Episode 40: Co-Shepherding (live at Temple Isaiah Lexington)

4:47PM Feb 16, 2023

Speakers:

Eliana Light

Lisa Doob

Darryl Crystal

Louis Polisson

Keywords:

rabbi

doob

congregation

cantor

prayer

people

service

synagogue

connection

crystal

year

mitzvah

music

moment

liturgy

words

leading

question

call

song

Shalom my friends, Eliana Light here, and welcome to the Light Lab Podcast. So great to be with you for another episode. This one is pretty special, we did it live! A couple of weeks ago was Shabbat Shira, one of the special Shabbatot, Shabbats on the calendar. It's called Shabbat Shira because in Parshat B'Shalach, the part of the Torah we read on that particular week called B'shalach, the Israelites crossed the sea into freedom and sang the song at the sea, Shirat HaYam. They said that Moses and Miriam, let's face it, we can give Miriam most the credit here, Miriam led everybody in song and it is the first song, the first shir, in our Torah and in our tradition, and so many synagogues celebrate it by putting a bigger emphasis on music. And my friend Cantor Lisa Doob of Temple Isaiah in Lexington did just that and invited me to spend a weekend there full of song and learning and spirit. It was really incredible. It was also the coldest it had been in Boston in 100 years. So we spent a lot of time inside, mostly masked and singing together. It was really a joy. And on Saturday night, we did a live podcast interview with both Cantor Doob and with Rabbi Darryl Crystal. But first let me tell you a little bit about Cantor Doob. She is first of all a really kind and gracious and warm person. I've known Cantor Doob for at least 10 years since we were in this awesome program called Kesher Shir together, which paired cantors and cantorial soloist with Jewish songwriters to make new liturgical music. Cantor Doob is also an amazing songwriter in her own right. She's written a lot of songs, particularly for kids that I absolutely love. She received her Master of Sacred Music and Cantorial Ordination from Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion and earned undergraduate degrees in music and French from the University of Manitoba. She also grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, which is where my bubbe, my grandma grew up, and I have a lot of family there. The snow, the cold, it wasn't snowing, the cold didn't bother Cantor Doob anyway, she was totally fine. She's also a student of languages and loves translating. And she loves to translate her love of all things Jewish through songwriting, teaching, conversation, and creative arts and she's been at Temple Isaiah for many, many years and is taking a well deserved sabbatical for the next many months right now. So cantered Lisa Doob, I hope you are enjoying your sabbatical. Also, I got to interview Rabbi Darryl Crystal, who has a lot of incredible stories to tell. Because partially because he is an interim rabbi, an interim rabbi, is who a synagogue might hire if they're going between rabbis, and they want a little more time to figure out who they want in that position more permanently. Rabbi Crystal has been an interim Rabbi for 19 years. And Temple Isaiah is the 17th congregation that he has been at. In fact, about a month ago, I was at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, where Rabbi Crystal had been 2 synagogues ago, and everyone had just the most amazing words to share about him. Before he was an interim rabbi, Rabbi Crystal served as the Senior Rabbi of North Shore Synagogue, a 1000 household congregation in New York. And he is very passionate about learning. He studied at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem, at Hebrew College, and Hebrew Union College Jewish Institutes of Religion. And we talk a little bit with both Rabbi Crystal and Cantor Doob about their spiritual journeys, their T'fillah journeys, how that intersects in their work. And then we hear a question from the congregation and it's just a wonderful opportunity to hear to synagogue professionals think about how all of the stuff that we talk about on this podcast, intentionality, and prayer versus liturgy, and bringing the spiritual in, how that manifests in their work. So I hope you enjoy my conversation live with Rabbi Crystal and Cantor Doob at Temple Isaiah.

Shalom everyone welcome to the Light Lab Podcast! My name is Eliana Light and I'm so excited because today you are hearing an episode that is being recorded, live! Everybody makes some sounds! Hooray sounds! We are here at Temple Isaiah in Lexington, Massachusetts, where I've had a beautiful weekend with all of these wonderful folks here. And I'm get the opportunity today to speak to only two of the many, many clergy that are a part of this synagogue, which is incredible. Cantor Doob and Rabbi Crystal. So Cantor Doob, you want to say hello?

Hello. It is such a pleasure to be here with you today.

Lovely, and Rabbi Crystal.

Hello, everybody. And wow, it's been a great weekend with you.

Hello, amazing. So, as we like to do in the Light Lab, I like to start back back back back when you were a kid and I'm wondering, Cantor Doob, I'll start with you. What was your relationship to liturgy, to prayer, to this whole T'fillah thing when you were a kid?

So when I was a kid, I was part of a congregation in Winnipeg, Canada, congregation, a Reform congregation of about 60 families. And my family was very, very involved in a life of the synagogue. We didn't have a building, we met in the hotel of one of our members. And to give you a sense, you know, at different times, my dad was Vice President, my mom was Ritual Chair, there was a Torah that lived in my brother's bedroom, you know that there was a lot that that we were involved with in the synagogue, and going to shul on Friday nights was just part of what you did. Because if you didn't go, maybe no one was there, right. So it was something that we just did on a regular basis. And the music, music was wonderful. It was an acapella synagogue for a long time. And we often did not have a rabbi. So again, different people led services, because you, you put in your you put in your time, and you did your part. And then at the age of eight, or there abouts, we had a full time rabbi, Rabbi Eric Silver, who came and played the guitar. This was amazing. Rabbi Silver did something that I have since done with lots of kids, which is if you ran up to him, and he had his guitar on, you could take your finger and strum it up and down, and he would play chords. And it felt like your finger was magic, because you would play all the chords up and down, just by using one finger! And, and the joy of that music was wonderful. And then we also had a choir, I was not allowed to join the choir until my Bat Mitzvah, but I would have joined probably at age seven, and the richness of all of that music, the richness of all of that music was something that has stayed with me. I didn't realize I was learning cantorial classics, but I was. And so by the time the week after my Bat Mitzvah, I joined the choir. And that music, that music is in my office, we sing some of that music. So my involvement with the liturgy was not only there was like regularity, but the singing and the richness of it in different modalities was something that was really important.

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. It's so cool to see how that musical connection has had such a profound impact on your life and has become your life's work. And Rabbi Crystal, I'll ask you the same thing. What was your relationship to prayer and liturgy when you were young?

When I was very young, there really wasn't, you know, as you asked the question, it reminded me of the music classes we had in religious school. I was the kid who didn't like going, before I knew about Gandhi, I knew about passive resistance. We used to get dropped off and walk across the street to the bakery, a four lane highway. And the thing that opened up both T'fillah and Judaism for me was going on my first camp retreat when I was in 10th grade. And that's when we had creative services with the rabbi with the guitar with the class, that literally changed the trajectory of life. I got very involved in conformation, in the youth groups. There were a bunch of us that would go to services every Friday night. And I didn't realize the impact that it was having. But that was the time when we still use the Old Union Prayer Book. Grant us peace, my most precious gift, oh, Eternal Source of Peace. You know, I didn't know how ingrained the the memories of that were. And from time to time I work in a congregation that is classical Reform. And I still really enjoy the poetry of that, that high language. Today it's in through life, it's grown in different ways. But it was early roots and just this one opening of a rabbi and a retreat that that set off a life path.

That's beautiful. I kind of want to stay on that for a moment, because I'm wondering if you could elaborate, especially like looking back, it's much easier than when you're in it. That retreat, obviously changed something about your relationship to prayer, maybe G?d, what was it like before? Was it just I don't want it or I don't get it. Where was that tension? And how was it resolved?

There was no tension. David Wolpe once told the story. He was interviewed, I think, for Time or Newsweek, and it was his father was a rabbi. What was it like, G?d when you were growing up? And he said, we didn't really talk about G?d. That was the quote that they picked up. And then he immediately contacted his father and said, please forgive me, and he said, I will but might your mother may not. A week letter he letter later, he got a letter that said, G?d G?d G?d G?d G?d G?d G?d G?d G?d G?d in case Newsweek calls. Well, so, really about the time that I was in rabbinic school with Larry Kushner and Danny Syme, that's when the conversation has moved from community to being faith centered.

That's really I'm, I want to get to that point, because I love hearing about people's G?d journeys. And a lot of it starts with well, we didn't talk about it, or talking around it, but not really about it. I'm wondering, Cantor Doob, Lisa, if, if that rings true, was there much G?d talk in your childhood?

I don't think there was. I mean, I grew up in an academic family. And also a lot of people in my synagogue were there from a head place, right, from, really, the beliefs that they held, there's only one Reform congregation in town was, as I said, very small. And in the part of Canada that I grew up in, everything was sort of a step to the right, so really more Conservative movement centric. And so the people who came there chose to come there for usually values based reasons, and looking for a certain type of community or coming from abroad, right, coming from outside of Canada. So I, in my household, Judaism expressed itself as deep tradition, as family connection, as deep seated justice and ethics, and leaving the question of G?d open, to say, well, you know, we're not sure. And there's space, but it wasn't discussed overtly. I don't think there was any negative, there wasn't any positive. There just was space, right? Where that might have been, just wasn't there.

Yeah, I'm wondering if you can think back if there were any teachers or maybe experiences along your life path, kind of in that teens or young adulthood area as you were figuring out what Judaism meant to you, that opened up ideas of what prayer may be and G?d could be.

So I was active in NFTY when I was growing up, but NFTY or NAUFTY, which is now NFTY North was like, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, St. Paul, that area, and they were super excited to have a kid from Winnipeg be there in fact, on their T shirts, they put Winnipeg on their map. Unfortunately, it's like eight hours to the east, but still they were super excited. And so going to conclaves, as a high schooler was an amazing experience. To go from being one of three kids in my youth group to being in a huge hall full of people singing amazing songs that I hadn't heard since my summer at Osuri, the one year that I was able to go to URJ camp, and the power of that, the power of that communal singing and connection and acceptance. And, you know, it turns out afterwards that one of my closest Cantor friends, I met at one of those conclaves, and most people at Temple Isaiah would know who she was because she was the Cantor at my eldest's b-mitzvah, right, so like really super close. So there was a lot of power of community and again, for me through through the music, but not only the music, because the music was a vehicle for, for the for community and connection and acceptance and welcoming and belonging.

Beautiful. Yeah, Rabbi Crystal, same question, thinking back to your young adulthood, teachers or experiences along your path.

Yeah. The real opening came, I took a year off between my third and fourth year of rabbinic school, and I did a residency as a hospital chaplain. And I worked in ER and ICU and also we were on 24 hour call once a week. So I'd spent the night in the hospital. And so the role besides visiting patients and families that I ended up with in the ICU, because I was the only psychosocial support person assigned to the unit. If there was a code where you know, someone was having an arrest, I would be the one that they call. And it was my job to be with the family. And you know, I was with folks, if someone passed away, I still remember very vividly the room and the feeling when one man passed away. And I'd also be with folks, when they were going to take them off the ventilator. And they expected them to pass away, and they got better and left the hospital. And I still remember one and I can pic- actually picture the exact places on the floor, where the priests had come in, and they had done some prayers, Our Father, and Hail Mary, and left the room. And a few weeks later, she was better. That was one part of the experience. And it's just a side throw his lifetime, there was one woman who she was unconscious while she was in the unit. And over the weekend, she got better. And we always are taught to talk in a way that includes the person. And about a month later, I got a call that she experienced my aura and wanted to meet me. And I went down when she was in at a doctor's visit. And I met her and she said I thought you were taller. And I almost said I have a tall aura. But I didn't. The other real powerful experience from that year, I went to a seminar with M. Scott Peck, who wrote the road, the book, The Road Less Traveled. And he, one of his lectures was sexuality and spirituality, kissing cousins. And he shared this passionate love literature, which turns out to have been all written by women, Catholic mystics from the medieval period. And then he said that he was going to play a song. It's not politically correct today, when he asked us to think of the person that we love the most singing the words to us. And the song was Can't Keep It In by Cat Stevens, can't keep it in gotta tell all the world tell the world. You know, don't be hard on yourself. It's cold over there. Gotta tell the world all the love, love that's in me, then he rewound the song, those were the days of cassettes. And he played it again and said, imagine G?d is saying these words to you. And that was just like this incredible opening to the sense of G?d being very present, and source of love that has really stayed with me throughout life.

That's very powerful. For you, Cantor Doob, after a childhood of G?d not being talked about negatively or positively but being this empty space, whether it was in Cantorial School. I mean, did you talk about G?d in Cantorial School?

That's a really interesting question. I don't remember talking about questions of belief. The program that I went through was a four year master's degree, it's now a five year master's degree. And it is so packed with so many things. When I look back, I think, how could we have not spent more time talking about that? Right. And yet, it's certainly there, there was never a moment where it was not busy. There was never a moment where we were not learning things that were incredibly important to the, to the work that we do. And I know that now at HUC folks take on spiritual direction, which is something that I did, I guess, a few years ago, independently, but it wasn't something that was done at the time. And I'm really glad that there's been a change along those lines, because I think it's really important to be able to nurture that sense of whatever it is that's sparking in you, that reaches out to spark with whatever divine is there. Right, that it's, it's really important to be able to figure out what that connection is and figure out how that speaks to you and to ground it not only in the deep, great, broad, meaningful tradition that we have, but also in the current moment, and in the current sense of of who we are. Right. Yeah, incredibly important. And yet, I don't remember spending a lot of time on it while I was in school. Again, you know, I graduated in 2001. So it's a while ago, and I think the way that Cantors are trained in the world is and certainly at HUC is is different, and it's changed and evolved in really good ways.

Yeah, I I want to invite both of you to think back to when you started either within school or when you started getting your first jobs at synagogues and to think about how you thought of your role as a leader of prayer or as part of a team that's a leader of prayer, one of our co-hosts, Cantor Ellen Dreskin talks a lot about the metaphors. You know, when I'm leading prayer, I am like a realtor showing someone a house. Or when I am leading prayer, I am like the captain of a ship or whatever it might be. I'm wondering whether with a metaphor or not, what did you think your role was? Visa vie the congregation in prayer. And is it the same that it is now? Either of you can can start.

When I graduated HUC we were still wearing black robes. The focus was on the sermon and everybody looked the same. It was just small, medium, or large. We were given a, a cue sheet by the cantor. And in rabbinic school, Professor McCoy taught us elocution, and the prayer book. But it is not at all like it is today. If you want my sort of my guiding way of being in the davening. Larry Kushner has a wonderful line. I don't think it's one of his over quoted lines, where he's talks about talking to his daughter and saying, Teach me how to dance. And she says, Just dance. And he says, if you look like me, you wouldn't just dance. And she says, You have to dance with so much of yourself that when the music stops, you're still dancing. And so if that's my place of prayer, and so you know, you in terms of leading worship, it's I once said to get to one of my friends, I know where I'm starting, I know where I'm going, but I don't know how to get there. And she said, No, you're always right there. And it's really a very live experience. As Cantor Doob knows, sometimes I'll prep stuff, but most of what I'm doing with an introduction or thing is, it's not that it's extemporaneous. It's on a certain level it is, but it's, you know, having Ruach HaKodesh expand and being present with everyone there. And so capturing the moment. It is helpful to plan last year, I had the wonderful experience of working with Elana Jagoda for the year. And, but sometimes she would do like a slow piece and then I would follow it with Okay, I'm gonna be slow and then she do an upbeat piece. So isn't quite in sync. But it's so if you think of NFTY services, or that's why classical Reform works so well. Or when I daven in a mechitza minyan in Israel. It's all that as Rab Zalman, Rabbi Zalman Schechter-Shalomi would say, leaving behind the discursive mind to be connected.

Just dancing.

Yea, just dancing.

And if you're able to dance also, I think it gives, if we're going to keep going with this metaphor, it gives other people in the room permission to dance, as well. Beautiful.

So I'm actually it brings me back to thinking about this brings me back to a conversation that I had, in my first year of Cantorial School in Jerusalem. And it was a year where we were learning a lot of liturgy. And we had taken a lot of time to learn enough modern Hebrew so that as we met the words of the liturgy, we would understand them. And in fact, at an earlier time, I first started taking Hebrew I remember being super frustrated with gates of prayer, or gates of blue, as we call it, that sometimes the words that I was always an understanding, I look at the translation and say, Wait a minute, that's not what I've been saying! Right? And I would look at the Hebrew and get super frustrated at the, at the prayer book for like, for fooling me somehow, right? Or for, for working with things slantwise. So in first year, Cantorial School, I spent a lot of time looking at this text, and really trying to understand what it was, what the texts were saying. And sometimes I found it to be a great struggle to be able to personalize it, bring it forward. And I remember talking with a classmate of mine, a chance encounter on Rechov Lincoln in Jerusalem and saying, I'm struggling so much with making this personal, with how to make this work and how to, to understand what it means to me as compared to what it means on the page. I don't know how I'm going to do this. And and my classmate looked at me and said, You know what? Maybe the point is to struggle, maybe that's what you're supposed to do. And I went ah. And for 25 years, I've made it my business to do that. To translate and personalize. I have a background at translation. My first undergraduate degree was an honors French language literature translation. I worked as a translation intern for the Manitoba government one summer, I love translating French-English at the time, right? And so for me, a lot of this is an act of translation, to say, what does this ancient texts say, now? And what else? Could it say now? Oh, and what else does it say now? And how do the words say that? And how does the filter, the cloak of the music that goes with the words, or that envelops the words? How does that say something now, because each of those things, has a message, right? If you, if you sing a prayer, like you were you were mentioning, Rabbi, if you sing something upbeat, or you sing something with a slow rhythm to it, it changes the nature of your experience of that text, and also the flow of the service because it's not just each individual piece, it's how they all flow and channel chain together. And so part of my interaction with liturgy is an act of translation. And then the other part is an act of communication, because especially in a prayer setting, in, in a service, the act of liturgy is it like seeing the liturgy is not enough, it has to be shared in a central communal space, right? That liturgy has to exist between your eyes and mine, right? And it has to exist emotionally in in a space in order to be an act of prayer. So it's, it's translation and communication and connection, and emotion and the vortex of all of those things together.

The vortex, and what a wonderful vortex it is.

Not the polar vortex. But that, you know, that swirling of all of that together and coming to a point.

Yeah. And I'd love to ask how you translate these ideas into your prayer leadership? What are the things that you choose? What are the choices that you think about when you're attempting to facilitate that translation connection and meaning for the community?

That's a really good question. I think it's, it's different things depending on who's participating. So if I'm leading a service by myself, it's a different set of things than if I am co creating, and co-officiating, and you know co-shepherding a service with others, because the others it's a conversation, right? And it's being able to create a flow that goes from one to the next and to, to pick up on someone's words. I can give you an example. So a few weeks ago, we had a wonderful birthday blessing that was given to someone who is in her upper years and clearly is not as communicative with the world around her at this point. And the birthday blessing texturally was so beautiful and so beautifully said and so sensitively spoken to bring both the the joy of having reached an advanced age and the bittersweet nature of that, of that somewhat separation from the community that when it came for me to sing shehechiyanu, I had to sing it like a lullaby. Because if I sang it, like a Bar Mitzvah Mazel Tov, it would be it would, it would be separate from the experience that we were channeling together, and it wouldn't lift up the reality that was in that space and be sensitive to that reality. And to the the emotion that was in the room at the time of everyone feeling the beauty of that blessing and how it was said. And so I think when it's more than one person, you have that flow and interplay between leaders, but and also between with the community, the community is as as leaders also right, in that in that setting.

Thank you. Rabbi Crystal, I want to ask about your very unique position as an interim Rabbi extraordinaire. In fact, you were the interim rabbi at the synagogue I visited two weeks ago in Pittsburgh, and I saw your face on the wall of rabbis. It was like, Oh, he looks familiar. Turns out I'll be at his synagogue soon. How? How does working with different communities connect with your own vision of what T'fillah is and can be?

So I've also wanted to add in one other thought from before. Reb Zalman said, you can only learn davening from a davenner. Which I think you know, in and of itself because says volumes. I'm now on 17 congregations in 19 years, and next year will be 18 and 20. The number seems significant, and they've spanned a really wide gambit. You know, a number of the places I've worked are flagship classical Reform congregations. Savannah, the third oldest in the country. Har Sinai, which was founded in the mid 1800s. K.A.M. Isaiah Israel where their composer in residence was Max Janowski. And their tradition was like with radio stations, all Janowski all the time. So all the arrangements, at least 50% of the arrangements were Janowski arrangements. I have been in places that are more like Conservative congregations, I've spent a lot of time in the world of Jewish renewal, and classical Reform being with Elana Jagoda last year, was just, just amazing. And it's kind of like having Laura Nero as the as the soloist, cantorial soloist in residence all the time. And so really, for the most part, what I try to do is work within the tradition of the congregation. That because each tradition speaks to that particular community. So there are times when I will try, and it's always done in partnership, to offer different things, you know, in one place where the rabbi who retired as a contemporary of mine, but still did everything, just reading straight the prayer book, you know, part of my role, if the congregation wants will be to help show them how worship is led today in other in the majority of Reform congregations. In one place, we created a chat and meditation service in the room with beautiful acoustics. I guess it's you know, you would say, finding the Kedusha in each place and making it alive. And then, you know, helping them prepare for, you know, just, you know, as I said, when I got here, Rabbi Jaffe was 6-2, I'm about 5-4. And so the theme was the incredible shrinking rabbi. But it's making helping people feel comfortable. You know, the High Holidays are, are a critical moment, where, you know, in Durham, one of the elders of the congregation said, I was worried she saw me on Yom Kippur, I was worried on Rosh Hashanah, but it was okay. And that was a great compliment, because it meant that we had provide her stability. You know, and I'll say that here, working with Cantor Doob is just incredible. And the service for B-mitzvah, bar and bat mitzvah, is really amazing. I think what both of us do together is try to pull in the congregation in their different ways that we do that we include them in making the final blessing, the vevarechecha, and having them say, ken yehi ratzon. But this is a great example. Because you don't want to do things exactly the way that the previous Rabbi did. So you know, as I watched the videotape, there were certain things that were core to the congregation that Rabbi Jaffe did. So he stands with the student and the cantor on the bima. No other congregation have ever done that. So make sure to do that. He did this blessing at the end, which we keep, and then other pieces of, you know, how we introduce things are a little different. But it's an that's the kind of balance that that you're hoping to find.

Beautiful. Cantor Doob, I'd love to hear from your perspective about co-creating services with this team here? What do you hope happens for the community? What are your hopes for the community in prayer? And also, where is your own spirituality to be found in that process?

So I mean, this is a unique moment for our congregation in terms of having Rabbi Crystal here to help negotiate and smooth out and really help us navigate the transition between a long term Senior Rabbi and an incoming wonderful Senior Rabbi as well. It's such a unique moment in in our, our Temple's, in our Temple's history, and in our Temple's process between rabbis that the co-creation of services involves a number of different things. One, it involves looking at the tradition and what's past for stability. It involves being open to those changes that show that there's more than one way to do things, which is so incredibly important. It involves maintaining the authenticity of who we are and the deep seated values that go with that. So when Rabbi Crystal talks about our, the mitzvah service, for example, one of the things that's incredibly important to us, as a community, is to show deep support for our kids, and to really give everyone the opportunity to shine in more than a superficial way. And so much of what we do in that service really aligns with that, again to have Rabbi Crystal, or Rabbi Jaffe, formerly, on one side of our, of our students and me on the other side or, again, to give opportunities to engender comfort and a sense of well being and a sense of accomplishment. So in that frame, you know, that's what we're thinking about what that type of worship. Co-creating Friday night worship is, it's also a unique moment for us, I think, in this semi post COVID moment, there's a lot to think about, about worship, in our physical space and in our digital space, and how those two interact, and what it means to be in the room, versus having the room be out there. Right. So I think there's a lot that we need to negotiate as we think about that co-creation. Because pre COVID, for me, part of the deep connection, and what sparked by spirit was meeting someone's eyes in the room, right? Was and is when, when, when I see someone in the room, you know, to say I know your story, we've talked about this, I know your kid, I know your parent, and we've we've shared the story. And part of the way that I sing something is informed by that connection, is informed by that, that moment of compassion or that moment of joy, or, or you know, hey, you're back from college! That's fabulous, right? That infuses lecha dodi. However, if the people in services are not in the room, they're in a digital room, I need to renegotiate how that connection happens. or figure out how that connection happens in a way that feels authentic, because the people who are in our digital space, wow, how amazing how awe-inspiring that we can have a service that brings in people from where they are to be with us. And it's a different width. And figuring that out, I think is one of the challenges of co-creating in this moment is like, Who are you co creating fo? And how? And how do you? How do you make it? It's like a yes and, right? How do you make it be great for this group of people and great for that group of people and feel like there's this connection between you and all and other? And every? It's it's a really interesting challenge. Interesting, quote, unquote, right? I mean, really, is to try and figure that out.

It's a beautiful challenge and so beautiful that you're both thinking about prayer in this intentional way. I'd love to ask you one more question before we open it up to questions from the lovely folks that are here. And that would be when for someone who is in a service that you are leading or a part of leading, what do you hope they might feel? What do you hope they might understand?

You know, I think of, there other several services that were just, that I think sometimes you leave an experience a little different than when you came in. And I think two of those experiences were when we did a service and we included a remembrance of the tragedy in Pittsburgh. Cantor Doob included a song written by Nefesh Mountain that remembers. And you know, as I say called an audible and Cantor Dube did the song before the sermon, and I was just so struck again by it, that I asked her to do it again after the sermon. And then also when we did the service, the MLK weekend, you know, combining different pieces from the social justice history of the Reform Movement, and a high point was when we featured a video of Rabbi Joachim Prinz, who spoke immediately before Dr. King during the March on Washington, and sort of all of the different music and intros kind of were led around that being the combination. And so, you know, when we, when we're able to hit those moments, and you know, again, you know, for me, it's always about the dance of prayer being you know, in the language of chassidus it would davidkud, would it be how you would describe it. You know, that's kind of hoping for.

Rabbi I will agree that the that the video that you played was incredibly moving. I had never heard those words spoken before and again, like it's it's not only the words but the elocution style and his accent and just it, being able to hear that, as a live recording really brought an immediacy that I had never experienced before when thinking about about MLK weekend, and it was incredibly powerful. So I agree that that was a really moving, moving service.

It's sort of the way that things go because I ended up pinch hitting because Rabbi Battis was supposed to be here that week, but she was she was sick. So you never know what you come up with when you pinch hit.

You never know. Cantor Doob, I'll ask you that question again. What do you hope for someone to feel or understand in the service of yours?

I think what Rabbi Crystal said about coming away, and I'm maybe misquoting you, but like, coming away, feeling somewhat different or changed, or having experienced something and coming out on the other side, slightly different, I think, is a really important thing. And again, through connection, through being able to be present in the moment, to, to feel, again, that connection from between people, but also beyond, beyond ourselves, outside of ourselves within ourselves. Again, it's sort of, once you try to give it a direction, and it's the opposite direction as well. It's all directions, right? So to have that spark of connection, that, that's really what I would aspire to, is to be able to have that connection and to to again, you know, whether it's to come away feeling like ah, Shabbat, or to come away going, Oh, I have to do something in the world. Or now I have a framework for what's happened this week, or not a place, to place the difficulty of this week or to share the joy of this week or so it's a place a place of connection, and again, to have that shift, andto feel like you've done that within that framework.

Thank you. So if anything that these lovely folks up here has sparked something in you, you can come and ask your question to be answered.

Hi, I'm Louis Polisson. Most importantly, I'm a friend and student of Eliana Light. I'm also a Rabb, Congregation Or Atid in Wayland. But yeah, I went to Brandeis with Eliana, represent, Go Judges! My question is, are there halachot or agadot, so you know, customs or stories or specific midot, specific qualities or traits that you seek to cultivate in your own prayer practice and when you're in the community, when you're leading a service? I'll admit, I think about that. So I'm curious to hear your approach. I've been very grateful for your thoughtful and thought provoking answers. So traditions, stories, and, and, and traits, to learn about and/or cultivate.

So I do a workshop with people. What I offer them, essentially, the question I try to help them with is what happens when we pray? So I have little pieces. So the first piece is as a piece of halacha, about fixed davenning. And, you know, fixed davenning is really important. It's not about you know, coming in and going out as Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman from Kol Haneshama in Jerusalem would say, as sometimes you come and down, and then, so I try to open it up as broadly as possible to people. So, one text is from Harold Kushner about prayer as self improvement. And then another text is the Harry Golden text about my father goes to pray to G?d and, Goldberg goes to talk to my father. Which I actually use that metaphor a lot now because I try to open up that the word G?d doesn't connect for everyone, other ways of feeling. Another piece is inspiration. Prayer doesn't mend, doesn't rebuild a broken bridge, but mends a broken heart. And then like I talked about davikut, the dancing part. And then there's some also hitbodedut, which is a practice of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov of talking to G?d. I had student, a 10th grader who read Reflecting on Silent Prayer, wrote, When I was little I used to play with my father's tallit, then I used to count the number of black yarmulkes and then I would pretend to be mind reader. And what was everybody thinking during silent prayer. But now I talked to G?d, and She's a friend that understands me, and I can essentially pour out my heart. That was the way she wrote it. And then when I edited the service, I changed it to gender neutral. And then when she read it, she read it the way she wrote it, which was an offering incredible insights about rather than de gendering to use all different words. And it's interesting because I do that workshop all around the country, and to see what resonates for people in different communities. But my own experience in the davening is devikut. And it's sort of, if I'm leading from beginning to end, it's that alternate space and coming away with from through that connection with Hashem. I'm also conscious that all of those different dynamics are going on for people, and that the T'fillot are multi-valiant. So, you know, having, you know, spent a year at Pardes and in the Orthodox world, you know, halacha will slip in from time to time, but it's, it's sort of the is all of these different elements. When when leading, leading the davening.

I think of the role of the cantor as being a very particular one. There's a phrase that I heard specifically around the High Holy Days that always stuck with me, that says, you know, the rabbi tells the people what G?d wants. And the cantor tells G?d, what the people want. And so there's this role on the High Holy Days, where sometimes the chanting that I do is to argue with G?d for a good year for the congregation and to say, hey, you know, we're worth it. Right? And so that role, I'm that expression, you know, that that that idea really stuck with me in terms of realizing that I am there as a representative and perhaps a channel for what the congregation and all the people within that congregation need, and need and want and and desire in order to be good and functioning people in the world. So when I lead in prayer, it really is a conversation. I really am, like I said before, I'm trying to connect with people in the room to really like, say I'm, I'm here for you, that part of my role is to is to be is to be a facilitator of that connection to G?d. So what does that require, in terms of midot, in terms of like soul traits? It requires some humility, some but not too much, right? Too humble and that's no good either. It requires compassion. It requires thoughtfulness. It requires kindness. It requires sensitivity. I don't know if those are all specific midot. But you know, it requires directness and authenticity, but framed within loving kindness.

I'll give you two other fun moments.

Go for it.

So it's, like I said, it's not about being separate from the davening. It's about it's all davening. So we had one girl who was becoming Bat mitzvah, and she's 13, the next child is 12. And the child down is probably four, and maybe three, he's like, comes up with the candles, and he's just unhappy being on the Bima. So we have this long taper. So they light the candles, he is being finicky. And so I took the taper and I went over to the four year old, and I said, blow out the candle, and he blew out the candle and was happy the rest of the service. And then we had, you know, just within the last week or so, you know, a number of children in the sanctuary. And one of, a relative was invited up for the honor, and there was like, two or three old who just didn't want to leave dad. And so just in this, bring her on up. So it's, it's, it's all about holding, because that, for people is a part of the experience. So it's about fully, fully holding the space.

And seeing the people. Right, like seeing who you are and saying yeah, okay, parent, it's okay. You know, it's okay. You don't have to, like follow some rule that exists in the past. I love that about what about what you do Rabbi Crystal that there's really a sense of just like, Nah, come on up. It's okay. You're okay. We're all okay. This is good. Congregations should have children in them. How wonderful that they're here. Right? So I agree. And I love it. I love that you do that.

So another funny story you may not be able to use for this. So I'm in San Mateo where I was last year, you know only Rabbi was leading the service, but I would go every week. So I'd, you know, walk around. And that's another thing about the experience. I try to go around and say hello to everybody, before the service starts. And especially with service when a child becomes bar, or bar or bar or bat mitzvah, and you're trying to introduce myself to everybody. So I walked around, introduce myself to people and just ended up in the third row. And so as they're lighting the candles, there's a woman in the first row who takes out her cell phone and wants to take a picture of it. And I kind of leaned around and said, we don't do that here. So then she put her phone away. And then two seconds later, the man in front of me, took out his phone and was doing it and I leaned over to him, I said, we don't do that here. And he said, It's none of your business. I said, I'm the rabbi. Busted.

Thank you, Cantor and Rabbi.

Beautiful. So thank you both so much for joining in this conversation. And thank all of you for being here. So thank you so much, Cantor Doob and Rabbi Crystal for being here with us.

Thank you!

It's such a pleasure.

And thank you so much for listening. Our show notes are by Yaffa Englander. Our podcast is edited by Christie Dodge. Our theme music is A New Light by me. You can check out the show notes, the transcripts, and now every episode is now uploaded to our new website light lab.co. We hope you'll check us out there for more learning, more opportunities to engage in T'fillah together, and we hope to see you very soon.