This past Shabbat we had a learner’s minyan at my congregation. My job was to teach people the dance steps are in a traditional Jewish Shabbat morning service so they are comfortable. Here’s the secret. There is no one way to pray, to davven in Judaism. However, many people feel uncomfortable walking into a service with which they are not familiar. In Judaism we talk about keva, the fixed structure of the prayer, the order of service, the actual words, and kavanah, the intention behind the prescribed ritual. Sometimes we get so hung up on “doing it right” we forget why we are doing it. That this is a conversation between us and G-d. The fact that we can have the conversation–in Hebrew, in English, with dance steps, without dance steps, in a synagogue or at the beach, should bring us joy, or comfort, or security. Too often it intimidates us. I don’t believe that G-d cares whether we get it right. I don’t think there is any right or wrong way to pray. The rabbis talk about this in the Talmud. They tell us that they have provided a structure so that we can pray, when the words may not be easy for us to say. We are “allowed” to pray from our hearts. We are capable of this but many of us have never been told that it is OK. So G-d wants to hear from you–your joys, your concerns, your happiness, your sadness, your pain–in whatever language you are most comfortable with whatever movements help you to focus, to express yourself, to feel the Divine Presence. So if it is dancing, great. If it is sitting quietly and meditating, wonderful. If it is being at the beach, out in the wetlands, in your backyard gardening, on a mountain, fine. If you want to sing, scream, talk, be silent, play an instrument, all of these are within normative Judaism.
If you want to understand the traditional dance and how it enriches the meaning of our service and the words that the rabbis came up with, we can talk about that too. Here is a guideline of how we usually do things at Congregation Kneseth Israel.
At the end it contains a post from the Coffee Shop Rabbi, http://coffeeshoprabbi.com Rabbi Ruth Adler. She has it right.
“MOST CHOREOGRAPHY IS OPTIONAL: Bow, etc, if it is meaningful to you or if you think it might become meaningful to you. If it is distracting or just “isn’t you,” that is OK. However, give yourself permission to try things out and see how they feel. Some people find that choreography makes them feel more in tune with the minyan, or closer to God in prayer: how will you know if you don’t at least try it out?
She points out that only a few things are “required,” and those only if you are able. She lists standing for Barechu, standing for the Amidah (which means standing prayer), stand when the Torah is being moved or when the Ark is open.
The discussion we had at services was very rich. People have learned different interpretations through the years of why we do what we do. There were three interpretations of why we back up three steps and move forward before starting and finishing the Amidah. One was it is like being in a sultan’s throne room, we are showing respect for the ruler. Just like you would back up when leaving the presence of an earthly ruler, you back up when leaving the Divine Presence. Or we are waving at G-d to say, “Here am I, take notice of me.” Or it is representative of the Cohanim, Leviim and Yisraelim, the three types of Jews.
When we get to the Barechu, we enter the formal part of the service with the “Call to worship.” Everything up until here has been “warm-up”, Jewish aerobics. A Chassidic rabbi was asked what he does before he prays. His answer, he prays for an hour that he might pray. We stand and we bow and we bend our knees. For me this is always a humbling moment. The word Baruch, blessed, comes from the word berekh meaning knee so it is a kind of stage direction. I surprised one of our Israeli members with this etymology.
When we talked about the Sh’ma and whether to close your eyes or keep them open, people talked about closing them made them focus better or keeping them open allowed them to be a witness, to observe G-d’s oneness which is what the Sh’ma is about. My own daughter in the car later reminded me that she had been taught that if everyone closed their eyes during the Sh’ma, then the angels would be present. No peeking, she had learned at her own Junior Congregation. But she would peek.
When we say Kedusha, the holiness prayer, echoing the angels as Isaiah taught, we are told to stand with our feet together and rise up on our toes for each repetition, Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh. Isaiah had a vision of the angels doing precisely that. Rising up, towards G-d. One of my favorite books for teaching Jewish prayer remains Sh’ma Is For Real. Joel Grisover describes the Kedusha, its keva and its kavanah this way:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Mh2CpIgrLfYC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=kadosh,+kadosh+kadosh+choreography&source=bl&ots=RE8kI8RFpp&sig=Y3lF-SgntpNyrU3sX72_Au6F0sY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=j6vBUZeLA_KgyAH1sIFw&ved=0CGMQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=kadosh%2C%20kadosh%20kadosh%20choreography&f=false
May our dancing elevate us to be like the angels, holy.