see who could find the best answer each week.
It was more than a little fun for our Shalosh Seudos meal. It was an activity that inspired people at any level to learn - and to learn facts they might not have looked into otherwise.
It's incumbent upon every Jew to keep learning. If you aren't always learning, you're taking a step back. Sometimes it's hard to find the inspiration to learn or the subject matter to study. Shmuel was creative enough to get lots of people interested in learning the answers to questions that were often very complicated. Any chance you get to make learning fun and open it up to more people is a chance you should take.
Pretty soon, the three of us were shuckling in tandem. Then it was four. Then it was five.
Then, we needed a play book.
We weren't just going to shuckle together. We started alternating. We started swaying side to side. Then we mixed it up and had two sway side to side while the other three went forward and backward. We had a small book with diagrams for all of our moves. Then, we stepped up a notch and had two people shuckle diagonally while the other three alternated back and forth. We also had a scissor move. It was a ballet of shuckling, and it was met with laughter, applause, funny looks, and a few smirks.
The Shuckle club is down to four again, and we don't do it as often because we accomplished our goal - do a little something more to bring us all closer at Shalosh Seudos. Make it special. Make it something people talk about, and get people into the singing. Shalosh Seudos is a time of deep spiritual connection. Indeed, the greatest potential on Shabbos is around Mincha time.
So, yeah, people might think it's silly, or even embarrassing, but it's just another bit of fun that makes Shalosh Seudos at Bnai Israel that much more special, and that makes it right.
"It's like a pugilist, eating a corn dog. You know, the feeling that a pugilist gets when he eats his first corn dog?"
Sure, it didn't make a lot of sense - neither to you, my reader, or to the people who were listening to his speech that night, but it was something everyone became used to. It was "The Word."
The idea was simple - brought to life by one of our congregants - the speaker at Shalosh Seudos was given a word. If he used that word in his speech, the people who gave him the word would donate $18 to the Shull. It started out innocently enough, when our Rosh Kollel was given the word "Polkey."
Soon, every Shabbos we were thinking of words for Rabbi Friedman or whoever dared to fill in for him when he was out of town. Rabbi Adler had been given a double-whammy with "pugilist" and "corn dog." Our speakers thought quickly on their feet, working in nonsequitors and references to Star Wars or odd food items.
Shalos Seudos at Bnai Israel has always been fun. It's more intimate that other congregational gatherings. The singing is spiritual, and the speeches have a more personal tone. The word game quietly added more excitment. People listen carefully to whoever was speaking, wondering what the word was and how he would work it in. People would talk afterwords about how well the word was incorporated - and they would always remember the speech.
The word was always decided on by the game's creator and myself. We stopped doing it when our cash got a little tight, but I think even now our Shalosh Seudos group is a little closer than others because of it.
I was 18 years old and a Freshman in college when my grandmother told me that Shlomo Carlbach was coming back to Beth Israel in Richmond to play a concert. I had been playing bass for less than a year, but I just had to ask, "Does he need a bass player?"
My Bubbie said that Rabbi Carlbach actually did ask for a bass player, so I began to beg. And beg. And beg some more. She said no.
I was a little bummed, but I went to the concert anyway.
I honestly don't remember much about what Reb Shlomo played that night. Not to be critical or anything, but he kind of phoned this one in. Besides, I was staring at the program. Something there caught my eye:
Bass Player: Jocko MacNelly
Ok, that means nothing to most of my readers. Jocko MacNelly is a pretty famous bass player in the Richmond area. His other claim to fame is that his brother, the late Jeff MacNelly, wrote and drew the cartoon "Shoe," which appears in pretty much every newspaper in the country.
So, why did I care so much? I learn how to play bass using a little-known book called "The Electric Bass Book." It was written by Jocko MacNelly. I spent the whole concert watching Jocko play, with my jaw agape. He made it look so easy, and I knew for a fact that he hadn't heard a single one of the songs before showing up that night. He couldn't even see Reb Shlomo playing guitar, so he guessed the chord changes, relying only on his ear and the positioning of the back of Reb Shlomo's hand.
When intermission time came around, a long line of people formed to shake hands with Reb Shlomo. I walked right past them and over to Jocko to introduce myself.
"Mr. MacNelly? My name's Sid. I learned how to play bass using your book."
I made his night. He probably had the most spiritual night of anyone there, come to think of it. We talked through the intermission, he left me with his business card, and I enjoyed the rest of the concert.
I guess you could actually say that Shlomo Carlbach was such a spiritual guy that spiritual things happened around him when he wasn't even trying. Or maybe this was just HaShem's way of getting me to go to the concert and enjoy it even though I wasn't playing - and to make sure I wasn't mad at my Bubbie. I wasn't.
Rabbi Friedman, a consumate musician felt it was important to prepare the congregation for this event, so in the few Shabboses beforehand, he carefully explained the mistakes we were making when we sang some of Reb Shlomo Carlbach's tunes in our usual Shabbos davening. He even got us to practice at Shalosh Seudos. When it came time for the Carlbach Shabbos, we were ready. We new how Reb Shlomo's songs were sung and we were ready to join in, even to harmonize.
...and the Carlbach contingent came from New York. They told stories. They led our davening.
And they made all the same mistakes that we as a congregation had been making all along. Some of us laughed. Some of us planted our faces into our palms. Most of us probably didn't notice. The rest of the Shabbos was (I'm being a little bold by saying this, but I'll say it) a little disappointing. The stories of Reb Shlomo were just a little too effusive and filled with hyperbole about how great he was.
He was great - and he was great for many reasons, so it was hard to listen to people over-hype him.
For all it's ups and downs, the Carlbach Shabbos had one permanent imprint on Bnai Israel. From it we adopted the tradition to sing entirely two of the psalms in the Kabbalas Shabbos service. It was a welcome addition and it energizes our congregation to this day.
So, what happened? Why were the people from the Carlbach Shull (dare I say) a little bit off?
Here's my best guess. Music is an expression of emotion. It's all about feeling. At the same time, it's a science - a science that's difficult to master. So, there are two ways to interface with music - technically and emotionally. Ultimately, we'd all like to experience music both ways, Most of us, however, lack the ear to attain technical proficiency. That just leaves our feelings. When we pour our heart and soul into the music, it creates something special. When our music is our davening, it means we're also pouring our heart and soul into our davening. Getting emotionally vested in prayer is a requirement. Reaching that emotional attachment through the music is a wonderful way to do it.
So why should we even strive for technical proficiency, then? Because - when everyone sings the right note at the right time, it ceases to be a solo act and becomes an orchestra. Add harmonies to the mix and it can be a sublime experience. If everyone sings in their own key, at their own tempo, what you have is not a symphony - it's a cacaphony.
The lesson has probably become obvious by now, but I'll spell it out anyway. The divine presense rests upon those who pray together as a Minyon, not those who pray individually. I would like to propose that HaShem wants to hear more than just ten-plus people in one room, doing their own thing. He wants to hear them daven together - in the same key, at the same tempo, at the same volume.
Sure, the guys from the Carlbach Shull understood that Reb Shlomo was full of love and had a lot of great music. They just didn't quite understand that we all need to approach the music together. We need to work at it, and thereby work at our davening until we, too, are a great symphony.
