Episode 26: Diary of the Jewish People (with Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman)
EEliana LightJul 4, 2022 at 9:18 pm1h 5min
E
00:00Eliana Light
Shalom, my friends. Before we start today's episode, I want to say a few words about what's been going on. In our world and especially in the United States this past few weeks, it's really difficult to put into words how I feel, combinations of shame, rage, heartbreak, and a vague sense of hope that underlies at all. The support I know that we can give to each other as a community, even as our institutions fail to protect us, and it's hard to put into words, because it's a feeling. For me, I think T'fillah in days is a vessel for whatever it is I'm feeling to feel as a response to life. My prayer then moves through the words of my ancestors, reminding me that I am not alone in this struggle. You know, today during my weekday Amidah I'm here at camp with these kids. And it strikes me and it struck me today over and over again, that we keep praying for a better world to come. And we know that it must be possible. It is sad. And Josh mentioned this on the last episode we aired. That we're discouraged from praying for things that we know can't happen. Which means that if we're praying for something to happen, then it could happen. And so to feel on that way, is both a vessel for my rage, my sadness and my frustration, but also for my hope, Zichrono Livracha said that the bracha the blessing formula, especially as it functions in the liturgy is a reminder that g?d has done something before, which means it could happen again. And to me, that gives me a sense of hope, we experience your blessing holy, one, redeemer of our people, which means if that is a name that we call the holy one that is possible in our world. It can be very easy to feel powerless. And that is a feeling that is worth feeling. But for me, it's feeling reminds me that in fact, I am connected to a people to a community and to a universe. And that there is more that we could do always to hold our institutions of power accountable. Because there are things that could actually change and to continue to take care of each other. We balance in Judaism, I think I've brought this up before because it keeps playing over in my mind. We balance the gratitude and the awe of our float. We balanced the Accepting of the world as it is as we are encouraged to do on Shabbat with the holy rage of the prophets and the pieces of liturgy, from our heritage that cry out for help. We have both, we can find joy in our everyday lives. And we can hold our broken hearts. You can do both of those things, but only if we do them together. So friends, I just wanted to share that from my heart because I am with you. I am here and perhaps our T'fillah is with us too. And perhaps I think the Holy One is with us too. Now here's today's episode.
E
04:32Eliana Light
Shalom everyone. Welcome to another episode of the light lab podcast. My name is Eliana light and I am coming to you from Ramah Sports Academy. Yes, summer is in full swing. And I am here at sports camp. What am I doing at sports camp? Coaching lacrosse, of course. No, absolutely not. I'm doing T'fillah What do you think I'm doing? I get to sing and pray with these amazing campers and counselors almost every day. And it's pretty great. If you know anything about me listeners, you know that I really love T'fillah and that is why I am really excited to share this interview with you. If you've listened to the show before, you have probably heard Ellen, Josh and or I referenced the My Peoples Prayer Book series, it has been an indispensable resource to our T'fillah teaching before the podcast, and especially as we're putting the show together, we learn so much it is such an incredible tool. And when Ellen said, you know, I am friends with Larry, I could connect to you. We were overjoyed. Rabbi Lawrence A Hoffman was ordained in 1969 and received his PhD in 1973. So we really should be calling him Dr. Rabbi or a rabbi doctor. He is a professor emeritus now at the New York Campus of the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, where he served for almost half a century teaching and liturgy, ritual worship, spirituality, theology, American religion and synagogue transformation. He's really one of the foremost scholars of liturgy in the United States. And we're really, really lucky to get to talk to him. He's written or edited. 45 books to date, incredibly impressive, including the my peoples prayer book series. The follow up my peoples Passover Haggadah series, there's a series called prayers of on the holiday liturgy, which is incredible. And he's also done writing around rethinking synagogues. In 1994, he was one of the cofounders of synagogue 2000, which then became synagogue 3000, an initiative to help us think differently about what synagogues should be and can be moving into the future. He has taught at so many different places. He was the visiting professor for many years at University of Notre Dame, and he has even worked with the United States Navy to create a course on worship for Navy chaplains. He is currently retired living in the greater New York area, and continuing to do this incredible work. He has a blog that will link to called life and the literal liturgy. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to share this interview that Ellen and I did with Rabbi Lawrence A Hoffman.
E
07:34Eliana Light
Larry, welcome to the light lab. It's so great to have you.
R
07:38Rabbi Lawrence A Hoffman
Thank you very much Eliana. Wonderful to be here with you. And with Ellen,
E
07:42Eliana Light
with Ellen, thank you so much, Ellen, for connecting us. We quote your books and thoughts all the time. So it's so great that we finally get you in the room in the zoom as it were. And as we like, I want to start by asking you about your T'fillah journey. What was your relationship to T'fillah as a child as a young person,
R
08:02Rabbi Lawrence A Hoffman
I was raised in a very small Jewish community in Canada, Southern Ontario, the only synagogue in town was orthodox. And so of course, we all belong to it. It was unthinkable in those days that you wouldn't belong to the synagogue, whether you went or not. My parents were serious Jews that they were more like conservative, probably though we didn't really know the difference. We were all just Jewish and went to the same place. And our rabbi was Orthodox, though it was an orthodox school. And I was a shul kid, I loved going there. So I went pretty regularly. On Shabbat morning, my parents that had to work, we didn't have very much money, they worked on Shabbat, but they dropped me off regularly. And I can remember dearly loving whatever happened there. All the old men thought I was terrific. Eventually, I actually was taught by the rabbi to lead services. So I was the I was the Shaliach Tzibbur And I didn't know that word, of course. But I was. I knew how to lead services for my Bar mitzvah I davened, the shachrit service from scratch, completely and thought nothing of it. It was wonderful.
Get automatic meeting notes
Processing audio...