Episode 46: Comfort and Courage (with Rabbi Sarit Horwitz)

6:55PM Jun 22, 2023

Speakers:

Eliana Light

Sarit Horowitz

Speaker 4

Speaker 5

Keywords:

rabbi

prayer

feel

people

synagogue

melodies

learn

tunes

eliana

experience

jts

moment

means

daven

connected

words

mechanics

remember

crafting

thinking

Shalom my friends welcome to the Light Lab Podcast. My name is Eliana Light. I'm coming to you on a rainy dreary day here in Durham, North Carolina to send 4some love and light your way. I'm really excited for this week's episode. First, I just want to give you an update that as I'm recording this, this next Shabbat, the Light Lab T'fillah Teacher Fellows will be joining us in Durham for the retreat for this first ever fellowship. We've been learning online weekly, exploring what T'fillah is doing some of that tfillosophy. And I'm really excited just to have everybody here, it's our first time doing something like this. And, you know, I, I'm excited. There's a bit of that nervousness too. But I hope just bringing folks together to explore those ideas, but also to feel deeply into T'fillah together can be really transformative. I'll keep you updated. As you're listening to this, it will have already happened. So that's also cool to note that there will be a time looking back on it where it is indeed, in the past. Speaking of past, today's episode is really exciting because it is an interview that we did live with the great folks at Beth Shalom Synagogue in Memphis, Tennessee, which is the synagogue I grew up at. And we interviewed their incredible rabbi, Rabbi Sarit Horowitz, who's been part of the Memphis community for a few years now. And it's so cool, to have such an amazing person really shepherding what I still consider to be my home synagogue and my home congregation that my family is still a part of. My father was the rabbi there for 14 years. And so it was a really big piece of my life. And it makes me just so, so happy. It was great interviewing Rabbi Sarit in a live setting, people congregants came, other folks came, shared questions and thoughts over the chat, in zoom. And if this seems like something like Oh, that would be such a cool program for us to do with our community, please reach out to us at lightlab.co We would love to do a live podcast with your community, we find it to be a very engaging program over zoom. The Zoom programs, again with intention can be engaging and we're so grateful. So let me tell you a little bit about our distinguished guests today. Rabbi Sarit Horowitz moved to Memphis from New York City, where she served as a senior rabbinic Fellow at B'nai Jeshrun. In a large synagogue with a strong emphasis on music, prayer, and justice work. She started there as an intern while she was still in rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary and stayed on full time for two years after ordination, where she managed the conversion program, taught in Introduction to Judaism course, did amazing holiday programming, taught text classes, grew the young professionals population. She learned a lot and she brought all of that to our homie and Hamish, Hamish, that were that means, I guess kind of homey and warm and welcoming at community at Beth Shalom. Rabbit Sarit completed her undergraduate studies in the Joint Program between Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary with degrees in Psychology and Midrash. She was a Wexner Graduate Fellow received a Master's degree in Jewish Women and Gender studies, or by street grew up in Kansas City attended Camp Ramah Wisconsin loves Jewish summer camp as well as Viking cooking, reading. And I'm excited that the next time I'm in Memphis, I get to see and hang out with Rabbi Sarit, her amazing husband, Rabbi Gabe Schechter-Gampel. And they're adorable sons. And we had such a great conversation around not just T'fillah and spiritual life, but how we might create opportunities for those in our community to experience that deep meaning as well. So whether you are a synagogue goer, or in synagogue leadership, or just someone who is interested in this philosophy, we hope you enjoy our conversation with Rabbi Sarit Horowitz live over zoom at Beth Shalom synagogue.

Welcome Sarit to the Light Lab. I'm so glad you're here.

Thank you. I'm so glad to be here.

And welcome our audience! Everybody wave, and shout! We can't hear you. But we can see you! And we're so glad you're here! I'm so so glad that you're here, Sarit. And before I ask you - I'd love to hear, what was your experience with a relationship with T'fillah?

You know, I've been thinking about this question, since, you know, I knew that I was going to be on your podcast. So I knew this question was coming. And I, you know, I realized that as a kid, I learned T'fillot before I learned about T'fillah. Meaning I learned how to say things by rote that were just the things that we said before I had any, like conception that they were supposed to mean something to me. And you know, that is both helpful. And I don't want to say harmful, it's certainly not harmful. But it's challenging because I don't have like an early memory of davening engaging like with T'fillah, or ideas of T'fillah. There is one memory that I have that I think about all the time that I want to share with you, which is that in fourth grade, I went to Jewish Day School and T'fillah was a part of our every day. And in fourth grade. Our teacher, one of our Judaic Studies teacher, Mrs. Catch, still remember her, I can conjure up her image very easily. She we all had to memorize Az Yashir, the Song of the Sea. And I remember each of us would step out of the classroom, and she would be sitting at a desk. And we would have to recite the entire thing. As an exercise, there was assessment. And I remember if we'd like, you know, tripped up on one word, she would feed us the point wasn't to, like, get every single, you know, word in order perfectly. But for us to create a sense of rhythm in the words like in our bodies, like feeling it. And I've thought about that moment, a lot in the last like, 10 years, and I've kind of evolved in the way that I've thought about it. I think when I was first like, in rabbinical school, I guess this is more than 10 years ago, when I was first in rabbinical school, I really felt like, that was a almost destructive exercise, like it made it that I was only focused on the words, it was just about memorization. It was like, Can I get through them all, not once were, we asked to think about what those words meant, or let alone what they meant to us. And that it was like, this is only for the sake of memorization. Like, that's not what T'fillah is supposed to be about. And then I think like, as I've, you know, developed more as my own davener. And as someone who certainly leads a lot of T'fillah, I think about that moment, in different ways in how helpful it is to be able to have the words flow through me. Because then it allows for me to do other things as well, like, I can let the words move through me and I can stop and pause and think about them. And I'm not focused on the mechanics. And I think one of the really hard parts about being I'm sure, we'll get to this more later, like, a part of a tradition that has so many mechanics connected to T'fillah. And prayer is that it can be really hard if we don't feel comfortable in the mechanics. And we feel like prayer as a as a, you know, entire entity can be inaccessible to us if we don't know the mechanics, especially when it's in a foreign language. And so I realized how helpful that was in so many ways that it gave me a huge leg up and not having to think about like, am I stumbling? Can I read this? So I've just evolved a lot in the way that I think about that experience.

Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm wondering if our listeners both in the zoom or in at home can think about ways in which learning the words themselves have been a help and/or a hindrance because it can certainly be both, like, remind me, how old were you when that story happened?

I was probably 10.

You're probably 10. Would it have been more positive or more negative for your teacher to say, let's read what this means we're calling God Adonai Ish Milchama, Lord Man of War, as all of the Egyptians drown in the sea. Like, let's talk about what that means for understandings of God. And I'm thinking about, you know, if you get older and you read, you're like, that's what it means? So I think that's a and then b, a metaphor that I've used in the past but haven't thought about lately for what it means to be able to make the liturgy your own was when I was at JTS, they always had a jazz ensemble come and do things with the cantorial school. You're shaking, right? You probably remember at least one of those. And I don't remember if they said it or it was sparked in me that to do jazz you need to have Music Fundamentals. Jazz, right? Jazz is an improvisational medium, but you have to have command of the instrument in order to be able to improvise. You need to learn all of the standards before you can go off book, and what that means for our learning of the liturgy. And it's also a way of thinking the liturgy, of the litrugy as, that was very astute of you to say that you had a relationship to the liturgy, but not necessarily to prayer. I'm wondering, like, do you have an earliest memory of praying or one might even say, connecting to a sense of spirit, even if earliest is not super early? What's coming to mind for you?

Yeah, I remember, as a kid at summer camp, probably one of my early summers, I was probably 12, 11, 12, 13, something like that. And I remember we used to have these mornings where we would leave camp or early by bunk and make breakfast somewhere and each of us would dive in on our own, it would give everyone a Siddur. And it was like, go out, find a tree, do something, it was like you want to use this Siddur. And I love that what you said Eliana before about jazz, it allows you to go off book if you know, the fundamentals. And I think that's actually really how I view the Siddur, that it provides us with like a blueprint. And that if we connect to it, and we have a sense of how it works, then it actually gives us the tools to go off book. And I think that's what happened in those moments like we would get a Siddur, we would find our own place, if you wanted to use it great if you didn't, also great. But I remember like starting in the Siddur. And then just like closing it, and being in this woodsy ace by myself. And like, of course, I knew that there were others around me, which was like both the sense of being alone and also in community at the same time. And feeling like, I don't know that I could say genuinely, that I felt God in that moment. But I know I felt something and that it was powerful, and what it meant to connect to something outside of myself, and that the prayer experience was the was the launchpad for that. And it was because I started in the Siddur that I started with those words, I probably started with like Modeh Ani and Mah Tovu. And those were the things that I knew. And that was very new to open on page two or page seven, right? And then, like I was able to just be there and myself. And it created this foundation for me to think bigger. Like I said, I don't know, authentically that like I would have called it that moment that that was God or even if I would have said that that was spirituality. But it was certainly something that I found in myself that I hadn't experienced before.

That's a beautiful memory. And Modah Ani and Mah Tovu are great places to start. That's, you know, that's why they're at the beginning, which is a might sound like a silly thing to say. But people put them at the beginning for reasons right? What does it mean to start from that place of gratitude? Let's let's go back to God for a second. Yeah, I think about when I was that age, too, experiences I had, I don't know if I would have named them. God. But if you had heard the word God, when you were that age, what did you think that meant at the time?

I started about this so much as only in the last couple years have I started to teach about God more. I I really don't know when I started to think about God. And there's a part of that that feels sad. For me. I think I also wasn't given the tools. I don't think in my Jewish educational upbringing. We talked about God ever. And so I don't think I ever created a conception for myself of what God was let alone. Like what a relationship of mine could be. I have one like memory of thinking about God and a sort of personal way. It's also like wrapped up in being a little bit of like a Chasidic teenager. But I remember when I was I was probably 14 it was the first time that I really thought about davening with the Imahot, right including the matriarchs, not me done, the shul that I grew up in did not include them. Now, you'll appreciate this. I was a Rabbi's kid. My father was the Rabbi of the shul. And I remember saying to him, we should dive in with the Imahot. I don't want to just say the God of Abraham and the God about like, I want also to be the God of Sarah and the God, right? And he has recently said take it up with the ritual committee. But I remember it was the first time like saying like me feeling like I want to connect to that God in a way also, like I want to, I want to create an expansive understanding of God and not just limiting to what the prayer experience that I was, you know, told to have in that moment.

Let's kind of move out of that childhood place, maybe through adolescence and early adulthood. At least for me, I learned a lot in those years about T'fillah. And what it could be by having experiences of T'fillah that were very powerful and positive and thinking, wow, that was great. And having some experiences that were duds and feeling like, Ah, that was terrible. And then trying to think of well, what made the great one great, and what made the terrible one terrible? And what does that even mean? So I'm wondering, if in those kinds of early years, you have experiences that are standing out to you, either as this was really good T'fillah? Or this was really not good T'fillah?

Yeah, I definitely have some of those. You know, I think one of the things that I want to say beforehand is how important it is to create a sense of regular practice, like what you've said Eliana in that some of them were great, and some of them were duds. But like, if you only have, if you only craft one prayer experience every six months, like you won't have any muscle for it. So it won't be meaningful to you. And I think like, one of the hard parts about T'fillah is that we have to go through the motions, even like wading through the ones that are duds to also have ones that are meaningful. And I think, you know, the thing that stands out to me the most is my, my early years in college in New York City. I was actually people are often surprised, as a rabbi, I was not involved in Hillel as an undergrad at all. But I lived in New York City and for Jewish Life I didn't need to be. And so one of the things that I really made a point of doing was exposing myself to a lot of different types of Jewish experiences, even ones that I thought that I would find really uncomfortable. So I went to, I actually went to very few like Conservative synagogues, or minyan in New York, but I went to Reform and Reconstructionist and Renewal and Modern Orthodox and Mainstream Orthodox and I wanted to see a breadth of different ways that people pray and think, Okay, what, what could I connect to in this? And what might I be surprised by? I think so often we keep ourselves in the experiences that we have ourselves are comfortable for us. But so much, especially, you know, like what I said before about mechanics and language, so much of what we're comfortable with, are just things that we're used to, but not necessarily the things that we find meaningful, and how much like difficulty and sometimes even courage actually, to say, I'm gonna put myself in a circumstance that is totally not my norm, but I might gain something from it, I might learn something that I actually find to be interesting and meaningful that I haven't exposed myself to before. And so I had a lot of that, and I saw a lot of things, but I was like, Okay, this is totally not for me. Like the organ at a Classical Reform synagogue is not for me, there's a lot of beauty in that, and I can appreciate it, but it's not for me, but like the drums, which I had never experienced in davening for it, were totally for me. And so like finding, you know, ways to engage, like I found chanting, which I hadn't never done before, to be a really powerful experience. I found the synagogues that I heard people go through liturgy in English, but like in that kind of davening, mumble. But in English, I found that to be really powerful. And I was like, I'd never seen that before. I don't think I was ever taught this explicitly. But the messaging was always like, we don't pray in English. Right. And so it was the first time that I really experienced people like davening in English. I was like, Oh, my God, I could do that, too.

Wow. Yeah, being in New York is a great way to go through that exploration. When I was at Brandeis, it's also when I like went to a Reconstructionist service for the first time, I was like, Oh, this is kind of nice. And it's also reminding me of, of something that I talk about with folks when I do work around T'fillah education, where someone might say, well, our goal is so that our students can walk into any synagogue in the world and be comfortable, but like, you can't actually, A. You can't guarantee that. Right. B. We're using the same liturgy, but it's always going to be so different. And what would it mean for us to shift our mindset to say, Now I want my students to be able to walk into any synagogue in the world, be uncomfortable and stay anyway? Because they know that it's for them too. And also, the prayer is a service of the heart and can actually happen anywhere. The melodies and the words In the buildings help, but at least to me, it's it's really about, about that heartspace was there like one where you were like, Oh, this is the most uncomfortable? This, this ain't it?

I think it was probably like old school Classical Reform. Yeah. And like, there were a lot of people that it does work for. So I don't want to not like I think there's a lot of beauty in the breadth of different experiences, it works for some people, doesn't have to work for everyone. And that's nice.

And that's okay. That's true pluralism, right there. I think it's not, it's it's pluralism is not less, I'll do the same thing. Right?

No, but let's make sure there's space for everyone to do the thing that's right for them.

Yes, 100%. Move, kind of moving again, along this journey. In your Rabbinical school years. I'm wondering, what did you learn about T'fillah? Not necessarily in the classroom, but from your experience of it at school, maybe from your first internships, what started showing up as, as new for you that maybe you hadn't thought about before.

The thing that sticks out to me right away from rabbinical school, in school itself, and then I'll share something about my time in working in synagogues is that I think we, my conception was always that there's like a prayer leader. And they're standing in front, and they're orchestrating everything and realize that crafting prayer experiences could be collaborative. And there was actually so there's a synagogue in JTS, where I went to rabbinical school when I went to graduate school. And in that synagogue, there's like daily ninyan, right for for Shacharit, which is mostly rabbinical students, some cantorial students, some undergrads, some graduate students and faculty. And there was like a rotation of students that lead you could just like sign up to lead. And a friend of mine and rabbinical school, Rabbi Adam Baldachin is now in Scarsdale, New York, he and I, he was a few years ahead of me, and we were talking one day, we're like, this is not a great system. Let's see if we can figure out something else. And so we crafted this system that we called the Ma'amad system, which was basically like creating groups every week of people that were in charge of crafting the T'fillah experience. And it made it so that it wasn't just like on this random Tuesday in June, you know, someone is leading, and the next day someone else, but for a week, you and Ma'amad, I'd have like two or three other people were in charge of crafting what that week of T'fillah looked like. And I had never thought about T'fillah in that way of how it could be collaborative and what it meant to like, create a narrative arc of what you want T'fillah to be and what you want your worshipers which feels like a very non Jewish word, but I'm going to use it because it's the appropriate time, what you want your worshipers to get out of that experience. And I just never thought of T'fillah in a collaborative way. And it really shifted the way that I view it. And even now, I think when I think about leaving T'fillah as a rabbi, or teaching others to lead T'fillah, I think about it in that collaborative way, even if it's like I'm collaborating with the davenners, right, who are not the, who are not the leaders, and that it has to be this, like, how are we in this together? I am not the leader, and you're not the followers, but I am crafting something for all of us to try and get somewhere together. So that was really like an important shifting moment for me.

I think it was important and shifting for JTS as well, it's really cool to hear that you were at the foundation of the ma'amad system. It's a reminder that everything in T'fillah was put there by a human being. Right from from the things that we do, that we know are new, and the melodies we do that we know have been written more recently to the fact of the prayers themselves appearing in their particular order. And the person who decided to write a response to the holy one using this line from Tanakh, and this line from Psalms, and this prayer of their own heart and that, you know, I went to JTS and in the time of the ma'amad system, and it didn't occur to me that it hadn't always been that way.

It was given at Sinai.

Of course, all T'fillah should be collaborative, said Moses. But yeah, that's that's really special. And and it's great. Shout out to Rabbi Adam Balachin.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's fabulous. And yeah, out of out of JTS when you first started working in synagogues, because I think that can be a little bit of a shock to the system for for many What did you What did you discover?

Yeah, so I worked at a B'nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for four years, and there is an intense T'fillah culture, which is beautiful at B'nai Jeshurun, at BJ. And, you know, one of the things that was really powerful to me was that there were hundreds of people that showed up every Shabbat to daven that did not in any other areas of their life consider themselves, like, observant or from we might say, or like super ritually connected, but they were so beautifully connected to T'fillah. And it was a really important model for me, because I think so often in our Jewish life, or Jewish lives, people label themselves as either like religious or not. And I hate that. Like, Why did someone else get to monopolize what religious means? Like, you're engaged in traditions from your religion? Doesn't that make you religious? Right. And so I saw all these people, that if I like, growing up, let's say, I wouldn't have considered them to be like, really engaged Jewishly. And they were just, it was like, literal, like pouring out of their hearts in the most beautiful way, and was really inspiring to me. And I think, you know, a lot of the people who are listening are people that I get to pray with on a weekly basis. And so they know that I like to use song and niggunim a lot in the way that I daven. And I think that a lot of that comes from my time at BJ and the way that I saw people connect through song and how powerful it can be sure to let melodies flow through us. You know, I'll take this from my teacher, Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein who says that a nigun is not a wordless melody. A lot of people say that that's what an nigun is. He says that a nigun is a melody finding the words in us. And I love that imagery, because it also necessitates that we have to do some work. That like we can sing, and we have to actually use our voices and let it like, let the niggun find its way through us, and cycle through us to be able to search for whatever words that we have that need to be said, that need to be prayed. And sometimes, those words, have words that go to them. And sometimes they are sentiments that only then the goon can kind of pull out. But I think that that is something that I really learned at my time there. And I watched people be moved by T'fillah in ways that I'll say, it's like I was a rabbi at the time already. And I saw people move by T'fillah in ways that I don't think I ever had been at the time. And that was really inspiring to me.

I love the idea that we have to do some of the work. I think sometimes we we ask the music to do all the work. I mean, I'm thinking about, we can talk about this later, the worst Artist in Residency gig that I ever did was at a synagogue on Long Island, where they found me because of something that had been posted on Facebook, I worked for a year at B'nai Jeshurun. And they saw that in the bio, and the President of the synagogue messaged me, more or less to say, our T'fillah isn't great. You work at BJ, you will bring your guitar and your songs and you will make our services just like BJ and I had to be like, No, I'm happy to come and bring the songs but it's not going to happen. I'm wondering, what are some of those other intentions, decisions either in the culture and or the way that T'fillah is crafted it BJ that are different than just we're using instruments and we're singing songs that made it powerful that made it work.

You know, when I think people like you said they often think like, oh, you can translate that experience and make it anywhere. So you know, the rabbis there right now, Rabbi Ronaldo Matalon of Rabbi Felicia Sol and Rabbi Becca Weintraub, they work really hard to teach T'fillah. It's not a concert, you don't come and hear the music and be like, Oh, I'm here to listen to, you know, by Baruch Sheamar, and oh, doesn't that sound nice? Right. So so from a really technical standpoint, the music is the undercurrent, the right the the instruments, I should say, are the undercurrent. The voices are what take over. And that is really intentional, so that it's not a concert. The instruments also from a physical standpoint are on the side and the Shaliach Tzibur, the prayer leaders are in the middle. That's where the focus is. And anytime if they feel like there's a melody or something that they're using that becomes like that, that's taking over the experience. They'll shift it, they'll tweak it, they'll do it differently. They'll stop using it because that's not the point of what music is supposed to do. And they do a lot of teaching. So like teaching, what are the words to you know, this T'fillah. They do a lot of teaching have new melodies for people and I, you know, I try and think about that in my davening as well, I, I have like a spreadsheet where I think about like, how often am I introducing a new melody? And how are they spaced out from each other. And I don't want to do things, you know, too frequently, because I don't want people to feel like it's something they don't know. I want them to be comfortable and like to be in a service where they're like, Okay, I knew almost everything. And there was one melody that I didn't know. And it's really important for people to feel a sense of comfort and familiarity, because too much new is like, well, it's a jolt to our system, and it makes us feel like that's not mine. Right. So when you go back, and you talk about goals for our students, right, and, and I, I don't think it's a realistic goal to say I want them to be able to go into any synagogue anywhere, because I can't control what happens in any synagogue anywhere. But what I know is that I want them to come into our synagogue and be comfortable. And think I know how to how to dive in in this space and make it my own. And I know these melodies and when there isn't one I know there's a safety enough for me to try it out. I think that's like the sign of a comfortable and courageous dominar. Which is like really what I want all of the daveners that I'm in relationship with to be is the willingness to try something out of like, I'm going to try out these words, or I'm going to try out this melody, I'm going to see what it's like coming out of my mouth. Many people that have davenned with me if I'm teaching something new, will hear me say like, even if you don't know what's going to come out of your mouth, open it anyway. Because we can't see how it feels if we don't try it. And sounds like so simplistic I feel like to say, but the experience won't be ours if we're only hearing other people say it. And T'fillah is not meant to be a spectator sport. And it can't be ours if we're not like trying to see how it feels. Like you can't learn how to play soccer by watching someone else kick a ball, you have to just be like, Okay, I don't know if I'm gonna make contact or not. But I'm gonna lift my leg and see what happens.

Comfortable and courageous is a really great phrase. That might need to be the title of this episode. But we'll leave it open for other options. I can't wait to see what happened. Because you're totally right. And what you said about oh, it might be simplistic. I think so many of the reminders that we need, as leaders and as pray-ers seems simple on the surface. But if they're not said aloud, then they won't come true. Right, we might assume that everybody's on the same page about wanting to have a meaningful experience or being okay to open up. But that's not necessarily the case. I think, I think a lot also about how, in our society, we've professionalized singing and music, in a way that keeps folks from feeling comfortable, and that opening your mouth and song is very vulnerable. Right? It's very vulnerable and prayer. What I think we're really asking of our congregants, when we leave them in prayer is a vulnerable thing. Also, because you're holding out your heart and your hand and you're saying, Here I am. And, to me, prayer, and our relationship to God is a lot about us saying, I'm not fully in charge, and I need help. And that's really vulnerable. Right? I'm not fully in charge both for good. Like, I didn't plant this tree, I didn't guarantee like I didn't decide to be born into this family. Right. And I'm not in control for bad when we hear about tragedies. And there's, there's, you know, we wish we could do more than we can. So I want to take it to that place of your congregants and -

Can I go back and share a story with you.

Oh, please, please do.

I had a really hard experience. So I'm not musically trained at all. And I don't have any kind of like singing technique. And, you know, I've tried to learn whatever, it's just not where I am. And that's okay. We all know our strengths and our weaknesses. And there we are. I had a teacher that someone that I was praying with, that was way more senior than me. And at some point, they said, Why don't you step away from the microphone so people don't hear you as much. And it was a really scarring time.

Yikes.

Because I know that I am not musically trained and there might be notes that I don't hit or I don't even know the language Eliana like that's how non musical I am, right? But I felt like, that's not what T'fillah is supposed to be. Right like, and then I'm like, Well, I can't I like what kind of messaging are people getting? If it's like you can only davener or you're only a good davener, if you can perform? Yeah. And I just thought that like it. It took me a long time to get over that to feel comfortable leading. But once I was able to move past that, I realized how important that was, for me of an experience as being a leader to model for other people. Like, you don't have to have any quality of voice, you can be completely tone deaf, and your prayer is just as valid. And yeah, I think that's, you know, I think the the vulnerability piece is huge in that, like, there are a lot of people that say to me, like, you know, you don't you don't want to hear me saying, I'm like, No, I do. I really do. I promise you I do.

That's very powerful. Those things stick with us. Again, we learn from what goes right. And we learn from how we feel how we want to help others feel. I think about that sometimes too, when I work with synagogues, and they say, well, the rabbi, you know, he doesn't have the best voice and well, okay, if you're in a if you're in a physical space, where you can only hear what's coming through the microphone, right? Maybe that's something to maybe that's something to address, because if we want to tell people that they can only sing if they're professionally trained, giving the rabbi to not daven is a great way to do that. And I don't think that's what we want. I am thinking about a conversation I had, at a at a conference a while ago, I was talking to Rabbis about crafting space for prayer and said, you know, we don't actually get to decide, we don't have control over what somebody's inner experience of T'fillah is, we actually don't have that control. And so somebody said, Well, if we don't have that control, why do we try why even bother? I said, Well, you know, you hire a party planner, to make the party the best it can be so that the most people will have the most fun. Do you get to control if people are actually having fun? No, but you try to make choices that make fun more possible. So if you kind of think of yourself in that mode, like what do you hope for your congregants in T'fillah? And what are some choices that you make or think about or have made in the past to try to make that experience more possible?

Well, one of the things that I think about is that everyone comes to T'fillah, for different reasons, and with different goals, and some people don't know their goals. And so as a facilitator and leader, I try and do things that will touch on the different reasons, or goals that I think you know, people have and why they're there, like some people are there, just because they need to be around other people. And this is a time of community connection for them. And some people are there because it connects them to their history. And ancestors, I have a lot of people that will tell me like they remember coming to shul with their Zeide and so they come to shul because it reminds and I think that's beautiful. And so, you know, for some people, it's about being able to sing. And for some people, it's about comfort and, you know, having being held in you know, hard moments. And for some people, it's about a way to express joy. So the way that I think about using different melodies, or, you know, ways to how I weave in and out doing things silently versus out loud, are often like trying to connect to the different ways that people are there. Like I never want to use all kind of upbeat, exciting melodies, because that's not going to touch everyone, you know, in the ways that they need to be connected to in that moment. So I try and think about the ways that will affect all the different motivators of people in the room.

That's really beautiful. And I'm hoping that the folks in our zoom and whether you're a Beth Shalom congregant, or a congregant, at a different synagogue or a prayer in the world listening to this later, to, to recognize that there might be some moments where the decisions that are being made by the leadership don't necessarily feel the most connected or meaningful to you. And in those moments, what is it? What does it do to train ourselves instead of thinking, ugh this isn't working? I don't like this, to think this is probably working for someone else. And that's part of what it means to be in community, right, is that it's not just about us in our own experience, because as you very wisely say, we don't actually know why people are showing up. We don't do a poll at the door to ask what brought people into services or into synagogue that day. So the idea of trying to spread a wide net is really, really moving.

Yeah. And, you know, I also just to say that, I think that there's like, the reason why people are there. And then there's the reason.

Yeah.

And there's always something underneath. And most of the time, that's not something that we're aware of. And so I wouldn't say it's something that I can like, achieve on a weekly basis, right? It's not an all the time kind of thing. But I do try and think about, what are the ways to make decisions that get at those deeper kind of yearnings for people?

I think that's very important, because it's both. What are the stated reasons, right, I'm here to sing the melodies that I love. I'm here to see my friends, I think that's a big part of it. I'm here to be in community with others. But we don't often talk about the yearning for deeper meaning or a sense of purpose or a sense of connection. Because we don't have a lot of places in our lives where we get to talk and share about those things. So it's kind of a meeting of what people want and what we hope for them. What we hope for the folks that were that we're praying with. I'm thinking also about how intentionality takes a lot of work, the kind of intentionality you're talking about. And I'm wondering, because it's different for everybody, what your balance is between decisions that are made, before the services start. the choices that are made then, and the choices that are made in the moment, what does that balance feel like to you?

My first couple years, at the shul, my first probably two and a half years, I spent a lot of time before every Shabbat, thinking about what tunes I was going to use, and how much space to leave, you know, for things and if I was going to try anything experimental, and that kind of sent me into a rhythm that I don't need to think about those things as much any more, I do spend time thinking about new tunes, and when I'm going to incorporate something new, and then how often to use it. But the regular times when I'm davening or thinking about, like, what tune am I going to use for El Adon or something like those are usually decisions that I make, like in the moment, where I do a lot of pre planning is kind of in two arenas. One is like the big moments like the High Holidays, right? I spend a lot of time thinking about how I'm going to introduce things. And there especially where we try and encourage people to engage with words or practices that they haven't seen before or haven't done before. You know, that's a moment where I have a lot of like the either semi regulars or non regulars. And so people that might, this might be the only moment for the next several months where they're connected to T'fillah. So I think the stakes feel a little bit higher when I'm like, I really want them to get something out of this. So how can I you know, really do that. And then I would say a lot of my attention goes to teaching students now, we have built up a really nice core group of you know, younger teens, actually, that are learning how to lead. And so I spent a lot of time with them. And I still spend a lot of time with them giving them feedback after they daven and thinking about okay, what does it mean to become a prayer leader and balancing? I think, I think what you asked about balance before, the balance that I really feel now is what does it mean to be a prayer leader, and still have a prayer experience. And so that's, you know, one of the things that I really think about intentionally with my students, and I find, I wish I could say I've like cracked the nut on that I'm still working on.

I think it's something that's always an inflow. But even just keeping that in mind and being intentional and saying, leading a prayer experience is not just about facilitating something for others, but we are part of the tzibur that we are the shaliach of, we are part of the community that we are the representative of, and what it means to kind of impose think about this sometimes too, to impose prayer from from up here, or to say, you know, join in this T'fillah already in progress, like it's happening up here. That might take some of the some of the pressure off as well. I'm wondering if the goals that you had for T'fillah both in the doing of it and maybe in the experiences of it, what you wanted for your congregants, what those goals were at the beginning and if those goals have changed or shifted over the years that you've been there.

Then one of the goals that I had art the beginning, I was just wanting people to sing. And I realized how much discomfort there is. I think for a lot of people, the only time they sing is like alone in the shower, if that, and like, maybe Happy Birthday, seriously, you know, like around at a birthday party, and so totally what it means for people to feel comfortable, like hearing their own voice, again, like, regardless of what they think it sounds like, and creating prayerful community in that way. Like, I don't want to be listening just to myself, I want to be hearing everyone else's voices and for it to be that kind of collaborative, creative experience together. And I think I certainly still have that as a goal. But I really felt that at the beginning, and I had come here, you know, just from for years, at BJ. And I would say, there are times where it feels like a struggle, there are times where it feels like reached success. And so it's a balance and trying to get people to be to feel comfortable, I think the space is a huge contributor to that. You know, being in a large, cavernous sanctuary affects the way that people experience their own voice and the voices of the people around them. And being in a smaller, tighter circular space helps. And so that's something that I think a lot about, you know, crafting the physical elements of, of a prayer experience. Yeah, and I think one of the ways that my goals have shifted is that I wish maybe this is more of a wish than a goal. I wish I had more opportunities. And I almost can't believe I'm saying this, I think like the Sarit of six years ago, I wish I had more moments to teach mechanics. Because, well, because the mechanics often feel like, like a roadblock for people. And it's the firt - Anytime I talk about T'fillah, with people, the first thing is like, well, I don't know what page we're on. And I don't know the Hebrew. And like, I don't know, the order of how it goes. And so in some ways, I want to be able to teach all the things so that we can so that people can just like relax. And I think like there's so much like, wound up myths around T'fillah and anxiety of like, I'm going to be found out that like, I don't know when to bow at the right place. And like, I can either shed all of that so people can be comfortable or teach those things so that people can be comfortable and then like, dive into their T'fillah experience because they feel like they've got that under their belt. And, you know, I think the the mechanics are so valuable because they they ground us, and then let us play with it. And I want people to feel like prayer can be playful.

Certainly prayer is is play of the highest order. I'm thinking of a quote, I bring up a lot from my Rabbi of Blessed memory here in Durham, Steve Sager. That ritual likes it when you know what you're doing. Which, again, is is a challenge, both that it's challenging, and the challenge kind of for us to step up into that. One particular place of challenge I'm thinking of some synagogues that I've worked at recently in clergy that I've talked to, like a place of discomfort for the rabbi was what I lovingly call the mumbly bits, like the parts with lots of Hebrew, where or Aramaic, I'm thinking like, in front of the open Ark, that was kind of his pain point was, we've, we've opened the ark, and we've taken out the Torah. And now we have this full page of Aramaic. Before we right before, and I, I can be again a little bit sporadic, I remember he would immediately he immediately started to read the English, I am a servant of the Holy One. And I would think I am? Who - Who am I revere and who's Torah I revere at all times. You do all times? That's like a lot of times. But, but that is to say that right? It's a pain point because some people are going to know those words and some aren't. And reading the Hebrew, the Aramaic keeps people from getting into a place of kavanah of prayer and intention, but also reading the English might also keep people from getting into that prayer into that kavanah. So if someone was to ask you like Rabbi, I don't know the Hebrew or the Aramaic, what am I supposed to do at these mumbly bits? What -What might you tell them?

I would say say whatever words you need to say and whatever language is right for you. You know, it's funny, that specific moment that you talked about in the opening of the ark, I you know, it's it's relatively recent, it's probably only in the last 6 months actually, that I always say, you know, we take the opportunity as the Ark is open, to daven our own personal silent prayers, I invite you to choose from the selection here on these pages or the prayers of your own heart. You know, and, and I try and model actually in those moments where sometimes I mumble the Aramaic, and sometimes I close my Siddur. And I'm just davening. From here, you know, and I want people to feel that those options are equally permissible and encouraged, right, the people that wrote the Siddur, they started off with those words as their words of their heart, and they got canonized and put in a book. But that doesn't mean that those have that I have to feel in every moment that those are the words of my heart. And so they modeled for us, right. And so I see it as part of my role as a davener and a leader to then model for other people that like, there are times where these words will work for us, I hope. And there are times where they are, you know, a springboard for us to take what works and then keep ourselves like anchored to it in some way, but also feel like we can depart and come back.

So important to notice how, when you're leading a prayer experience, you are modeling for the people in the room, what it looks like to be part of that prayer experience. And so giving, giving yourself that moment, is very important, because you don't know who's there. And well, if the rabbi is doing it, that gives me permission to do it, too. I want to open up the Zoom floor, if anybody has questions for Rabbi Sarit based on our conversation to put them in the chat. I think it'll be interesting for the folks that are in the zoom. And I kind of want to give you this, again, challenge both in the way of it might be a little difficult, and that we can kind of rise up to meet it for the people that are in the zoom and also for anyone who might be listening. What does it mean to take these ideas into the next time you're in a synagogue with you? Right, to be able to set that intention for yourself to be able to to notice, when are you feeling comfortable? And when you are being courageous? And what are the choices that the leadership is making that kind of get you into that one way or the other?

You know, one of one of the things Eliana that I think is really hard for shul regulars actually, as much as I want people to be shul regulars is that we become often so connected to the Keva, the rote pieces of the T'fillah that it actually becomes even harder to pull away from that. And you know, one of the things that I noticed I said to Eliana, before that in my Thursday Lunch and Learn group, and we're reading Rabbi Toba Spitzer's Book about God, and Eliana just released a podcast with her, which is amazing. And all of you should listen to it. And one of the things with that group that I've noticed is that at the end of every chapter of Toba Spitzer of her book of metaphors of God, she offers some exercises that are beautiful. And the the chapters are mostly frameworks for thinking about God. And then she offers these practices, right, where you can play with it. And those exercises are the hardest for everyone in the group, like we can read and intellectualize and think about, and then when it comes to this practice, people like oh, no, I'm not gonna try that. Right. And it's like, we theorize about God, and we want to want to be like, well, yes, that one works for me, because I think that, you know, when that and it's like, and then when it comes down to it of like, okay, how does that like, sit with me? How does that? How do I play with that? How do I let it wash over me? Like, that's a lot more uncomfortable. So I think that that plays out. It's the same with T'fillah of like, sometimes the more grounded we are in the, in the regular patterns, the harder it actually is for us to depart from that. And I think, I think that's like our job as prayers is to be like, how do I push myself to not be overly connected to the, to the regular?

Yeah, to the form. That's certainly a challenge for us. I saw Miriam, I saw that you had your hand, you can unmute and share what you're thinking.

Yes. Thank you, both of you for a wonderful podcast. I think the thing that I got out of this the most was that everything I'm doing is normally right. Because I'm always questioning if I'm like, on the right page, I'm always going you know, just suing them saying Am I the right page? Am I doing the right prayer? And like, I don't know the Hebrew we're not doing the words and that one of the songs is originally with my heart. Everything I hear as I'm doing it right.

You know, if there's like, one thing that I would want people to know is that there's no way to do prayer wrong. And I would hate for anyone to think at any moment in a prayer experience. Am I doing this wrong?

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I'm sure. I'm thinking about that, too. There's no way to do it wrong. How freeing that can be. Even with all of the word mumbly bits and the words, Dan, Stanley, I saw you make a little a little thumbs up. Was that just Yeah, I agree. Or did y'all have something you wanted to add?

I could do it wrong. He just said I can do it wrong. Okay, we're on muted. Can I just say something? It's not a question.

Sure.

A friend in memory care. And she's never been to shul, and we used to pick her up and take her to synagogue. And every time the music, every time they started to sing, she would elbow and just, you know, just lit up and was participating and remembered it and it was so wonderful. It was it was really a great experience for her. And it was for us because we saw her a different person when she got into synagogue and saying, that's all I just wanted to say that we also brought an Orthodox friend of ours, who doesn't have a car and for Yizkor services. And she too, thanked us, you know, it meant something to her, whatever. You were doing it related to her. Great deal. And she too still thanks us all the time. But not a question.

That's beautiful. So glad you shared.

I think there's something about melodies of T'fillah that connect to something deep in us, like you could call it soul. You could call it memory, all of those things kind of tied up together, that affect us in ways that we often can't put into words. And I think that, you know, like you said for your friend, that they were transported, right to a different mental space. Right. And I think that T'fillah has the power to do that. That's actually that's the goal, I think transporting us.

Susan, was that your hand up to share something?

Okay, so I even though I grew up Jewish, I didn't grow up in the tradition. Okay, so the mechanics of prayer when I first started coming, I was just totally overwhelmed by the mechanics if I would come to a minyan in the evening, because I had a yizkor. I didn't know whether I had Yizkor, you know, I was just told come this evening, I didn't know whether it was Mincha or Ma’ariv. I didn't know what the difference in Mincha and Ma'ariv were. And I didn't know how to say Kaddish. So learning, the mechanics is superduper important for people to you know, to get to that they're not worried about doing the mechanics. And they can say the prayers. That was important. Your dad used to always say something about having a peg to hang something on. And I didn't understand for a long time, I couldn't understand what he was talking about, to have a peg to hang something on. And a lot of times, all it takes is the rabbi to say, you know, one sentence about a prayer that we're getting ready to do, or add a new tune to a prayer that we're getting ready to do. And that's my peg to hang something on. And I love, Sarit knows how much I love new tunes. And I always want to do new tunes. And I you know, there's this tension between doing the new tunes. And I'm like, Sarit, I don't have, you know, the beautiful voice that hits all the notes. But the new tunes for me are engaging, and the old tunes get boring and repetitive. And I think that's just kind of me. But I think there's also other people who like new tunes but it, we have, we need to have a mechanism to teach people, you know, as opposed to turning around at the end of Musaf and saying, Okay, now we're going to, I'm going to teach you how to do Ein Keloheinu in Ladino. But you know, just learning how to do that. And I learned that from I learned that from someone at BJ. It just made Ein Keloheinu a whole new thing for me. As opposed to doing the same tune every week, so I might do it, you know, to myself in Ladino. Or my, my combination of Hebrew and Ladino. That that just makes it more interesting to me. And a lot of times when Sarit does a new tune, like during the Kedusha, I will go home after services after it's been posted on Facebook, on our web page, and go to that part and record it and just play it over and over and over again so I can learn it.

It's not a bad idea!

I mean, that's how that's how I've learned that Mim Komcha, you know, is I didn't have you record it for me. I just recorded you doing it. But to me, I like the new tunes. And one of the I don't think any of our young kids who lead, and our young kids who lead are just amazing at how proficient they are. But I know exactly what tune they're going to do every bit of that service. And I like to be surprised.

Yeah.

I did want to add, you know, just bring up you know, what your dad used to say about having a peg to hang something on. And that made it more meaningful. That's all.

Thank you. Yeah, I, I love that idea that that a tune can be something to hang a peg to hang something on, or a teaching and I'm wondering, Sarit, if you would close us out with a peg to hang something on if you would close this out with a blessing.

Yeah, I'd love to thank you. My bracha for each of us is that we feel the comfort in T'fillah spaces. That we walk into places of prayer places of worship, and we feel like there's room for us and that we know our place and that we are comfortable in our seat. And then we also feel like we can be courageous. Like we have the ability to open our mouths have words and notes come out that we don't know how they're going to sound but that they might transport us to new places. And my bracha for each of us is that when we are able to balance those different things, the comfort and the courage and even a little bit of chutzpah that we are able to go deeper into ourselves, that we will have words emerge from our souls that we didn't know existed before.

Amen, thank you so so so much for being with us, this evening's Sarit it's been such a beautiful time.

Thank you. It's an honor Eliana. Glad to be here.

And thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much to Christy Dodge for editing, Yaffa Englander for our show notes. If you are interested in hosting a live podcast for your community or organization, please reach out to us at lightlab.co We would be so excited to put a beautiful evening together for you and with you and we hope to see you very soon back in the Light Lab. Shalom y'all.