Shemonei Esrei: Deconstructed!

Every time I'm davening, I stumble over this bit in the Shemonei Esrei that, translated by Artscroll reads

Rebuilding Jerusalem

And to Jerusalem, Your city, may you return in compassion, and may You rest within it, as You have spoken. May you rebuild it soon in our days as an eternal structure, and may You speedily establish the throne of David within it. Blessed are You, HaShem, the Builder of Jerusalem. 

My beef with the text comes with the bolded words there. The Hebrew looks like this:

The text makes sense to me in that it calls for a rebuilding (uvnei) of Jerusalem, but I find the wording on the throne of David difficult. Jerusalem, after all, was destroyed a few times over, with the Temple -- the first and the second -- being destroyed. In my mind, the rebuilding of Jerusalem is largely in reference to the reestablishment of a Temple, a central place of worship for Jews. But the throne of David, established at one point in Israel, needs not be established but merely to be re-established. It's confusing to me that verb associated with Jerusalem is rebuild, but the verb associated with the throne of David is an original, an establishing.

The verb translated as establish, tachin (להכין), literally means "to prepare, make ready." My favorite Hebrew-English/English-Hebrew online dictionary uses the verbs לייסד, להקים; לבסס for "to establish." (Note: These probably are strictly modern Hebrew verbs, not sure about the Biblical Hebrew. Boneh is pretty standard for building, to build, builder, etc. in the Hebrew Bible. Someone with more knowledge of the varying verbs relating to building or esetablishing or constructing in the Tanakh.)

Thus it seems to me that the text in the Shemonei Esrei is actually calling for Jerusalem to be rebuilt as in the glory days and for the city to be prepared and made ready for the throne of David once again thrive (i.e. be re-established). At any rate, it makes me feel a lot better about reading it every time I daven. It has always seemed awkward to me that it would be "establish." 

Then again, I tend to pick apart words and phrases much more than is necessary. I'm guessing this hasn't bothered anyone else, right?

Artscroll, for shame!

Look at this picture. It took me almost a month to even notice it, but at shul this weekend I discovered an error in my siddur! I'm sure there are lots, but I'm usually not in editor mode while davening. Do YOU see the error?

A gold star for whoever figures it out first :) This is from the Ohel Sarah pocket edition, page 224!

Oh, and sorry it's quite blurry!

Argh! Ye Words Lack Meaning!

Every now and again, I come across a word in the siddur that throws me for a loop. I say it, and say it, and don't always know what it's meaning is. In the case of the word that's perplexed me this time -- selah (סלה)-- there was no translation worth offering in the siddur. It's translated as, well, selah. So, after a very, very long time of reciting this word without really knowing what I was saying, I finally looked it up. 

The discovery? No one really knows what it means (oh joy!). Some think that it was a marker for musicians back in the day, since the term appears at the end of a lot of the Psalms. One guy thinks that the word is really "celah" and means "to weigh." Far fetched, me thinks. Some think that it might relate to a city in the time of David/Solomon known as Selah, and others think that maybe it means forever (think: olam?). There are a few who thought it was merely a marker ending and starting a paragraph. Today it's translated sometimes as "think about it" or "praise the lord." Other times, like in my siddur, it's just selah.

An interesting aside since there's really no answer to this little nugget of prayer that's driving me nuts: Furman Bisher, legendary former sports editor and current columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has for decades signed off his columns with "Selah."

Fascinating. Maybe I should make it my life's work to uncover the true meaning of the word selah.

Because You Want to Hear the REAL Chaviva.

Disclaimer: I usually edit my videos, put in little slides with quirky commentary, but I wasn't up for it, so it's just a long video of me discussing my new siddurim, prayer, bensching, davening, and more. Pardon my pronunciations, my general tomfoolery and all else that follows!

Tugging My Strings

Well before I left for Israel, and well after I got back, I was feeling a void religiously and spiritually. It happens. We all know that it comes in stages. For months we'll feel connected, tied to G-d and the community and our spiritual strings are happily tugged day and night. And then, out of nowhere, one day we realize that the strings are covered in dust and cobwebs and their limpness leaves us feeling empty. Of course the "we" and "us" is really me. The other night I told Tuvia this. I mentioned that I was feeling kind of empty. I realized that I hadn't written about anything religious in some time on the blog (though, I guess to some it might seem like I have). It seemed like everything I had written was pop culture or politics or just general "blah blah blah." It's been a long, long time since I've written a d'var Torah and probably even longer since I sat down and read through the parshah. I used to be on the ball, head-first, my strings were active.

So I was looking forward to shul on Friday. Tuvia and I drove over to the Orthodox shul, arriving a little bit after minchah had started. I remembered to take my transliterated siddur with me, since I'm not so comfortable with the regular Artscroll just yet. Add to this that the shul's siddurim are in much-loved shape, I figure better I batter my own copy rather than their's.  I found my place quickly in the women's section, opened up my siddur, jumped to where we were, and began to daven. The men's section was loaded with men in varied kippahs, some in black hats, some with payess, some with beards, some meandering about. The women's section was empty except for me until another woman showed up next to me. But I was so in the zone the entire service that I missed things going on on the other side, missed any missteps or air bubbles in the service. I read the words with strict devotion, I threaded my tongue around the syllables, hoping to find that passion, to feel the tug of those strings, and it happened. Slowly, but surely.

After the service, we headed over to our Shabbos dinner hosts' house, where we were joined by another couple and a family of five. Overall, there were 13 of us at that Shabbos dinner table, noshing salad and challah and kugel and pie. Conversation flowed from Israel to the local Jewish day schools, from school to Nebraska and Wisconsin. The hospitality was good and Midwestern, which is what I'm used to. The host reminded me so much of the Kosher Academic, which is probably why the entire experience was so comforting and at-ease. I didn't feel like I had to act a certain way or say certain things. It was exactly what I needed to continue the evening. The strings continued to be pulled, I was alive again. With the blessings and the kippah-headed men and the challah and the bensching ... I missed all of these things.

I think I just miss the full Shabbos experience: services, conversation, the meal, the wine and the blessings, the feeling of the evening and the day, the real rest and focus. Luckily, the people at the shul are so kind, so welcoming that we've been invited back for Shabbos dinner and the full-day Shabbos experience.

This week, I'll be here on campus for my first Shabbat at Chabad in weeks. Nay, probably in a month and a half. I'm excited to hook back up with the campus Jewish crew, but I am also disappointed that I won't be making challah and lighting the candles and enjoying Shabbat with Tuvia, but all good things come in time.

Until then, I'm shining my strings and hoping they continue to lead me on and on and on ...

News and Information: Your Not-so-Daily Dose.

A couple interesting things to write about/share. Some news, some not, but all educationally fascinating.

+ I think I'll leave any and all comments on the new GLBT siddur that is in the works to the write-up FrumSatire did over on his blog . I'll be honest: I'm incredibly liberal, but some of the new prayers in the siddur make ME uncomfortable. Just check out the blog. Prayers for unexpected intimacy? You'll catch my drift.

+ I have failed miserably at preparing anything coherent to share about the upcoming new year -- Rosh Hashanah -- leading us into 5769. Luckily, other people are way ahead of me on this. Who, you ask? Well, Ilana-Davita posted up some information last week that you can find here , and she also linked to Leora's blog , which also has some outstanding information about various food symbols for the new year, not to mention a beautiful piece of art. Then there is Jew Wishes who has one heckuva comprehensive list of websites for the High Holy Days, not to mention a suggested list of books to pick up. But I promise to have something. I need to have something. I am starting off 5769 as a graduate student, with a boyfriend, in a new state, far away from just about everything I was and knew at this point last year. I have sort of become a new person. I'm miles away from my hashkafah of a year ago, not to mention miles physically and emotionally away from who I was. It will be an interesting start, I think.

+ Over the weekend Evan and I were debating the details of kashrut and why chicken is considered meat and fish isn't. To be honest, I'd never thought about the whole issue of why fish is parve, but he got me thinking. I've been doing the vegetarian thing (okay, I faltered on Sunday ONCE and had some buffalo chicken wing/ball things while watching the Patriots game), mostly because I'm torn about the whole kashurt and interpretation of the meat/milk law as being ALL dairy and ALL meat (except fish, you know, since it's parve). Being a vegetarian is my effort to move in that direction, though there are a boatload of other reasons why, and I'll post more on that after I collect my thoughts and do some reading (hat tip to A Simple Jew for some thoughtful links).  So back to the point: Fish is parve, which means it's neither dairy nor meat, so it can be eaten with anything and this makes Jews stoked because it opens up the options for protein with a dairy meal. Thus, after some exhaustive searching on my Blackberry, I came across the website for Beth Tzedec (a Toronto congregation) with an interesting and thoughtful discussion of the issue. The question posed was: "The Torah tells us not to seethe the kid in its mother's milk. A chicken does not have mother's milk. Why isn't chicken parve like fish?" And the answer by Rav Roy Tanenbaum:

The answer to your question illustrates how laypeople help to determine the scope of Jewish law. The Talmudic sages were of course aware of the fact that chickens do not have mothers' milk. But before establishing the category of chicken, they wanted to know how the average person in the street uses language. So they [asked] ... the following questions: "If you sent a servant to the market to buy meat and he came back with fish, what would your reaction be? Alternatively, if he came back with chicken, what would your reaction be?"

The scholars learned that most people of the time included chicken in their normal understandaing of the word "meat" whereas they did not include fish. This is still true today as illustrated in the fact that when we wish to exclude chicken we have to use the term "red meat."

So to avoid confusion among the masses of people, the sages incorporated chicken under the halakha of meat.

So what can I say? It comes back to making things easier and less confusing, but at least I now have an explanation.

+ I'm adding several books to my Amazon Wish List (feel free to shower me with gifts at any time), though mostly as a reminder to read them at some point, not necessarily to procur, considering my reading list is quite heavy as is. The first is a new book by Brandeis Professor Jonathan Sarna (yes, you guessed it, his father is Nahum Sarna, whose books I have been reading for class) about the American Jewish experience, but more importantly about renewing the Jewish experience both ritually and religiously. The book is "A Time to Every Purpose: Letters to a Young Jew ," and you'll note that the title is taken from Qohelet! I'm also throwing on David Sears' "The Vision of Eden: Animal Welfare and Vegetarianism in Jewish Law and Mysticism ." And lastly, thanks to Jew Wishes , I'm throwing on Elie Wiesel's "Legends of Our Time ."

A Birthright.

I'm standing just off the curb near the bus stop, watching taxicabs and cars zip by, waiting for a free space in the traffic to make it across Broadway. Really, I'm at ease -- my skirt flapping wildly in the wind; gale force winds have painted the day. I wanted very much to just stand there, eyes closed, early summer wind brushing over and around me, making my kosher-for-shul skirt dance. And then there's a clearing, and I run, sandles clicking against the ground, and I'm thinking: when did skirts become oppressive. And then I'm thinking: I should blog about this and shul tonight and about how it's hard to fight the urge to blog after something beautiful whips around your mind making it difficult to think -- you must get the words out in some form, else they'll continue to stir up and around making it uneasy to concentrate, to breathe.

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I showed up 15 minutes late to shul. I followed a young couple in and as they were picking through the headcoverings I opened the sanctuary door to find it empty. I tucked myself into their space and asked if they knew what time services were. I then found out that sometimes they have services in the basement, in the room where on my first visit to the Orthodox shul they'd had a Shabbat dinner and where I'd scooted myself into an already-full table of Jews. I plodded down the steps and there, in the big room, were crowded dozens of congregants separated women from men by a lace curtain divider. I (reluctantly) grabbed my transliterated (brown) siddur and grabbed a seat. The men's side was pretty hoppin', and the woman I'd run into mentioned that when they have services downstairs, there's dancing and lively(er) singing. Now, I'd skipped a service at the Conservative shul because I was hoping to avoid acoustic guitars and the like, so it was funny that the Orthodox shul had a similar thing going down; but rest assured, there were no drums or guitars or anything aside from the voices -- the beautiful voices -- of the congregants.

I quickly found my place in the siddur, but realized for the first time at the Orthodox shul that I really loathe the transliterated version. The thing is, the transliteration does that whole "s" versus "t" bit from the Ashkenazi/Sephardi pronunciations and it just throws me. I know the prayers, but when you're staring at a transliterated page you have a tendency to read what you're given and it's just frustrating. If only everything weren't so ... fast. Yes, if things were slower I could probably keep up in the Hebrew. But at the same time, the pace is what enthralls and excites me. There is so much, so very much, and all of it is beautiful. I found myself marveling tonight at how quickly I was moving along in some of the prayers you find in all shuls for the ma'ariv. I wouldn't change the service at all. It's me who needs to change. The Hebrew needs to be like a second skin, a glove. I should be able to open the siddur and know precisely where we are in the service, know the words and the melodies. And in due time, well, I'll be there.

And there was dancing. On the men's side, anyhow. The women sort of smiled and looked on over the divider as the rabbi and several other (also rabbis) danced in a circle. I wish I could convey the beauty that emanates from this congregation when they're singing and davening. It's like our entire past, all of our ancestors, are in the room voices belting loudly in many different melodies making the most serene sound. I can close my eyes and it's as if the entire room has become Israel -- the people, the entire congregation. And that, of course, is what Shabbat is meant to be. I've never experienced that before, that washed over feeling of generations past and present alive in the voices of those singing and davening.

But then there is the guilt. I left services, opting to skip out on a (most likely delicious) Shabbat dinner to go home. The day left me weary -- the heat was suffocating and the wind left me feeling worn. I need sleep, it's true, and I have many a plan for the weekend (not partying hard, folks, but going to a green market and chalk art festival and book fair). The entire week drifted by seemingly without any sleep, and despite the joy and absolute happiness I feel when joining a Shabbat table, I knew I needed to come home. I trekked down the street and, seeing two buses coming, stopped at the corner and waited. As I stood there, people leaving the Orthodox shul walked by, and a feeling of dread overcame me. I began to think, What will they think of me? Am I being judged? Should I just start walking so they think perhaps I was just taking an idle break?
No one said anything to me. They probably didn't even notice me. I'm sure there are plenty of people who take the bus -- not everyone lives in the eruv or within walking distance, right? I was over-thinking it. But having already started thinking about blogging about services, I'd also turned on my Blackberry, which I subsequently (and shamefully) shoved in my bag. The bus came, I hopped on, pulled out Potok, and read the entire way home.

And now, we're back to where we began.

I'm trying to figure out how to reconcile a lot of things. From what I hear, this (modern) Orthodox shul isn't like other Orthodox shuls. The rabbi is one of a kind. The people? Also unique. The atmosphere? You won't find it anywhere else. I'm beginning to worry: Is this going to turn into another situation like with my "starter shul" back in Nebraska? Will it come to be that no shul on the planet will be able to compare with this shul? On the same note, is this synagogue "acceptable" in its Orthodoxy or is it talked about by the folks up in West Rogers Park and Skokie? Scratch that. Now that I think about it, every year I guess there's a mass migration of new families from this Orthodox shul up to the Orthodox neighborhoods in the near suburbs. They even have little reunions I guess. So yes, it's kosher.

Why am I asking all these questions? Who cares?

While standing in services, not paying attention to the prayer, my eyes floated through the lace curtain to all the young bachelors. I began to wonder (so much thinking going on) whether -- if I really wanted to land me a nice Orthodox boy -- this whole conversion debacle would make someone apprehensive about me, even if I had chosen to convert Orthodox. Would it keep someone from loving me? From accepting me? And how would I handle that. Is it even worth it? Afterall, I've been known to be in love with goyim (past and present).

Oy. My head hurts from all the thinking, but this is what shul does to me. I go, I experience something beautiful, I leave, I begin to think. Sometimes I wonder if my approach to Judaism is too academic, too serious, too fretful. And then I step back and look at those words and think of the sages and great thinkers and realize no, this is precisely what I'm meant to do. It's who I am.

It's my birthright.

More on the new Reform siddur.

I'm not sure if this came out before, or if this is new stuff. An article came out a week or two ago about a controversial prayer that was re-added to the new Reform siddur, which I wrote about here a month ago. The new prayer book -- Mishkan T'filah -- is expected to be out and about pretty quick here. The ins and outs of the new siddur can be found on the URJ website here.

But the reason we're here -- the restoration of a controversial prayer! Way back when, when Judaism was splitting all over the place, one of the great diverting theologies was over the idea of the resurrection of the dead. This goes back to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, with the former supporting resurrection theology and the latter rejecting it for not being explicitly mentioned in Torah. The idea of resurrection even appears in Maimonides' 13 Principles of Faith. "Traditional" Jews still very much support the idea of resurrection, which foresees that at the coming of the messiah (since the Jewish messiah has yet to come), the righteous will be resurrected to enjoy the fruits of their righteous efforts.

There are some within Judaism who consider this theology to span to the idea of reincarnation of the soul, continuing on the work that was promised at Sinai in an effort to perpetuate and satisfy tikkun olam. These stories and ideas are largely held within Chasidic sects, and interestingly this idea is most definitely apparent in Chaim Potok's "My Name is Asher Lev" when Asher begins to question whether his divergence from the family trade is somehow harming the soul traveling from generation to generation within his family (as he's tormented by his great ancestor in his dreams).

But what does this all mean for Reform Judaism? In 1885, the Pittsburgh Platform explicitly DENIED bodily resurrection, as it seemed irrational and contrary to logic. Then there's this:

In prior Reform prayer books, the traditional blessing of God as the one who revives the dead — in Hebrew, “m’chayeih hameitim” — was changed to “m’chayeih hakol,” literally “who gives life to all.” The new prayer book includes the modified version, but also offers worshipers the ancient formulation as an alternative.

And more than 120 years later, here we are.

The new siddur, as I mentioned, is completely about inclusiveness. It's shooting at the whole body of Reform folks -- religious, non-religious, secular, non-Jewish spouses, etc. So by including the revamped version and the historically "traditional" version, the authors are hoping to pique the interest of curious parties and perhaps those who are aiming to be more traditional.

If anything, the inclusion of the traditional prayer and perhaps some accompanying gleanings can offer the reader -- religious or not -- a perspective of constant restoration of the self and of the soul. On Yom Kippur we're restored, no? The article has some interesting takes on the importance of the prayer, resurrection and messiah theology. Read it!

I'm really excited for the new prayerbook (though my opinions of resurrection theology are undeveloped, at best), because I've grown weary of the constant "return to tradition" that includes nothing more than a little more Hebrew in the service. I'm hoping this book will offer some truly more traditional takes on Judaism that hold to the tenets of a progressive Judaism, while also maintaining the roots and history and meaning of the thousands of years of Jewishness that preceded us.

In my eternal struggle to place myself on the spectrum of Judaism, I'm looking at the new prayerbook positively and hoping it'll keep me excited and searching.

The New Siddur ... here's hoping it actually comes out this time!

So I saw this little gem in the New York Times about the Union for Reform Judaism preparing to adopt a new prayer book. Hold the phone. Weren't we going to do this like ... a year ago? Six months ago? Three months ago? This thing has been in the works for AGES. At one service last year I heard that the printing was halted because of some typos. Then I heard that the printing was halted so that all the Harry Potter books could make it out in time.

Either way, I'm a fan of the new book.

I attended a service up north at a synagogue I ended up passing on where the head honcho was one of the leading rabbis on the new siddur. I knew this immediately because their personal prayerbook (they'd left the old Gates of Prayer behind long ago) was printed in the style that I had seen in the sneak peeks we'd gotten back home in Nebraska at B'Nai Jeshurun. It appeared for a long time that the union was sending out bits and pieces to rabbis for use in sort of acclimating their congregations to the new style of the forthcoming (still waiting!) prayerbook. It's a complete — COMPLETE — change from the old version.


If you poke at that article, there's an interactive section that shows you a bit of the new prayerbook. I like to call it the "choose your own adventure" prayerbook (its new name being Mishkan T'filah). Why? Well, each page is full of the Hebrew, the English and the transliteration, in addition to a lot of gleanings and optional prayer portions pulled from the great rabbis and thinkers, not to mention other portions of the Tanakh. The goal of the book is to appeal to anyone and everyone. Says the Times:

The changes reveal a movement that is growing in different directions simultaneously, absorbing non-Jewish spouses and Jews with little formal religious education while also trying to appeal to Jews seeking a return to tradition.

The siddur took more than 20 years to complete ... talk about an undertaking. The last siddur was published in 1975, and I guess I understand why just about every synagogue I've gone to outside of my home shul in Lincoln, Neb., has created their own version of the prayerbook in an effort to be more universal. I'll admit that nothing in the old Gates of Prayer offended me. In fact, there's a portion in there that inspires and moves me every day. But the new siddur has removed references to God as a “He”, and whenever Jewish patriarchs are named — like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so are the matriarchs — like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.

I'm quite excited about the new book. I think — if anything — perhaps it will bring more people into the shul, seeing as it has a bounty of new stuff to read (the book is pretty thick, from what I've heard), so when you get tired of the rabbi's sermon you can just read on some wisdom from the sages or Elie Wiesel. It's variety, and that's what we thrive on these days it seems — something for everyone, gall darn't.

I suppose I should check in with my synagogue to see if we're taking on the new siddur or if we're sticking with our homemade versions. Here's to hoping this text can pump some fire into the hearts of my fellow Reform Jews!