Saturday, September 24, 2011
Congregation Rodef Sholom will use new creative service for Rosh Hashanah
By LINDA M. LINONIS
youngstown
The ritual committee at Congregation Rodef Sholom is closing a chapter on the “Gates of Repentance” liturgy for Rosh Hashanah that was published in 1978.
The committee has prepared a booklet and compiled a “creative service for the new year” that will be introduced at Rosh Hashanah services next week. The High Holidays begin at sundown Wednesday and culminate at Yom Kippur with the Kol Nidre service at sundown Oct. 7 and services throughout the day Oct. 8.
The service is the result of work by Elliot Legow, chairman of the ritual committee; Sherry Linkon, chairwoman of the subcommittee that compiled the readings and music for the service; Carol Sherman, service designer and editor, who was assisted by Jodi Damioli.
Rabbi Franklin W. Muller credited the committee with a diligent and faith-fortified effort. “This wasn’t rabbi driven, it was executed by the committee,” he said. The rabbi read the service and made some suggestions.
“It is refreshing,” he said of the new liturgy that will be used at the 10 a.m. Thursday service for Rosh Hashanah.
Rabbi Muller said the new service will be a change from the “Gates of Repentance.” He explained that the Central Conference of American Rabbis is planning a High Holidays edition of Mishkan T’fillah, the current prayer book. But, he added, it could be more than five years before it is ready for publication. “So rather than looking upon our creative service as an experiment, consider it a glimpse into the future of American Reform Judaism,” the rabbi wrote in the synagogue’s September newsletter.
Rabbi Muller noted that the “creative service” will make history at the synagogue because it is a “first-time, never done before.”
“Using the same prayer book becomes too familiar ... it becomes rote,” Linkon said. “In a way, that’s not useful. We wanted to compile a service that had more meaning ... and would speak to us.”
She said that the creative service is “more gender neutral than the traditional prayer book.”
Legow said Rabbi Muller provided resource material for the committee. Sherman added committee members divied up the books and studied the sections on services. “We really took the best ideas that met the mark.”
Synagogue members will find familiar elements in the Rosh Hashanah service. “We focused on balance ... but wanted something more expressive, thought provoking and meaningful,” Linkon said.
The service underscores Rosh Hashanah as the time to reflect on the year past and make the new year better with “worthwhile accomplishments.” It includes Torah readings, the blowing of the shofar (ram’s horn) along with new readings, prayers and music. Through the new liturgy, service participants will proclaim the oneness of God in the Shema prayer, while other passages focus on God’s power, the holiness of the day, healing and responsibility for the quality of one’s life. There also are prayers to remember the deceased and ask for blessings for the community, country and Israel.
Sherman said she used a Davka word processing program for Hebrew. The transliteration is “writing Hebrew words as they would sound with English letters,” she said. Participants don’t have to speak Hebrew to easily follow along, she added.
The Unetaneh Tokef prayer is key to the service. The idea that “repentance, prayer and charity temper judgment’s severe decree” is emphasized by a graphic featuring that phrase. “These three things offer the means for us to do better in our lives,” Legow said. The prayer is often referred as “Who Shall Live, Who Shall Die” because it addresses what may come in the new year, for example, prosperity or not.
Committee members said they are looking forward to the response of the congregation. “I hope they find it meaningful and relevent to their lives ... something they can relate to,” Sherman said. “I hope it makes their lives more spiritual.”
“I hope the congregation takes time to think ... what the service is all about,” Legow said.
Linkon added, “It’s meant to help people think about God and their relationship with God.”