Inspiring Today's Diverse Jewish Community
Rabbi's Message - The Learning Service
Congregation Dor Hadash has always been a “Friday Night shul,” involving the most members at Friday night services, more than on Shabbat morning. Our monthly Shabbat morning service is mostly attended by our Bnai Mitzvah class and their parents, and a smattering of congregants who came to Torah Study before, and stayed for the service. What is perhaps not known by many of you is that the service is a healthy mix of song, prayer, discussion, and most of all learning.
Very often, synagogues that offer such opportunities for participation usually call them a learners service or beginners service—which assumes most people present are beginning their journey through the prayer book. What we are doing at CDH is more of a “learning service” because anyone—the novice as well as the experienced “pray-er”—should feel comfortable deepening their knowledge of liturgy, theology, and simply what’s happening in the shabbat service. This is why of the “minyan” (ten people) or so who might come to the service beyond the Vav and Bnai Mitzvah class, there is a mix of members who understand Hebrew and know the service well, people who are experimenting with the liturgy, and those for whom the liturgy can be a significant barrier to a spiritual experience.
As a Reconstructionist congregation, it is important for us to be able to open up the prayer book and feel connected both to the traditional liturgy as well as the wealth of material found “below the line.” Our siddur was the first contemporary mainstream prayer book to offer gender-neutral English translations, to offer feminine god-language as a real option for prayer, and to have readings and drashot (explanations) within the body of the siddur by contemporary rabbis, lay leaders, and scholars.
Thus, in any part of a “regular” service, a variety of opportunities are offered to enter into prayer, to find one’s place, and to feel comfortable. In the learning service, we take this opportunity to new heights, spending time understanding the meaning of a prayer, learning the history, examining the commentary and positing our own interpretations of the liturgy. The point is to illuminate the texts with our insights while learning what traditionally the prayers have meant to generations of Jews.
Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, the editor of a wonderful series that I have used as a resource for the learning service called My People’s Prayer Book, has written: “The prayer book is our Jewish diary of the centuries, a collection of prayers composed by generations of those who came before us, as they endeavored to express the meaning of their lives and their relationship to God.” What we strive to provide in the learning service is an opportunity to approach the siddur as a spiritual resource, involving each of us in a dialogue with the Power that makes for meaningful prayer, Jewish history and tradition.
I hope you’ll mark your calendars and join us on the second Saturday of the month from 10 a.m.–12 noon for learning, prayer, song, and a celebration of Shabbat in community. See you January 14!
- Rabbi Yael Ridberg
Very often, synagogues that offer such opportunities for participation usually call them a learners service or beginners service—which assumes most people present are beginning their journey through the prayer book. What we are doing at CDH is more of a “learning service” because anyone—the novice as well as the experienced “pray-er”—should feel comfortable deepening their knowledge of liturgy, theology, and simply what’s happening in the shabbat service. This is why of the “minyan” (ten people) or so who might come to the service beyond the Vav and Bnai Mitzvah class, there is a mix of members who understand Hebrew and know the service well, people who are experimenting with the liturgy, and those for whom the liturgy can be a significant barrier to a spiritual experience.
As a Reconstructionist congregation, it is important for us to be able to open up the prayer book and feel connected both to the traditional liturgy as well as the wealth of material found “below the line.” Our siddur was the first contemporary mainstream prayer book to offer gender-neutral English translations, to offer feminine god-language as a real option for prayer, and to have readings and drashot (explanations) within the body of the siddur by contemporary rabbis, lay leaders, and scholars.
Thus, in any part of a “regular” service, a variety of opportunities are offered to enter into prayer, to find one’s place, and to feel comfortable. In the learning service, we take this opportunity to new heights, spending time understanding the meaning of a prayer, learning the history, examining the commentary and positing our own interpretations of the liturgy. The point is to illuminate the texts with our insights while learning what traditionally the prayers have meant to generations of Jews.
Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, the editor of a wonderful series that I have used as a resource for the learning service called My People’s Prayer Book, has written: “The prayer book is our Jewish diary of the centuries, a collection of prayers composed by generations of those who came before us, as they endeavored to express the meaning of their lives and their relationship to God.” What we strive to provide in the learning service is an opportunity to approach the siddur as a spiritual resource, involving each of us in a dialogue with the Power that makes for meaningful prayer, Jewish history and tradition.
I hope you’ll mark your calendars and join us on the second Saturday of the month from 10 a.m.–12 noon for learning, prayer, song, and a celebration of Shabbat in community. See you January 14!
- Rabbi Yael Ridberg
