The Light Lab Podcast Episode 10: Why Worship? (with Cantor Rosalie Will)

1:40PM Jan 11, 2022

Speakers:

Eliana Light

Rosalie Will

Keywords:

worship

people

prayer

community

questions

communal

congregations

clergy

pray

hava

rosalie

cantor

services

place

world

music

camp

connected

congregational

conversation

canning whispering

Shalom everybody Eliana light here thank you so much for joining us once again on the light lab podcast. I hope you are staying safe and warm and finding moments of meaning and blessing and deep breaths wherever you happen to be. I am super excited to share today's interview with Cantor Rosalie. Well, I met Rosalie about a decade ago, which is insane to me, at Hava Nashira. A communal song leader singing training camp slash retreat. It changed my life she has changed my life. We're going to talk a little bit about it. And Cantor Rosalie well, has been a congregational Cantor and is a recognized leader in the field of communal singing, song leader training, worship, leadership and strategic planning for 16 years. And if you're like worship, that's an interesting word to use for what we're doing here. We get to talk about it in this interview. She has worked with the Union for Reform Judaism for many years as the director of worship and music, and now continues with them in more of a consulting role. She also does worship consulting, clergy coaching, mentoring, and weekend residency is on her own. She has so many cool things that are coming out soon, including a book called Song leading a work of art that will be published this spring. And she's launching. And this podcast is the first public recognition The first mention of it anywhere, a new nonprofit organization called Sing unto God, a home and gathering place for resources, programming, learning and networking for communities, congregations and individuals who believe in the power of meaningful worship and communal singing, to bring justice, wholeness and healing to our world. Amen. Amen. So excited for all of Rosalie's work. And I'm so excited for you to get to hear about it. So take a listen to my interview with Cantor Rosalie. Well, she

she. Hi, Rosalie, it's so nice to see you. Thanks for being here.

Hello, Eliana, I'm really glad to be here.

And when we're recording this, it is actually your birthday, no less. So happy birthday.

Thank you so much. There's nothing I would rather do on my birthday and talk with you and talk about prayer and worship and all of those things. What a treat.

Well, thank you so much. I asked you to be here exactly. Because this is what I knew you would want to be doing. So why don't you start by sharing? First, just a little bit about the work that you're doing around T'fillah and prayer and worship these days? And then we can go into what each of those words might be that might mean to you? Well, that

is a good question, an easier place to start then down into the the weeds of what it means. Right now. I'm focused a lot. And I think it's due really to sort of where we are in our world, both around the pandemic, and some of the the interest that has emerged in so many of our communities around engaging to the law. And and for me, when I think about engaging T'fillah, and my focus on my passion is really around communal worship moments, we can talk in a little bit about sort of prayer and prayer life, but I, my work both as a song leader, as a congregational Cantor, as someone who teaches and facilitates communal worship. Thinking is, what does it mean to gather in a community to pray together? What does it mean, obviously, for each individual to be praying, but how do we bring all of that soup of prayer into one shared space? And give give of it take of it and the pandemic? I think, really, for me, the one silver lining is that people now are really invested and interested in talking about prayer, talking about communal worship, talking about what it means to pray, how do we do it with this multi access different ways of engaging with prayer? And that's the focus of most of my work. How do we ask better questions? What are we doing here? When people say, well, we want people to come and why? Why does it matter to us that we pray in a community why Why is that important? And as a cantor and a song leader, How can music engaging the voice being vulnerable when we sing? And when we speak? How can that sort of elevate all of that thinking? So a lot of my work is just in asking new questions about worship, this is the time if we're not going to do it. Now, we've just sort of missed a window. And we're having real good conversations about communal prayer in this day at this time, and this world is where I would like to spend all of my time.

Amen. And we were talking a bit about this before I kind of want to go backwards, though, what is it about this time that you think is bringing up all of these questions for people? Hmm,

that's a good question. I think, I think some of it is a recognition. Well, this might seem obvious, but that we, that we need each other in a different way. And that communal worship, even if people don't go all the time, or they weren't regular goers, is a place where people can be connected. But I also think, this time, brought it up for people because the barriers were so low, that people for whom communal worship is really hard, really hard, for part of the pandemic, even with all of its pain and suffering, and loneliness and loss, was a way to do something that maybe deep down, they knew they wanted to do, but were never comfortable doing. Or maybe they didn't even know they wanted to, but they sort of felt like they should, because the world was hard in their Judaism or their sense of, maybe this is a place that will help me drove them. And then they were able to be safe in their space. Because they were at home, they were able to be seen for who they were or not seen, which also felt really safe, they were able to be vulnerable, because they could type and not have to speak I mean, all of those pieces about on line worship again, for all of its negative, and particularly as a singer, you know, noticing that I just feel that many of our people now see the value of worshiping with others. And the challenge in the conversation now is if we're going to be able to be on site together, physically proximate, how do we continue to create safe spaces for those people who felt our barriers before my fear? Or if I want to be more positive the opportunity around that is? How do we keep ourselves from putting those barriers right back up? The second, we returned to our building? Great, we're back. Let's put up all these barriers to entry. Again, let's have it be really late at night when it's dark. And let's have queues that people can't get in and out of if they need fast egress. Or let's have a book that not everybody's comfortable with what? Oh, okay. Well, what if we do that? Again? I think I think people want to pray in community, they just want it to be easier. That's what I think we've learned during this time.

Yeah. And there's so many different things standing in our way. And if you're not used to asking those questions, then you don't get at it. Right, a synagogue who isn't being self reflective, probably wouldn't even think that their Siddur, their prayer book might be a barrier to access, when in fact, if you're asking the questions of what is this, why are we doing it? What do people need out of this? And what is our mission and vision for it as a community? And the Siddur might, in fact, be a barrier, but you wouldn't even know it? If you didn't ask those questions.

That's right. That's beautifully put. I mean, and that's to me, part of my work as a consultant or just helping people think is, the answers are not as relevant to me. And there's no one answer, it's you have to ask questions of your own community and of yourself and be really honest about what you need and what you're looking for, and have the conversations with, with the community everyone is invested in, should have autonomy in their own prayer experience, interesting challenges we're doing as a community, right? So I can't have complete autonomy, I can't do whatever I want when I want, but I can speak to my needs. I can speak to who I am in the world, I should be able to bring that into a worship space. And I think as clergy or as conveners. We need to be in conversation with people to ask the questions about those barriers that have questions about what people are looking for, when they pray.

In your work, what have some of the themes been? What are some of the answers that come up over and over again, of what am I looking for? What am I doing here?

That's a good question. I would say there are a few things. There are two areas that I think I hear a lot of repetition. One is for the individuals. And it seems maybe trite to say but you know, a lot of people are looking for connection. I will I will say part of that is connection to divinity to a divine to a universe, though people tend to not articulate that right away. I think that just goes to some of the unpeeling and work we have to do around talking about sort of God and our own fear and what that means but Some, I do think there's a sense of connecting to other people, that there's a deep rooted sense of not wanting to be alone and wanting to be connected. And there is a lot of people are looking for, I think, I don't know what the word is really, but a sense of authenticity around. Whether it's being a part of a Jewish community, or a sense, in a world that is so unknown, and so much is confused, that I'm doing the right thing, I find that in some of the tension and pressure around changing prayers or making change in worship, I am observing that a lot of the holding tight is not so much that we're holding tight to those prayers, because those prayers themselves are so perfect and wonderful, or whatever they are, which they might be, but I don't want to lose a sense that I finally feel like I'm doing something right. And I know what to do in a world that is like I, I just feel like I'm always lost. I think the second bucket of an area where people are asking a lot of questions and responding to the issue of worship is this desire to not be alone and that they want more people at services to pray with them? I hear that everywhere I go, why don't more people come? But the challenge is, is that they're not willing to ask themselves, what it is that really matters to them about prayer. So I'll say to them usually educationally. Why? Why do you want more people there? Right, Moshe Rabbeinu, didn't say like, there must be a certain number of people. Why? And they'll look at me, what do you mean? I'll say, why is that you're there. When you're getting what you need? Why does it matter? And then most of the time, communities will say, because it's so wonderful. I'm so moved by it. It's got it's given me so much. I want that for other people. And then if it's the right group, I'll say, how do you know what they need? I get that you want to share what you have received. But you have received that you. You don't know who they are, who aren't here to say that what we in this community offers worship is what they need. So we're stuck now. Because you want more people to have your experience. But that might not be their experience. And now what do we do? And that's hard? None of that is the answer. It makes it harder, but then it raises the question. So the first part about community is people want to be connected to each other. But they want more people there. And I don't think we're doing enough of the work. And what I'm observing a lot of these communities is how do we deepen people's connections to each other, so that they want to be there because of those relationships with each other? Not because the services are so great, not because the people who are there every week love it and are moved by it. But the person who doesn't come who's been excluded for a host of reasons that that's not going to work for them. The issue of community, Priya Parker did some teaching this summer around that, that if we're really about relationships, and sticky relationships, on boards, in organizations in our workplace, I'm now really interested in it's sort of top of mind for me. How do we do that in worship? How do we build relationships with each other in worship? And some could say we don't and we shouldn't? It's about the T'fillah. It's about the prayers. But I'm curious about how do we have people connected to each other, like they would at Mahjong, or in social justice? Or at the bagel table? In the construct of communal prayer, if prayer is communal? Where is the community part? I'm really curious about that. And those are the big questions I find corporations answering, how do we connect to each other?

Oh, my goodness, it's so fascinating and so important. I feel like, you know, I see different kinds of synagogues than you do. And I get the question of, why aren't people coming? By? Sometimes it's, you know, because our services are so great. And I want people to experience it. But a lot of times, it's almost the inverse, it's that I, as a leader, want to do things that are different than the way that the quote unquote, regulars are doing it. But the people that want what I want to do are not coming because we're not doing it yet. So if we just change the service to be what these other people want, more of these other people will come. And yet what about the people who feel a sense of community who show up every week? What about them?

That's really interesting. It makes sense to me. I mean, I'm suspect I've, if I think about the clergy, that is a similar question. One of my my responses to that would be and I don't know that I believe this all the time, but I try to ask it a lot is even the idea and I lived this as a congregational Cantor for many years and even now when I'm asked to lead worship, what how is it what is the mechanism we're using? What does As the information we're gathering, to, to even if those folks want to do something different and creative as a way to bring those people, how, where is that coming? Where is that information? What how am I as the clergy? What Why do I think that this new thing I might do is what's going to attract them? Again, for me, there's a lot of there's like a vacuum. I don't know what the answer is. I don't think it's knocking on the doors of people who've never been in, say, why would you what would bring you? And I just sometimes I think it's worship, like the communal services are a funny construct, and I don't know how to recreate them. Or maybe it's when communities gathered to do other things there has to be prayer with in it, but people aren't going to say I would come to services, if only you would do X. I mean, I just don't think people say that that's just not a thing that happens. But how that's part of what I think happened with pandemic was when there was less formality. And I don't mean informal, like goofy, but less structure and more, what's happening, what's a story of your life, and then finding ways to make that prayerful to connect that to our liturgy to say that our T'fillah was always just somebody telling their story and writing in their own diary, like, how do we let people tell their stories and say, That's the law? Oh, that's so interesting, or that moved me or that makes me want to pray for this thing to happen or to feel connected to you. I just I'm curious about whether we're trying to put square pegs into round holes or sort of fit people into constructs or fit constructs onto people. And I'm not sure altogether how it works. I mean, forget the liturgical stuff, which we could talk about, but that I think it's way communal prayer is just a hard nut to crack. I think it's the most fascinating thing.

It absolutely is. And if the goal of the law, or let's say communal prayer for you is relational, then, at least it seems to me that it's a quality over quantity question that if 10 people show up to Friday night services, but it is intentionally planned, skillfully facilitated, and the people in the room are able to open their hearts to life to the holy one, and maybe most importantly, to each other. And they all leave a little different. Is that better than 50 people in the room who are not having a relational experience? And if that's the case, what does it mean, in a capitalistic, you know, profit driven society where a lot of our congregations have these very large buildings that were bequeathed to them from generations of old, maybe not of old, but like generations, your, you know, in the 50s, and 60s, when we wanted to celebrate being in suburbia, what does it mean to prioritize quality over quantity? And can that be one of the ways to think about communal prayer spaces?

I think that's exactly the way to do it. And as you said, I think some of the institutional limitations or again, the sense of, but we have clergy, or we pay a full time staff, I mean, that there's, there's a sense of the the numbers game with all best intentions. I mean, I understand where that comes from. And there's a sense of too, I don't want to, there's always strength in numbers, right? You feel better when you're singing with a large group, or we love to go to concerts, whereas a sense of power of that. So I also appreciate someone who goes to services, and then there's 19 people, it's do feel both lonely, and it would be more robust. But I think that's part of why there's so many smaller communities emerging, why their main independent media name is the sense of, if we can have deep relationship with the text with our sense of holiness, and with each other, that feels more has integrity and really comes from us. It can be as if not more powerful than some of those, you know, larger sort of institutional, communal worship moments. And I don't know how we work around that a lot of the work around program has been to de emphasize numbers, right? Don't count numbers, but impact, right, the impact, not numbers, impact, not numbers. But we rarely translate that to worship. And I don't know how and I do think it's different in worship, because it's connected to our grandparents, and it's connected to Europe and loss. And it's connected to diaspora and anti semitism. So I think for many too, it becomes not the social justice or religious school or Mahjong or any of those things, but somehow prayer has come to represent the continuity of the Jewish people. Okay. I don't think that's fair. I don't think it's fair to worship to to be locked to the Siddur to put all of that historical pressure on that, but it has become the oh, we only get so many services. And I'll say well, how many came to to your Oh, hundreds and hundreds. Okay. So it's not that the community is dying, it's that they're not coming to worship. And again, we can, we can look at that. But the numbers piece, the numbers piece is a real challenge for folks. And I'm not sure how, how we work around that. That's a pressure particularly around on clergymen. Yeah. lay leaders, board members.

Yeah. So taking a step back, putting a pause on the wonderful conversation about the work, but also on the questions. I think it's really good that you pointed out that the answers are actually going to be different for every community and every person, but it's important to ask the questions. How did this become a passion for you? Not just how did you decide to become a cantor? And do Jewish worship as your life? But also, how did you become interested or inspired encouraged to think about these bigger questions?

I think part of what moved me in the direction of asking these questions and of wanting to help communities just start to think differently, regardless of how they thought, but just to think differently, was when I started visiting other congregations, some of it was early in my career as a congregational cancer when I was asked to do an occasional visit, or travel, when I work for you RJ a Union for Reform Judaism, doing some programming, of being with other communities and watching them pray, or working with clergy, particularly fascinating planning, worship with other clergy, of being focused on, you know, sort of page numbers and what melody to sing and not having any conversation about who and I'd have to ask a lot of questions. But who are the people who come what? What's happening in the life of your congregation? Has there been any transitions? Is there major deaths in the community, like, who are the folks I can't plan worship on the site, I know who people are, and just observing a lot of desire to get more people there, by any means necessary, which were often very sort of quick fix kinds of what's a new thing I remember when bands became all the rage. And congregational bands are can be very meaningful, right ways to use lay people and lift up artists and create a different sound. But they became for some years, at least in reformed communities like the answer, because everyone came and everyone said they loved it. That didn't I mean, some still did and do but it wasn't for everyone. And it didn't necessarily save congregations from closing, right? It wasn't the answer to the problem of people coming to services. Because it's not, that is a tool that is a technique for maybe certain moments of worship, or that when I can look at the tools in my tool belt of which tool will work at this moment for this text for these humans on this specific day in this one community, ah, this band, this moment would be great. That's not it all the time. And it became a sort of default. And I just observed a lot of challenging worship where the questions weren't deep enough. And there weren't really any questions. They were let's do what someone else is doing. Because what happened there was so amazing. That's because of the people and the time of day and they were celebrating a dedicated, it's not because of him. And so that really drove a my fascination with, with asking questions about worship as a construct or as a gathering tool. I'm really interested all my work is about communities and gathering. And worship is a gathering place. It has at its root, all that float and the god stuff, but it's still a gathering. And I think we should actually be looking at it as much as the gathering as the theological, philosophical, to the last stuff. And I think that's hard because we tend to fall into two camps. There's the theology God people, you know, or then there's the communal people and how do how do we do both? Is what's what's interesting to me from all of my traveling,

yes, I hear so many parallels in your stories as to my own life. Why I ended up doing this and I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but a lot of it was very, very similar being asked to come places and say you have a guitar. Remember once I was hired at a synagogue, because I worked at Binay gesture in in New York. And BJ is a place of a lot of spirit and they danced during Kabbalat Shabbat which for you know, conservative congregations was like often the zenith like they dance during Kabbalat Shabbat they have instruments at all, let alone a full band. You come to our synagogue make it just like BJ. I'd have to say, No, I can't do that. Right. We're not BJ right? Yeah. What does this mean for you and your family? congregation. Another thing I wanted to bring up is exactly what you said about tools. It's so, so important. So I used to think, for many years of my life, that instruments during services equals bad. Instruments are bad for tila. Because the first time in my life that I saw a guitar in a service was when I was about 14 or 15. My mom took me to this Friday night service. In New Jersey, I think Mel met at an Elks club. So it was this like, weird looking moldy sort of room. And we were all in these really hard plastic chairs. And there was one guy at the front of the room. And I don't know who it is, or who it was. But let's say that, at least to me, it felt like a series of songs. And not like a T'fillah experience or a worship service. And I walked away from that thinking, all prayer with instruments is wrong. A couple of things changed my mind. It was going to the reconstruction of service at Brandeis for the first time, which was great. And then that may guess where I ended up for the first time, I guess, unless you're having a shira, which you have been so instrumental in. And so I would love for you to say a little bit about Hava Nashira. In maybe, first of all, what it is for our listeners who were like, What in the world is that? What its goal was in its infancy and what you think the goal of it can be moving forward.

Excellent question. I remember that having to share you came to and then all of the subsequent ones after that. Those are great. Those were great years, when we, I think really opened our eyes to the possibility of a wider community, Hava Nashira was started 30 years ago, this May. We are celebrating our 30th anniversary this coming year by Debbie Friedman of blessin memory and Cantor Jeff Klepper, in partnership with Jerry Kay, who was the camp director at Olin sang Buber union Institute in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin who wanted to find a place for supporting and training at the time you HC, the reform movements, umbrella, Camp SONG LEADERS, there was a sense at all the song leaders are going to camp. So much great communal singing came out of the camp world and was influencing congregational life. And they thought we should have a place to be able to train and mentor and support these camps, young leaders. So the first year there were 35 or 40, mostly young adults, who came to get trained by Debbie Friedman, Jeff Clapper, Rabbi Dan Freelander was there in some of those early years. On basic song leading technique I was there in its third year I was there in 1994, was, you know, 40/50 people, I met some of my oldest dearest friends there. And over the next 30 years, it evolved to begin to include more than just sort of the camp song leaving there was a sense that one of the reasons why camp song leading, you know, for all of its wonderful things and at camp, but when it was translated to congregational life needed some shifting and some just rethinking, oh, we should be talking about how we teach music and raise up the congregational and communal voice in our worship setting. And then it was well, our kids love singing at Camp informally, camp was like the only informal Jewish space. Well, what if religious schools are also places to informally learn about Judaism and God and all of those places and become more fun, for lack of a better word, music and engage music, so we would bring on early childhood and religious school music educators, and it really came to be the place where some of the best sort of thinkers, composers, music leaders would gather to share skills, share repertoire, teach a generation of more than reformed but conservative Reconstructionist a few modern Orthodox unaffiliated worship and music leaders around best principles for thinking about communal singing from the littlest ones, up through and beyond. And so coming into this 30th year and into the future, I think it continued, it can continue to be a place where we share new ideas and new repertoire. But I really see it becoming also a stronger network of people who want to ask these kinds of hard questions who want to think deeply about prayer and communal singing, and who want to be more radically inclusive about what that can mean? I still think many of our spaces even the music spaces are still fairly Aashka centric and background you know, just real and not through anyone's fault but just comes from a certain style of rap. Have a certain sense of sort of white European Jewry. And I want Hava Nashira. To also position itself as a place to really be a safe, interesting place to talk about how we widen the tent of what it means to be a part of our communities so that we can lower those barriers to entry, if everyone would, if everyone agrees, which I think most people do. That music is what makes many gatherings elevated, more engaging, more focused on the heart, not solely, of course, but music is important, then that music has to represent more voices, it has to lift up more people and be more radically inclusive, and I want Hava Nashira, to be a place that starts to think about that and really push people to to be more cognizant of what that means. That's one of my dreams, in the next in the next 10 years of Hava Nashira. As we move past 30

Those are really big and beautiful dreams. And I think, very important to posit and to make the foundation of the work, do you have people who are inspiring you in that realm that maybe our listeners should read about look into? who's inspiring you?

A couple of people, some of the people who've inspired me to just think about sort of language and how we, how we teach around all kinds of things, is, of course, your Klein, who's just done a lot of work around around language and sensitivity, I think we can always have more conversation about that in our music, about issues of of gendering and about how we include or exclude communities by the words that we use. Rabbi Sandra Lawson does a lot of great work around diversity and race and communities of color. I've been following a lot of Keshira HaLev, who's a kohenet, a priestess in Pittsburgh, her work with just building communities with really wide open doors. And what I don't get, what I'm looking for more of is, how to bridge the gap with music, and how to engage and talk about music really, openly and transparently around appropriation, you know, if many of the folks who are leading music are white Europeans, how do we become really inclusive when some of the repertoire or some of the places from which repertoire comes? Isn't in our vernacular? How do we share that with integrity? I want to have more of those conversations with with people about how to do that, and not about us. Without us. I want people you know, for whom those styles and communities matter to be part of those conversations. But like Sandra and Keshira are super interesting to me in the work they do. And Koach Baruch Frazier is another one I follow a lot of the work. But I'm interested in the worship space. I think a lot of times the social justice stuff is obviously there, but not sure yet about who we can be talking to around worship music in that diverse space. I'd love any ideas you have about those kinds of people, because that's, I'd like to have more of those conversations.

As we round the corner, towards the end of the conversation, I have some more kind of open ended personal questions to ask. One is that we love going deeper into words on this show, and you've been using the word worship a lot. And as someone who grew up in the conservative movement, we never described our services as worship. So I'm wondering, what does the word worship mean to you? And is there a differentiation between worship and prayer worship and T'fillah? Worship and liturgy? Whatever that might look like?

Hmm, that's a good question. And I get asked it sometimes, or I talk to my friends like Ellen Dreskin, who I know will be responding and in this dialogue as well about this. Look, honestly, I struggle with prayer, personally. So the word is does not mean a lot to me as Rosalie and the the, the answer to that is, I see prayer as something very private. And my own struggle with private personal prayer is my struggle. And you know, of making a prayer life of finding ways to, to be in better touch with my own spirituality as a prayer. I use the word worship, I think, in place of T'fillah. Because I sort of when I think to be law, I think liturgy, I think, the structure of the prayer book, and not as a limitation because it it is more expansive than just the words on the prayers, but it still is about a construct that I can bring myself to but is not mine. So to be law, and liturgy are the tools they are the text or the script that we use. I use worship when I think about communities gathering because we are in the act of it's more verb, like it's more active, we worship together. I don't know if we pray, because Rosalie often doesn't pray when she is in worship. I don't know if Eliana or Josh or someone else next to me is praying, because frankly, I might even say, I don't care. Nor is it my business, right? How you experience it is yours. But worship is the gathering space that contain or if we had a Hebrew word, I might prefer it. But I also am often balancing. Let's use Hebrew words, which, what could be exclusive, I mean, there's that I do a lot of work in non Jewish spaces and have some partnerships there. And I like that worship is often understood, sort of universally. But to me worship is the act of gathering in a space to then do some of this holy work together, whether people pray, or they use a T'fillah, or a liturgy doesn't matter. You could worship on a Sunday afternoon at the dog park, you might not have a Siddur you might not use liturgy, but you could be worshiping in Rosel, to my Torah. So I like worship because it's more all inclusive of, of communal of the holiness that happens when we're together. I mean, I think that's the, that's the root I had an HRC student I was teaching at Hebrew Union College, the reformed seminary a few weeks ago, who said, well, but what if, you know what if in some of these react interactions, were talking about chatting on Zoom, or other things, you know, people talk to each other, it'll take away the holiness of the service. And I said, the way I'd like to look at it is, if two people are connecting with each other, that that's the holiness of the like, that's God, is it? They made a connection? Oh, how was your mom? You know, we're in the middle of a prayer. How is it? Oh, I Miss Jang. Let's try to have lunch. And it seems so mundane. To me, what if that's the holy Spark is that these two people made a connection in the construct of this prayer thing, that that was holy thing. Because I can't control whether they are praying or whether they're communing with God or whether they're going to go out and change the world. I can't control that. I never know if it's happening. I may never know. But I know if if people can be connected to each other. And that, to me is worship is the container for those holy moments to happen. Sometimes with liturgy, sometimes with Melody, sometimes with quiet sometimes with drawing or painting or dancing or being at the dog park, same cottage for someone's dog who died. Like that's worship. It's all worship to me. So that's why I like the word. I don't think I've ever had to explain it. But I'm pretty, I'm pretty pleased at my explanation. Because I don't love the word as a word. It's it's an icky, weird word. But I think that's what we're doing. We're worshiping, we are bringing ourselves and doing something together.

Well, I'm really glad that you articulated that for me. I find it so fascinating. I'm also wondering, to me, worship is directional, Your Worship, you're not just worshiping, worshiping something. And so maybe for you, the directionality is a bit of that ik Enos. Yeah, for some, but also, there's see for me, if it's just us doing something together, then how is the social justice program, not worship? On the other hand, now, I'm answering my own question and saying, if it's planned intentionally, as a gathering, whereby we are connecting to each other, maybe in your mind, it would be or it could be worship.

Right. And that is true for me, by and large, or we are, it is worship, because we're taking the messages from our texts and the desire to be God's partners in the world. And because we were strangers in the land, I mean, all of the pieces that we would articulate in a traditional sort of prayer space, could be worship, but in your your questions around the word worship, and I know why many people balk Me included is that issue of your worship god are you worship people, or we worship our, you know, phones or whatever. But I, I'd love to come up with a brand new word. But prayer makes me not nervous. But prayer is hard for me. And I worried that it's hard for others. So for me, it's a possible barrier. Again, because I think people have private prayer lives, but I don't know that people want to, or are safe enough and vulnerable enough in our communal spaces to pray around other people. I think that's the bottom line. People. We haven't helped people feel safe to pray around other people. I think the independent media name maybe can do that. I think in some of these places where you join the synagogue because it's the one your kids go to the one you're nearby and we say why don't you come to services and bare your soul to everybody? Because I don't know you yet, I don't know you and I barely feel safe enough with myself to let go and pray. I mean, that's just me being honest, like, prayer is hard for me, really, you want me to do it around a bunch of strangers, and that one's gonna have to leave early. And I've never seen that one before. And that one's rolling their eyes at me, because I'm in sweat. You know, like, all of that. Really Want me to pray? I cry. When I pray like, Well, I'm not doing that here. You know what I mean? Like, it's, wow, hard. So I think prayer is way hard. I don't think we talk about enough. I think it's harder than a lot of clergy expected to be or the regulars. And I think we have a lot of expectations on our people that aren't fair a little bit.

It is way hard. I think. I think that's why we're doing this. I think, I think that's one of the reasons I wanted to start this podcast is because we don't talk about it enough. And we don't talk about what it means to say, like, we continue our, like, we continue our prayers on page, so and so it's like, do you, you know, every time I can be snarky sometimes I remember. At one of the places I was at, they read the translation of the banner rights, which is a traditional prayer in Aramaic, that is set in front of the ark on Shabbat as it's open, but he would read it in English. So he goes, I am a servant of the Holy One. And me and my snark, I'm thinking you are whose Torah I revere and whose meets photo revere at all time, something you do? Like, it's so bad? Because if you actually take seriously, what you're saying, and what prayer is supposed to do, the interesting thing for me is that, I think part of what you were doing, and part of what I'm doing, and part of what the people who are thinking seriously about this is how do we create spaces where people feel safe actually praying? Which that might not actually be as it sounds like, that might not be a key question of yours. And that's okay, if it's not a key question of yours, because how do we connect people to each other? And how do we create communal experiences of relationship gets people to be more trusting so that they can open up but it might not be the first question. And that's interesting. Yeah, the first

question, but to ask but your first thing, which was not a key question, I bet, and I just don't I've articulated it is a key question. Yes. It's just so far down for me, in part because of my own maybe mishegoss. But also to this conversation of what I'm observing is, we can't even ask people to bare their soul. If they don't feel safe in the space. They don't understand the language. It was really hard to park no one said, Hello. They don't know anybody's name. No one knows them and what they need above that, though, and and, and and, yeah, so it's not I don't lead with the prayer question. To me. I do think it is the goal. I think people could pray. But I think that's why they don't come, I'll pray at home where I'm safe. But why would I go into a strange space to do this hard thing. So I am very interested in the the space stuff, what is happening in the worship, for lack of a better word. In the community, I can't even think about the prayer yet, because we have much more to go around the the community piece.

So if you were to give one tip to a congregation, not tailored to them, and I'm sure you have many, many best practices and tips, but based on the things we've talked about, if you want to say try to ask this question, or try to implement this thing, to create greater opportunities for communal connection,

I would ask a sort of two part question. My tip would be, why is it important to you, that members of your community, are there in the room with you when you embark on this prayer experience? And what do you want them to leave with? Because I think a lot of times we might respond in different ways. But the response might be one thing, but the tools we've been trying, it turns out, wasn't going to get us there anyway. If we want people to feel more connected to each other, or to believe the values of Temple, whatever it is, okay, then you in the time that you're there, you have to build that. But to say we want people to feel one way. But yet our questions about worship are, we need a band, then you'll soon recognize that you're not getting anywhere. So what why does it matter to you that people go, why does it really matter to you that they're there? And once they're there, what do you want them to leave with? Like really leave with? That's my question.

That's the work. That's, that's the work. That's the work. And could we end by you sharing a little bit about how people can get in touch with you, you know, asking these questions alone is really difficult and sometimes you need guidance. So where can people find you and your wonderful work?

Excellent, thank you. I do some private consulting and coaching both for clergy and worship teams or larger groups of people. congregations to think about worship maybe, maybe in new ways, maybe in the same ways but to ask different questions. You can reach me at Rosalie at Rosalie will calm and some of the work like with you Eliana is to just really help people find different ways to engage in conversation about worship, of thinking about communal music and teaching. And I've launched a nonprofit called Sing unto God, which is a place for programs like Hava, Nashira, a place for you, me and others to have conversations about worship and questions to talk about God, how do we work with children and teens, to grow all of our wonderful song leading work in our liberal Jewish spaces. So looking forward to seeing what opportunities we have with sing on to God to learn from each other to network with others who are doing this amazing work. And I'm loving that this conversation happened as a way to, to start those wonderful relationships and to engage other people in these conversations. As I say, when I'm on the road, I don't have any answers. But I can help you ask better questions so that you can find the answers that work for you. And I think the more people we can have these conversations with, the clearer everyone will be as a way to build relationships and holy spaces in their communities.

I'm going to take that as a prayer and say, Amen, Amen. To all that you have said, Thank you so much for jumping on and asking some of those really important questions.

Thank you, Eliana, it was so wonderful to talk to you. I know we could have talked all day. But yeah, my birthday I do have, you know, dinner for the one time I actually not going to make my own birthday cake. I hope someone said what kind of what's your favorite flavor, a birthday cake, and everyone was saying chocolate. And then I said, one that I don't have to make myself because I do allow the baking but a birthday cake if someone else made it, then that's a good birthday cake.

Amen. Well enjoy your birthday cake. And thank you so much again for coming today.

Thank you until next time,

you can check out Sing unto God at WWW dot Sing unto god.org Sing unto God is now the home of Hava Nashira, which will hopefully holy one willing be happening at Olin sang Ruby union Institute in Economo, Lac, Wisconsin, this may in person. And if you want to explore more about what we pray, how we pray, why do we pray and talk about it together? And it seems like you do because you're listening to this podcast. Please check it out. I'll actually be teaching a course through Sing unto God this winter. And I'm so so excited to continue to be a part of this work with Rosalie and with you. Thank you so much to Christie at our OB for editing. Thank you so much to Yaffa for putting the show notes together and doing our social media. And thank you so much for listening, sending you blessings by

Sing unto God saying. Thank you I'd like to welcome you all to best Carnegie.