This morning at Hod veHadar, we had a minyan. That's nothing
unusual; we have one (almost) every Monday morning (6:30 – you’re welcome to join
us if you’re in the neighborhood). The unusual thing was that each of the
people who had an aliyah to the Torah recited a slightly different blessing
before the reading: one, the traditional blessing – who has chosen us from all
peoples; one the Reconstructionist version – who has brought us closer to His service; and one a more subtle adaptation of the traditional blessing – who has chosen with all
peoples [does anyone know its origin?].
Towards the end of the service, three versions of Aleinu were
heard, “who has not made us like the nations of the lands…” “For all people
will walk, each in the name of its god, and we will walk in the name of Adonai
Lord our God forever and ever;” and “Who gave us a Torah of truth and implanted
within us eternal life.'
Cynics might claim that lack of uniformity is negative and
evidence that the Conservative movement is wishy-washy. To the contrary, I think
that our ongoing grappling with tough issues and desire to be true to tradition
while not declaring things we don’t really believe is one of our best traits.
Afterwards, we talked about these differences in light of our
varying feelings about the fact that the Israeli press highlighted Jewishness
of one victim of the shooting rampage in Newtown, Connecticut. Is feeling
closer to people who are part of our religious or ethnic community a natural
trait to be accepted, a positive characteristic to be encouraged or a negative
one to be overcome? I don't have any answers, but I think that dealing with the
question davka in shul is important.
On the liturgical level, much of the discussion about chosen-ness
and uniqueness centers around Aleinu. If this interests you, I invite you to
join my class (in English) on the topic this Wednesday evening, 19 December, at
20:15 in the Hod VeHadar library. We'll discuss the history of the prayer, its text,
meaning and our relationship with it. The class will include the material from
the class after tefillot in July but go beyond it, so please feel free to come whether
you were there or not.
.jpg)
