MISHKAN T’FILAH

In January, Rabbi Vogel led a small class in an exploration of what will be the next siddur, the next prayer book of the Reform movement. The current siddur is called "Shaarei T'Filah", the Gates of Prayer.  The new one is called "Mishkan T'Filah". Mishkan is word for tabernacle, the portable home for the ark and the site of worship and sacrifices when we were wandering in the desert. Thus, this prayer book describes itself as a tabernacle of prayer. One midrash that I have heard as an explanation of the name is that the Reform movement has spent the last 30 years at the gates of prayer and is now ready to enter the tabernacle. Rabbi Waldorf took us on a test drive with an early draft of Mishkan T'Filah and Rabbi Vogel will be leading services with that draft later this spring. The final version will become available to us next year.

For the present, I want to tell you a bit about the introduction. It is a piece of the book that most users will never read, a two-page essay in which the lead editors spell out their ideological platform. When we are using a siddur in worship, we do not tend to think of it as an ideological document. We have an ill-formed notion that Moses was probably handed the order of service at Mt. Sinai and that some good Reform rabbis subsequently rephrased various pieces so that they would sit more comfortably in our modern ears. Of course, nothing like that is the case. The siddur evolved and continues to evolve. Any siddur is an amalgamation of specific choices about words ("Lord?", "Creator?", "Adonai?"), who says the words (Rabbi? Congregation? Cantor?), who does what while saying the words (rise? sit? bow?). It is interesting to get a bit of insight into the philosophy that guides those choices.

One recurring theme is summed up in this line from the introduction: "Prayer should not reflect "me"; prayer should reflect our values and ideals." The authors are speaking of public prayer, the prayer embodied in the prayer book. I don't imagine that they have the slightest problem with heartfelt, highly personal prayer offered at a moment of crisis or thanksgiving. It is when we come together in prayer, these editors argue, that we need to move beyond "me" to "us".  "The ethic of inclusivity", they say, "means awareness of and obligation to others, rather than mere self-fulfillment.

This "ethic of inclusivity" is an interesting concept to ponder at Temple Sinai. We pride ourselves on being a diverse community. We are accepting of people at any point in their Jewish journey. We respect a wide range of opinions. We make few, if any, demands about specific practices. This is great. It is central to who we are. That is why we put it near the top of our self-description when we were looking for a new rabbi. That said, when it comes to "diverse community", I think we have done better with the adjective than with the noun. We can lay claim to "diverse" but we are a bit weak on "community", at least in worship.  The authors of the new prayer book are telling us that we have become preoccupied with the effort to meet individual needs rather than communal needs. Current Reform Bar/Bat Mitzvah practice can be seen as an example. The typical Bar or Bat Mitzvah ceremony at Temple Sinai and elsewhere is a family affair. A Bar or Bat Mitzvah should be important and special for the family but an ethic of inclusivity would say that it should be important to the rest of us as well.

The editors of this new prayer book caution against seeking a worship experience in which you hear your voice in every prayer and every tune. They argue that one should not "look to each page to find one's particular voice". Rather "over the course of praying, many voices are heard and ultimately come together as one". That is what a diverse community would do. "While individuals matter deeply, particularly in the sense of our emotional and spiritual needs and in the certainty that we are not invisible, that security should be the stepping stone to the higher value of community".

As we become familiar with the new siddur, it will be interesting to discover if the ideology that shaped this book can work, through our worship, to shape our community.

Jeremy Wolfe