High Holidays Debrief

Mrs. Yid and I went to Temple GLBT for High Holidays for the second time-- the only time since college where we've gone back somewhere. A few minor issues aside, I enjoyed myself quite a bit. These last few years I've been unable for fast for health reasons, so this was the first time in a while that I fasted, and I have to say, this may have been the easiest time I've ever had of it.

One issue I've had over and over again at High Holiday services has been liturgy and transliteration-- while I prefer Hebrew to English, most place's machzorim tend to lack adequate transliteration, which means that people like me get stuck out in the cold. This has probably been one of the biggest problems I've had in trying to have engaging High Holiday experiences.

So, in keeping with the spirit of diving into things a little more, I bought my own transliterated machzor, courtesy of Joe Rosenstein at newsiddur.org. It didn't come until after Rosh Hashanah, but I marked it up ahead of time with sticky flags so that by the time Yom Kippur rolled around, I was set and ready to go.

I started the day by putting on Zayde's tefillin. I've been feeling slightly guilty about having them and not using them, but frequently the only days I actually get around to davening are Saturdays, when you're not supposed to use the darn things. Oh, irony. And it turns out you're not supposed to wear them on major holidays, either. So, a double-no-no-whammy for me. Oh well.

Because I was in a spiritual mood I put on Zayde's tefillin anyway, but I didn't say the brachot-- A because I knew I wasn't supposed to be davening with them on Shabbat or Yom Tov, and also because I hadn't remembered to write them down and I was trying not to use the computer. So instead I used them as a sort of mental focus for a short prayer asking for the joy and faith of my grandfather to be in my heart and mind for the day and to help center me during the fast. Halachic, perhaps not, but it felt good to have a physical connection to Zayde.

Once we were at shul, I found that being able to follow the service made a huge difference in my experience, and it was nice to be able to proceed more at my own pace as opposed to taking all my cues from the service leaders. Temple GLBT's machzor was made before I was born, so its transliteration is quite minimal (and my impression is that some pieces of the amidah are significantly abridged), so I wasn't always able to get through everything, but it was nice to have the option to continue if I wanted to. It was also fascinating to observe that for the most part, Temple GLBT was following a pretty traditional prayer structure. Not everything was in there, but people who would expect crazy liberal gay-friendly Reformies to have replaced everything with one long drum circle would have been pretty surprised.

Ever the critic, I have a few gripes. But in keeping with my resolution to try to be less of a bastard, I'm keeping it brief:

- There was no mincha service. It was entirely replaced by break-out sessions. There was a little bit of text study offered but for the most part it was meditation, arts & crafts, or social activism discussion group (the day's topic was "Racism: Bad?") It wound up being ok because we took the opportunity to take a much needed break and dose of sunlight. On the one hand, I kind of like having a break, but it was also a bit of a bummer that with all the alternative options being offered, no one thought to just offer a traditional-ish prayer service for the afternoon. Given how most of the rest of the day more or less stuck to the usual script, it seemed odd to me.

- No Leviticus 18. I was particularly miffed about this because Mrs. Yid and I had studied the parsha the night before and found a lot to debate in it, and I had been particularly interested in how a GLBT-focused shul would tackle it. Apparently, they tackle it by avoiding it entirely and switching it with the Holiness Code in Leviticus 19. I suppose I get it but it felt a little disappointing. Also, the Holiness Code is, IMO, fairly uninteresting. At least Lev 18 has some meaty things people can dig into and discuss.

- Teeny, teeny yizkor service. Lots of niggunim and build-up about how this is "one of the most meaningful services of the year," juxtaposed with very little time letting us actually pray the darn thing. This was particularly irksome to me as I am unfamiliar with the structure of yizkor and was trying to modify the blessings for my three grandparents.

- On a related note, I really wanted to say Mishiberach for my increasingly-ill grandmother, and am rather perturbed that none of her kids have the slightest idea of what her Hebrew name is. (I asked my great-aunt but all she could give was a wild guess.) I guess we're the only ones spending anytime in shuls that call people up for aliyot using both their parents' names.

All in all, I had a very good time. I may still be working on this community thing, but at least I'm feeling comfortable and "competent" when it comes with the actual prayers for the holiday.

Quotes:

Me: I got a new siddur and a new machzor, which is great, because it made it a lot easier to follow along in shul.

Abbot Yid: Um... all I caught out of that was "shul."

How Inclusive, really?

Last Friday, the SG and me were foiled by the usually competent public transportation system. The bus we were going to take to go to "Da Minyan" (more on that another time) blew a tire, and another one seemed a long time in coming. So we tried to walk to catch another bus to get to Beth Elderly. No luck, just as we got to the stop, the damn thing peeled off.

Great. So we decided we'd go to a new shul, one that I'd heard about but hadn't gotten a chance to visit yet: Temple GLBT, or, as a high school friend once called it (in whispered tones) "The Gay One." Of course, not knowing its exact address, we had to be assisted by Shiska Girlfriend's kid sister way back in another timezone. Let me tell you, there is nothing like yelling transliterated Hebrew into your cell phone in a crowded bus station to get attention from the old Chinese ladies.

So we hop on the next bus and head down. The architecture was very cool; the shul is a giant rectangle and the sanctuary is on the third floor, giving it a great vaulted ceiling and pretty cool windows. It was nice seeing the sun set as we went through Kabbalat Shabbat.

But, I admit it, I was kind of weirded out about going to "that shul," particularly as the GF and I are, as she puts it, "painfully straight."

Let me explain. I have gay godparents, I have bisexual and transgendered friends and acquaintances. Sure, for a while I was uncomfortable with my brother painting his toenails, but he grew out of it. So it's not an issue of not being ok with GLBT people having their own space or activities, it's a question of whether the shul is "GLBT-friendly", or specifically for GLBTs. Just like the term "Gay-Straight Alliance" can either mean exactly what it says, or can be a code for, "this is where the queer kids hang out, everybody else just beat it." Those were some of the anxieties running through my head as we headed inside.

For the most part, my fears were unfounded. There were same-sex couples there, but we weren't the only male-female pairing, either. We didn't get any dirty looks; in fact they were among the friendliest folks we've encountered so far. And I was very impressed with their prayerbook: giant Kinko's tomes with a ton of Shabbos songs in the back, a bunch of which I'd never heard of, and fascinating commentary on a lot of the liturgy from a GLBT perspective. Originally, I was sort of turned off by the (IMO) strange decision to offer three or four different versions of prayers (traditional, "mystical," gender neutral or alternative, etc...) which just seemed sort of confusing and reinforced the fact that everybody wasn't on the same page, literally, but about halfway into the service it stopped being so noticeable. I also appreciated that their custom is to not take out any traditional liturgy, only add new and optional stuff (with the possible exception of some gender stuff, I think). Particularly moving was mentioning AIDS in a Misheberach prayer, and a special prayer for "our GLBT brothers and sisters" that suffered in the Middle Ages, Holocaust and today, that gave a whole new spin on the concept of suffering and persecution in Jewish history. It was a real insight into how it must be for GLBT Jews to have their history and suffering not be acknowledged in liturgy or popular Jewish consciousness, and made me all the more appreciative of the fact that they had figured out a way to include this without getting dragged into the reverse; ignoring or excluding straight Jews because they didn't quite share in the same narrative.

Also, SG really liked that their siddur had Hebrew, transliteration, AND English translation, so that she had something to read while the rest of us were doing our thing.

What I like most about these guys was that they seemed to have achieved a nice balance between their gender or sexual orientation identities and a strong background in Jewish practice and tradition (at least in the context of the service). It wasn't so much, a "If you think about it, Moses was probably gay, man" thing as the congregation having their own particularistic bent on Judaism and Jewish history. And once you got past the initial liturgy weirdness, it was essentially a fairly traditional service, much more traditional than, say, Temple Touched by God's re-enactment of the Levites' serenade (plus a violin for that "Old Country" flavor).

The cantor's drash was pretty interesting. She spoke about health care (there was some tie-in to Isaiah I didn't quite catch) and how the shul was working, in concrete ways, to get affordable healthcare for every city resident. I was happy to hear about some actual Reform tikkun olam in practice, as opposed to say, Temple Touched by God, which mostly consisted of bitching about Republicans and then talking about how we could supposedly raise awareness about global warming by "checking out" some website.

Things that bugged me:

- Kabbalat Shabbat lasted, literally, all of fifteen minutes. Just a personal thing, but I think those psalms and melodies are really beautiful, and I was annoyed that they skipped most of them or excerpted the hell out of them. It left more time for Maariv, but the reality is, I strongly prefer K.S. to Maariv, for exactly the reasons given above.

- Having 10 different versions of the Amidah. I realize this verges on the hypocritical, given my usual liberal Judaism bias. Maybe it was just seeing them all together that did it. Anyway. I don't object on principle, it just seemed weird in practice. Not sure what the answer is there.

- The siddur having like, ten million eclectic and obscure Yiddish & Hebrew songs is somewhat undercut when the cantor picks one and then has to stop halfway through because she doesn't know the tune.

- This is the second drash in a Reform temple I've visited that's incorporated a popular movie. I know Sicko is in theaters, but that's not why I come to shul. I also, incidentally, didn't come so you could tell us about all the great work you guys do and how I need to come to your town hall meeting. This is a drash, not an announcements section of your newsletter. Less plugging, more Torah. Come on, guys, it's not like Jews don't have anything in the tradition about healing the sick.

To conclude, nice bunch of guys, I'd definitely check it out again, and I'm glad to see there are Reform shuls that aren't quite as "off" as Touched by God. But I don't think I'd make it my regular stomping-ground.

Next!