An Anti-Nazir

We have always had people who want to be super frum, even if only for a limited time.  No wine.  No volunteering for the Chevre Kadisha.  Hairdo in the style of Jesus Christ Superstar.  And a Chatat, or sin-offering, at the end of the specified term of deprivation.

For a lot of reasons my synagogue composite has taken its toll on me.  Decided to become an anti-Nazir for a bit.  If the Gabbaim ask me to do something for which I have the skill, that stays.  Otherwise, I put myself in Cherem.  Not planning to change my diet, add to my prudent alcohol intake, or visit the barber more than I already do.  I am planning to protect my space and express thoughts ranging from the relentless pursuit of mediocrity and irritation when I sit at the intersection of Hebrew School and Rabbinical Junior College.  An unhappy consumer who's been denied the invitation of being more than a consumer, or even a creative mind who thrives juggling ideas.  The anti-Nazir.

Least Common Denominator

Covid-19's disruptions include cancellation of religious services.  In addition to shabbos, we missed Pesach, Shavuot, and Tisha B'Av in direct communal worship.  Some denominations allow streaming but it's really an invitation to participants to engage in a computer on days when computers are turned off.  The Conservative Rabbis would rule that it is possible to put the computer on before candle lighting and turn it off after havdalah, which it is, but a lot of halachic determination by Sages in the Talmud depend in great part on what those Sages would expect their constituencies to really do.  They will turn their computers on and off at their convenience.  The Rabbis have the Honor, the Congregants have the System. The Orthodox Rabbis seem to reason more like Sages.

Since our congregational rabbi has ruled against streaming, we've had some Hebrew school Junior Congregation adaptations with Kabbalat Shabbat, Yizkor and Hallel pre-recorded along with a sermon.  Not that it affects a lot of people.  The High Holy Days are a whole other matter.  American congregations center their years and their annual financial positions around those days.  It makes a lot of sense either to pre-record the service in its entirety or to have a minyan, however a Congregation defines it, of participants assemble with social distancing precautions, do the service live while streaming it to the homes of their worshippers.

That's not an option we have. Our shul has assembled a High Holiday Committee, which like other congregational committees I was not invited to.  I must say, what's come out leaves me unenthused. I was asked to repeat my annual Yom Kippur Torah reading, and went to the site attired in a suit and sneakers to record it.  When I asked the current and past Presidents to take a scroll out for me to read it, they immediately rebuffed the request.  I was to read it from the Machzor and announce the pages as I go.  Why would anyone want to watch this?  I did not ask them if they would also have a Bond Appeal and a Congregational Appeal for people to watch.  It wouldn't surprise me.  The HH of Rabbinical Junior College it seems.

There are some better options for Modern Orthodox synagogues that have to modify their assemblies to protect the health of their participants.  The Forward had an article outlining some of them.  https://forward.com/news/452226/no-streaming-no-singing-heres-how-high-holidays-will-work-in-modern/  Some look adaptable.  But our committees do not do a lot of exploration, discussion of options, or creative initiatives.  Which is probably why I've been blackballed from them.

Aliyah Sound Bites

One of the phenomena that has infiltrated our local shabbos morning service, one which has actually led me to reduce the frequency of my attendance has been the running commentary that precedes each Aliyah, refereed to with a certain derision as Aliyah Sound Bites.  I detest them enough to go someplace else on shabbos morning which I plan to do next shabbos and sometimes make the assessment that no place is better than our sanctuary on shabbos morning so I upgrade my weekly holy experience by going no place.  Not long ago, I passed this comment to a senior Conservative rabbinic friend amid a larger assessment as to why I think many previously observant Jews have voted with their feet in increasing numbers to deplete attendance on Saturday mornings, myself among them.  He seemed a little surprised that I isolated this part of the morning that made the most negative impression upon me, since he had been at the forefront of encouraging his colleagues to replace some of the shabbos morning sermon with this type of running commentary as a form of machshava to better appreciated what is being read when it is being read.  I judge it more as tircha d'tzibburah, lengthening an already long service with trivial ideas that lack any exposition, much as our TV news has replaced analysis of events with a couple of minutes of photos.  Citizens are dumbed down that way and Jews are spoon fed if not dumbed down as well.

Having carried a pager for most of my medical career, one of the most negative features has been multiple interruptions that destroy any focus or personal exploration.  If you are seeing patients in the office and the pager goes off you cannot deal with the message as an opportunity as much as a reason to dispatch the person doing the interruption as quickly as possible.  Aliyah Sound Bites transpose this process to Torah exploration, something that many of us only get to do once or twice each week.  Learned Judaism really has an elegance to it, a give and take much like Medical Rounds where an issue arises that has many different facets to it.  The Torah reading while divided into seven often unequal parts has a unifying cadence that is sacrificed by inserting constant minor interruptions.  I regard the sequential approach of the seven olim each week as part of that cadence, part of the pageant of Torah.  It represents a pause more than a change in thought.  Since the printing press, it is a chance to glance at a commentary as a footnote to what was just read or to read on to the next aliyah or merely to offer a warm handshake to the person returning to his seat following his honor.  Those pauses enable people to direct their attention to where they would like it to be.  Aliyah Sound Bites on the other hand let somebody else select how the natural pauses between chantings are utilized.

My rabbinic friend in his email to me also asked what I would like the rabbi to do instead.  My first reaction was to have a traditional d'var Torah or sermon.  There is a reason why these expositions have endured for centuries, though often quality dependent.  Many of us study a measure of Torah each week, sometimes the weekly portion, sometimes a particular subject that spans several locations in the scroll, or sometimes an offshoot such as a sage's commentary or a modern commentary.  Nobody that I know of who does this opts for a piece of triviality that can be knocked off in minute.  And multiply triviality seven times or eight if you count a Haftarah Sound Bite as well.  Torah understanding accrues with ideas of greater substance, ideas that are amenable to challenges and citations to the contrary of what is being expressed in the portion being studied.  To pretend that seven spoonfuls each week compensates for a real effort where ideas flow from one to another diminishes the many learned people in our sanctuary each week to occupants in the lecture hall of Rabbinical Junior College.  It's a real negative to me.  And I will try to escape it this coming shabbos.