Rosh Hashanah

A High Holiday Walk
Down Memory Lane

I

A hard to believe the High
Holidays are nearly upon
us. By that, I mean Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Now
why on Earth did I need to clarify
that? Well, that's because we now
live in an age where "High
Holidays" might be misconstrued
to be an advertising campaign
for a newly opened marijuana
dispensary. To borrow a song title
from that nice Jewish boy Robert
Allen Zimmerman (Bob Dylan):

with juice-flavored liquid. Mmm,
mmm good.
With getting written into the
Book of Life on the line, admit-
ting to sneaking out of services
on Rosh Hashanah may not be
the perfect subject to write about
as the Days of Awe fast approach.
But I challenge anyone of my gen-
eration not to admit that they can
recall
having some angst being
Alan
dropped
off at those children's
Muskovitz
services
in that era.
Jewish News
"The Times They Are A-Changin'."
Back
then
those "services"
Columnist
Times have certainly changed
were more or less a holding cell
in the way I used to experience
for kids until they were allowed
our holiest of Jewish holidays. How so? Well,
into the main sanctuary. The poor souls who
walk with me down Memory Lane; or even
had to contain us had to feel like he or she
better, down Curtis Avenue in Detroit where
were herding cats; they looked like 100-year-
my first memories of attending services were old baby sitters who were probably all of 25
formed in the late 1950s/early '60s at Adas
years old. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't mean-
Shalom Synagogue, as today's Adat Shalom
ingful. That has changed.
was then known.
Ah, those were the best of times — espe-
Today's Rabbis
cially when I snuck out of the children's
Are Less Scary
services to go to Kay's Market on Livernois.
Today, no matter what shul you attend,
Kay's, where I was first introduced to those
the programming has progressed tremen-
amazing miniature wax Coke bottles filled
dously and the kids are better off for it;

and that's without factoring in the effect
of today's ADD medications. And, today,
our kids don't live in fear of their rabbis.
Please, no disrespect intended, but when
the rabbi came to visit the children ser-
vices back in the day, an uneasiness filled
the room. We were shaking in our talits.
You might say a dose of that "fear" might
have its place; let's call it respect.
But come on, you have to admit that
today's rabbis are more approachable and
relatable. It's not a revolution but an evo-
lution. That being said, though, I wouldn't
trades those days on Curtis Avenue for
anything. Well, maybe one incident.
It was the High Holidays in the early
'60s. Before being escorted to join our
parents and grandparents in the main
sanctuary at Adas Shalom, I decided to
slip away to surprise my family by walk-
ing by myself to Grandma Helen's and
Grandpa Sam's house on Sheffield, near
Eight Mile, before they got home for the
long anticipated post-service lunch. The
only problem was, the meal was being
served at Grandma Mollie's and Grandpa
Isadore's home on Monica, near Outer
Drive.

I waited on that wrong front porch, in
that prehistoric pre-cell phone era, for
what seemed like an eternity until some-
how my parents ventured a good guess
and came to pick me up. I don't remember
what the consequences were, but it does
give me something new to talk about with
my therapist.
Perhaps it would be best to end on a
slightly less irreverent note. (Or, if you
will, an attempt at a "do over" to get
myself back into the Book of Life.) I'd like
to give a shout out about an incredibly
moving and inspiring afternoon prayer
service at Temple Israel on Yom Kippur
at 3:30 p.m. It's Mincha Moments, the
brainchild of Rabbi Paul Yedwab. I had
the privilege of being selected as one of

Reinventing Prayer

Conservative movement to open incubator
to experiment with approaches to prayer.

Hannah Dreyfus

New York Jewish Week

T

he childish notion of soliciting a
white-bearded man in the sky is no
way to pray like an adult, according
to Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, director of liturgical
arts at Jewish Theological Seminary.
"Many people today find prayer inac-
cessible:' said Uhrbach, also the spiritual
leader of the Conservative Synagogue in the
Hamptons. "Squaring
the desire to pray with
what one does or does
not believe about God is
becoming an increasingly
difficult task"
The JTS Block/Kolker
Center for Spiritual Arts,
an incubator for inventive
Rabbi Uhrbach
forms of prayer and lit-
urgy, aims to address the
issue. Set to open this month, the center will
provide classes and interactive workshops for

68

September 10 • 2015

cantors, rabbis, community leaders and JTS
students.
Uhrbach, who will direct the new cen-
ter on JTS' Morningside Heights campus,
described the project as a "laboratory space
for experimenting with approaches to
prayer:' Led by local experts in the field of
inventive prayer, different methods, includ-
ing poetry, responsive chanting, instrumen-
tal music, silent meditation and layering
English and Hebrew within the liturgy, will
be explored.
According to Uhrbach, the new center
is intended to combat a "crisis of prayer," a
term coined by the late Abraham J. Heschel
in his 1984 essay "Quest for God:' The crisis
is a growing disinterest in traditional liturgy
and synagogue services, Uhrbach said.
"Adults haven't been offered models of
prayer that reconcile contemporary under-
standings of God, or at least help people live
with the paradoxical tension:' she said.
The "crisis" is reflected in the numbers.
A March 2014 Pew Research Center study

A tashlich service at the Mediterranean Sea in Ashdod, Israel

found that millennials are increasingly
unmoored from institutions. Three in 10
young adults between 18 and 33 say they
are not affiliated with any religion; the study
found that millennials have the highest level
of religious and political disaffiliation record-
ed, in comparison to the post-World War II,
baby boomer and Gen-X generations.
A recent study by UJA-Federation of New
York on voluntary dues in synagogues cor-
roborated the Pew study's findings, indicat-
ing that Jewish young adults are far less
interested in affiliating with Jewish institu-
tions than their older cohorts.
To be sure, efforts to counter growing

disengagement with alternative prayer ser-
vices have been gaining traction. Romemu, a
Renewal-inspired congregation on the New
York's Upper West Side led by Rabbi David
Ingber, often replaces conventional Shabbat
services with yoga, ecstatic chanting and
meditation. Locally, Adat Shalom Synagogue
in Farmington Hills offers a yoga Shabbat
program.
The Block/Kolker center adds to this
growing movement to revitalize prayer, using
a range of creative and untraditional means.
This past Purim, Uhrbach led a creative
reading of the Megillah, setting each scene to
different Broadway show tunes. In the back-

