My congregation has its share of challenges, not the least among them getting the Torah portion read each shabbos. I do not know whether we acquire the necessary minyan at other times of scheduled reading but shabbos is by far the lengthiest. While the cycle repeats each year, the composite of 5852 verses really prevents anyone from knowing the whole thing to chant weekly without substantial preparation. The Festival portions are much shorter and pretty much repeat so people can master some of these with annual repetition but not the shabbos portion. There are skilled people who routinely chant an entire shabbos portion weekly, usually for a stipend, typically hired by congregations for that purpose. However, when our hired reader takes his week away each month, we are on our own.
A few stalwarts can do a lot, a few like me a column or so. Our novices have not developed, leaving the crew of limited capacity. One person capable of a few columns relocated, leaving us pretty thin. Eventually the readings would not be covered. After a few close calls it happened, with a request from the person making the assignment to read from the book, which I am not willing to do.
As Covid took effect and our services became virtual, they also became a variant of Junior Congregation, a major abridgement, almost an illusion of Holy Day worship. I agreed to pre-record the Yom Kippur Torah reading in advance, learning it with some effort. When I came to record it and asked for the scroll to be opened and filmed, I was told by the former President no-can-do. It had to be read from the machzor with the Torah on the table but not open to its place or the camera positioned to record me moving the
yad as I chanted.
Derech Eretz prevailed, but I did not take well to the experience. It devalued my effort, my assertion to strive for correctness over expediency, and I think it showed disrespect to the congregation, irrespective of my own skill and effort. I resolved never to do that again, and I won't. I just found the experience hurtful, an assault on the traditions that we maintain.
Covid cancellations hopefully occur once in a lifetime and are beyond control. Accommodations are needed, striving for least harm, but I understand the need for expediency sometimes. Having this as the new norm as our talent fails just doesn't make it. I won't do that again and I meant it.
The person assigning readings has an unenviable task under our circumstances, and as a woman, she cannot be a personal reader of default. However, this situation had its near misses; it was foreseeable. There is a governance with Nominating Committees that thought somebody other than me should be on it. They include VPs of long tenure, committees for Ritual and Education, a Rabbi of long tenure, all of whom got the thumbs up of the annual Nominating Committees. A contracting congregation is theirs to address. They have the option of continuing with slippery slopes. They don't have the option of lubricating me and offering to push.
There's an oft cited
Mishna in
Pirke Avot where the chief sage
Yochanan ben Zakkai who kept Judaism viable in its darkest days, praised his most promising students. In public the Rebbe would assert that
Eliezer ben Hyrcanus would rise to the top, though off the record he confided to an assistant that
Elazar ben Arach would achieve the most renown. Elazar ben Arach became a minor contributor to law and analysis in the end. For family reasons, he accepted a position as Rav in Emmaus, a resort town. While he had the hope of elevating the people there to a more scholarly Judaism, the reverse happened. To maintain expediency and cordial relations, instead of the people becoming more like him, he became more like them. But at least his tomb seems to have been identified. Some compromises just drag you down with no realistic prospect of reversal.
