7/14/2007

Massachusetts 4, or Now For Something Completely Different

"The Latin Mass, for instance, in which the priest celebrates the Eucharist with his back to the people, in a foreign language -- much of it said silently or at best whispered -- makes the congregation, the laity, observers of the rite rather than participants in it."

This is an excerpt from Sister Joan Chittister's article about the pope's decision to restore the Tridentine Latin Rite. It is being done, the pope explains, to make reconciliation easier with conservative groups.

The article made me pause and think about Jewish services - which are traditionally conducted in Hebrew, a language which has (until 60 years ago) been used traditionally to pray - and only to pray. Additionally, a good chunk of the service is conducted silently - the reader's Amidah leaves the entire shul completely silent, save for page turning, mumbling and coughing.

And yes, since many of the most important parts of the service (the barchu, call to worship being the most notable one) are chanted by the chazzan or rabbi with his or her back to the audience. Yet Judiasm discourages the kind of passivity Sister Chittister describes.

Perhaps it's an architectural thing - only in the late 1800s in central and eastern Europe did Jews begin to construct their shul with the bimah, the "stage", at the front. Up until that point (the rise of early Reform Judaism), the bimah was always in the center of the shul. And whoever stood on the bimah was facing the same way as everybody else; with his back to half the congregation, and half the congregations' backs to him. That layout suggests community, and active participation - the "clergy" praying among the congregation.

How has Judaism managed to retain its spirit of active engagement, even though Ashkenazi synagogues commonly have their bimah in the front? (Sephardic shuls, on the other hand, consistently keep their bimah in the center). I can't make much comparison to the Mass, as I've only attended a few (and several of those were technically concerts in which I was singing), but here are two things Judaism does by custom and by format to keep the congregation engaged:

1) Everybody has a book. Or every two people have a book, and share. Or the entire minyan, the entire gathering, has one photocopied siddur, prayerbook, and crowds around it with flashlights. Either way, the congregation is expected to follow the service because the rabbi is using an identical siddur.

2) Equality. Because everybody has the same book (or approximate copies of the same book), there is nothing that a rabbi can say in prayer that any other Jew is forbidden to say. The only actual power a rabbi has is in more life-related matters; for example, a rabbi can perform marriages, serve on a court of judges, etc. But when it comes to spiritual moments, a rabbi says nothing on behalf of the congregation.

Insert: there are a few specific occasions, such as on Yom Kippur, in which one person chants to the congregants, or on their behalf, such as the prayer that begins "hineini heani mimash". The person who does the chanting does not have to be a chazzan; their title is shaliach tzibur, or messenger to the public. This implies a different purpose than the one Sister Chittister describes for the Latin Mass.

But even with these built-in customs that encourage engagement, there are a number of synagogues that discourage this type of engagement by use of choirs, cantorial soloists (who usually sing in such ranges that are impossible for a congregation to sing along with), even organs. These devices can be found in early Reform synagogues from the late 1800s in central Europe (notably the Spanish Synagogue in Prague, as well as the Dohány shul in Budapest, mentioned in this entry. The synagogues that employ such devices were first built at a time during which wealthy Jews sought assimilation in their respective countries and built the biggest, fanciest, grandest synagogues they could afford.

In an effort to prove that Jews were just like any other Czech or Hungarian, they abandoned the traditional center-bimah format, and put it at the front like a church. In the Dohány synagogue, there is even a pulpit - with the traditional spiral staircase winding around one of the central columns of the synagogue. In fact, the Dohány shul contains two pulpits - just because they could build them! (They are each used once a year - on the first and second days of Rosh Hashannah. The rabbi gives one d'var torah, or sermon from the left hand pulpit on the first day, and from the right hand pulpit on the second day.)

I think what I set out to prove in this essay is that passivity doesn't necessarily come from praying in a different language, but from the assumption that someone else is doing the praying for you. I've been criticized for not understanding the Hebrew that I sometimes pray in, and ideologically, my critics are right: praying without understanding is a passive act, regardless of how well I'm harmonizing with the chazzan.

But, like many Catholics, those melodies and words were drilled into me as a child, and it took me a long time to figure out that praying can sound like something else. For me, prayer is the arm I use to reach out and hold on to spiritual things. And sometimes it's about the words, and sometimes it's about the melodies, and sometimes it's about harmonizing with the chazzan and hearing Mr. Shilsky's off-key blaring two rows behind me. And that choice is what determines my level of engagement. The right to choose keeps me - and all of us - from absolute passivity.

7/13/2007

Massachusetts 3, or Further Upcoming Travels

Last night, while sitting on Town Patrol (a formidable duty that involves sitting guard at the ice-cream shop, waiting for students to approach me with questions about directions, scheduling, or medical emergencies), two good friends of mine swung in for a visit. I was so happy to see them - it felt like something out of a Archie comic, the three of us crammed into the ice cream shop booth with our various confections. Only I'm quite sure that none of Archie's friends ever had dreadlocks. Or more than one piercing. Or were Jewish.

In any case, it was at that booth that Mikey invited me to come with her to the National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas this August.

I have never been to Texas for any longer than it takes to change flights, and certainly not in the middle of August. But her invitation sparked something really bright in me - the chance to be surrounded by poets for a week, competing and reading and reveling in the camaraderie. When I couldn't find any scheduling conflicts, or serious reasons why I shouldn't go, I started shaking. There's a good chance - an excellent chance - that I will really go.

I can't wait. Now, who knows of a good website from which to get cheap tickets from Hartford to Austin?

7/04/2007

Massachusetts 2, or Poem draft 3

My grandfather says this poem illustrates the devout faith of atheists. It is a poem for him, and for my cousin Emily.

Miraculous

A tiny duck is flying higher than his feathers should let him,
swooping down to swim faster than his tiny duck feet
should carry him in a perfectly
straight line across a river that is moving
so fast there should be no way he can fight it.
And his mother sits on the other side, without
so much as a ruffled feather to show any kind of fear
for her week-old baby duck.

But here I am, on a cliff that should leave me too high
for my 20/60 bare-eyed vision to perceive this tiny
duck’s head zooming across the whitecaps, with too little
sun protection to keep my super-white-girl knees from
frying into blisters, too willing to dismiss my blurry
eyes from their blind faith
to admit that I think
I’m seeing a miracle.

And some think my cynicism keeps me from
finding the courage to have faith in a powerful G-d, but
miracles are not magical. They
don’t come from the hand their G-d’s magic wand,
and they’re hardly ever pretty or convenient.

Miracles are acts of desperation
turned beautiful, like the star that shoots through the cloud cover
for its one last chance at glory before it dies, like
Merganser ducklings learning how to swim in the middle of a rapid,
like the sun wrestling through the morning fog to warm the ocean.

Miracles are accidents that allow
us to survive, like the tackle box that trips
the man who falls and lets his catch go free, like
the bullet that hits a soldier bad enough
to send him home alive, like the first time
I felt poetry slamming into my faithless soul like a car crash
that left me twisted and burning, but unable to run away.

And today I know that one man’s miracle
is another man’s tragedy,
that one mother Merganser can teach me
more about faith than any house of prayer
and here I sit with my near-blind eyes
and understand that this kind of miracle
is worth more than a god to pray to because
these miracles have no selling point or point to sell.
They just give me faith.

7/01/2007

Massachusetts 1, or Poem

Miraculous Things
Draft 2

A tiny duck is flying higher than his feathers should let him,
swooping down to swim faster than his tiny duck feet
should carry him in a perfectly
straight line across a river that is moving
so fast there should be no way he can fight it.
And his mother sits on the other side, without
so much as a ruffled feather to show any kind of fear
for her week-old baby duck.

But here I am, on a cliff that should leave me too high
for my 20/60 bare-eyed vision to perceive this tiny
duck’s head zooming across the whitecaps, with too little
sun protection to keep my super-white-girl knees from
frying into blistery crisps, and too little invested
in the commercialism of faith to admit that I think
I’m seeing a miracle.

And I imagine that you think my cynicism keeps me from
finding the courage to have faith in a powerful G-d, but
I don’t see miracles as magical. They
don’t come down straight from the hand your G-d’s magic wand,
and they’re hardly ever so pretty or convenient.

Miracles are acts of desperation
turned beautiful, like the star that shoots through the cloud cover
for its one last chance at glory before it dies, like
Merganser ducklings learning how to swim in the middle of a rapid,
like the sun wrestling through the morning fog to warm the ocean.

Miracles are accidents that allow
us to survive, like the hand that should’ve slipped
from my life jacket
before it hauled me safely into the boat but didn’t, like
the bullet that hits a soldier bad enough
to send him home alive, and

today I know that one man’s miracle
is another man’s tragedy,
that one mother Merganser can teach me
more about faith than any house of prayer
and here I sit with my near-blind eyes
and understand that this kind of miracle
is safe because
these miracles will never sell you on a god.
They’ll just give you faith.