Education, Mark Twain once quipped, consists mainly in what we have unlearned. For a great many Jews today, shul is a kind of ponderous opera, taking place in a foreign tongue, that they desperately wish to unlearn. Depending on the opera house in question, the always well-dressed patrons sit in stony uncomprehending silence or continuously interrupt the performance with a rowdy mirth that attests to the inconvenience of self-restraint. One who wishes to cling to any remnants of the sacred must, like a well-trained spy, commit to forgetting all he has seen.
But as the American poet Mark Strand elegantly muses, "In a field I am the absence of field. Wherever I am/I am what is missing." In our synagogues we struggle mightily, with words and ceremonious pageantry, to grasp at the absence of God and bring Him into our impoverished souls. Surrounded by our indifference or, worse, our ironic escape from Him in the guise of our attachment, God can be found missing in places to designed to radiate His presence.
We turn prayer into a perilous and often frustrating adventure by allowing a continuous stream of unceasing talk that pervades every corner of the sanctuary. At times the crescendo is so loud as to make one want to scream "Enough. Everyone go home and let us face our Maker alone in shamed silence!"
Our children see through it all and call the bluff on the emptiness of the enterprise. As some of them roam the hallways of our shuls during davening, we profess sadness and disappointment that they are not inside with us. Why would they want to be? Children watch as their parents talk during every facet of the service. They reason correctly that more interesting and expansive conversations could take place outside, a steely logic that shines its light on our eroded sense of mission.
For some, the rabbi's sermon is the theatrical highlight, the soliloquy upon which the morning's utility depends. Looking to be entertained or simply lulled into a feeling of inchoate seriousness by noble sentiments and stylish prose, they see the success of the program as contingent on the well turned phrase and the momentary distraction of wit. It is a commodity to be purchased with the entrance ticket.
As Rosh Hashanah arrives, the innocent onlooker who quests for divinity is paralysed into ruefulness: "Why am I here? How did I arrive in this place? And what is its purpose?" What is there for me as I try to strip away "the rubbish of summers/the black-leaved falls?" One yearns to find a single genuine moment in the presence of God. A moment with no past. No future. No talking. No parade. No ornately crafted words. Nothing on display, nothing bought or sold or negotiated. Silence. Shofar blasts. Silence again as the heart wends its long, long path to emotional truth and spiritual dignity.
Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav once noted that, if I am no better tomorrow than I was today, then of what use is tomorrow? May God bless us that we use our time, which grows shorter with each passing year, very wisely. For who knows when the chance to improve tomorrow will, in the blink of an eye, run out?
Education, Mark Twain once quipped, consists mainly in what we have unlearned. For a great many Jews today, shul is a kind of ponderous opera, taking place in a foreign tongue, that they desperately wish to unlearn. Depending on the opera house in question, the always well-dressed patrons sit in stony uncomprehending silence or continuously interrupt the performance with a rowdy mirth that attests to the inconvenience of self-restraint. One who wishes to cling to any remnants of the sacred must, like a well-trained spy, commit to forgetting all he has seen.
But as the American poet Mark Strand elegantly muses, "In a field I am the absence of field. Wherever I am/I am what is missing." In our synagogues we struggle mightily, with words and ceremonious pageantry, to grasp at the absence of God and bring Him into our impoverished souls. Surrounded by our indifference or, worse, our ironic escape from Him in the guise of our attachment, God can be found missing in places to designed to radiate His presence.
We turn prayer into a perilous and often frustrating adventure by allowing a continuous stream of unceasing talk that pervades every corner of the sanctuary. At times the crescendo is so loud as to make one want to scream "Enough. Everyone go home and let us face our Maker alone in shamed silence!"
Our children see through it all and call the bluff on the emptiness of the enterprise. As some of them roam the hallways of our shuls during davening, we profess sadness and disappointment that they are not inside with us. Why would they want to be? Children watch as their parents talk during every facet of the service. They reason correctly that more interesting and expansive conversations could take place outside, a steely logic that shines its light on our eroded sense of mission.
For some, the rabbi's sermon is the theatrical highlight, the soliloquy upon which the morning's utility depends. Looking to be entertained or simply lulled into a feeling of inchoate seriousness by noble sentiments and stylish prose, they see the success of the program as contingent on the well turned phrase and the momentary distraction of wit. It is a commodity to be purchased with the entrance ticket.
As Rosh Hashanah arrives, the innocent onlooker who quests for divinity is paralysed into ruefulness: "Why am I here? How did I arrive in this place? And what is its purpose?" What is there for me as I try to strip away "the rubbish of summers/the black-leaved falls?" One yearns to find a single genuine moment in the presence of God. A moment with no past. No future. No talking. No parade. No ornately crafted words. Nothing on display, nothing bought or sold or negotiated. Silence. Shofar blasts. Silence again as the heart wends its long, long path to emotional truth and spiritual dignity.
Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav once noted that, if I am no better tomorrow than I was today, then of what use is tomorrow? May God bless us that we use our time, which grows shorter with each passing year, very wisely. For who knows when the chance to improve tomorrow will, in the blink of an eye, run out?
Education, Mark Twain once quipped, consists mainly in what we have unlearned. For a great many Jews today, shul is a kind of ponderous opera, taking place in a foreign tongue, that they desperately wish to unlearn. Depending on the opera house in question, the always well-dressed patrons sit in stony uncomprehending silence or continuously interrupt the performance with a rowdy mirth that attests to the inconvenience of self-restraint. One who wishes to cling to any remnants of the sacred must, like a well-trained spy, commit to forgetting all he has seen.
But as the American poet Mark Strand elegantly muses, "In a field I am the absence of field. Wherever I am/I am what is missing." In our synagogues we struggle mightily, with words and ceremonious pageantry, to grasp at the absence of God and bring Him into our impoverished souls. Surrounded by our indifference or, worse, our ironic escape from Him in the guise of our attachment, God can be found missing in places to designed to radiate His presence.
We turn prayer into a perilous and often frustrating adventure by allowing a continuous stream of unceasing talk that pervades every corner of the sanctuary. At times the crescendo is so loud as to make one want to scream "Enough. Everyone go home and let us face our Maker alone in shamed silence!"
Our children see through it all and call the bluff on the emptiness of the enterprise. As some of them roam the hallways of our shuls during davening, we profess sadness and disappointment that they are not inside with us. Why would they want to be? Children watch as their parents talk during every facet of the service. They reason correctly that more interesting and expansive conversations could take place outside, a steely logic that shines its light on our eroded sense of mission.
For some, the rabbi's sermon is the theatrical highlight, the soliloquy upon which the morning's utility depends. Looking to be entertained or simply lulled into a feeling of inchoate seriousness by noble sentiments and stylish prose, they see the success of the program as contingent on the well turned phrase and the momentary distraction of wit. It is a commodity to be purchased with the entrance ticket.
As Rosh Hashanah arrives, the innocent onlooker who quests for divinity is paralysed into ruefulness: "Why am I here? How did I arrive in this place? And what is its purpose?" What is there for me as I try to strip away "the rubbish of summers/the black-leaved falls?" One yearns to find a single genuine moment in the presence of God. A moment with no past. No future. No talking. No parade. No ornately crafted words. Nothing on display, nothing bought or sold or negotiated. Silence. Shofar blasts. Silence again as the heart wends its long, long path to emotional truth and spiritual dignity.
Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav once noted that, if I am no better tomorrow than I was today, then of what use is tomorrow? May God bless us that we use our time, which grows shorter with each passing year, very wisely. For who knows when the chance to improve tomorrow will, in the blink of an eye, run out?
Education, Mark Twain once quipped, consists mainly in what we have unlearned. For a great many Jews today, shul is a kind of ponderous opera, taking place in a foreign tongue, that they desperately wish to unlearn. Depending on the opera house in question, the always well-dressed patrons sit in stony uncomprehending silence or continuously interrupt the performance with a rowdy mirth that attests to the inconvenience of self-restraint. One who wishes to cling to any remnants of the sacred must, like a well-trained spy, commit to forgetting all he has seen.
But as the American poet Mark Strand elegantly muses, "In a field I am the absence of field. Wherever I am/I am what is missing." In our synagogues we struggle mightily, with words and ceremonious pageantry, to grasp at the absence of God and bring Him into our impoverished souls. Surrounded by our indifference or, worse, our ironic escape from Him in the guise of our attachment, God can be found missing in places to designed to radiate His presence.
We turn prayer into a perilous and often frustrating adventure by allowing a continuous stream of unceasing talk that pervades every corner of the sanctuary. At times the crescendo is so loud as to make one want to scream "Enough. Everyone go home and let us face our Maker alone in shamed silence!"
Our children see through it all and call the bluff on the emptiness of the enterprise. As some of them roam the hallways of our shuls during davening, we profess sadness and disappointment that they are not inside with us. Why would they want to be? Children watch as their parents talk during every facet of the service. They reason correctly that more interesting and expansive conversations could take place outside, a steely logic that shines its light on our eroded sense of mission.
For some, the rabbi's sermon is the theatrical highlight, the soliloquy upon which the morning's utility depends. Looking to be entertained or simply lulled into a feeling of inchoate seriousness by noble sentiments and stylish prose, they see the success of the program as contingent on the well turned phrase and the momentary distraction of wit. It is a commodity to be purchased with the entrance ticket.
As Rosh Hashanah arrives, the innocent onlooker who quests for divinity is paralysed into ruefulness: "Why am I here? How did I arrive in this place? And what is its purpose?" What is there for me as I try to strip away "the rubbish of summers/the black-leaved falls?" One yearns to find a single genuine moment in the presence of God. A moment with no past. No future. No talking. No parade. No ornately crafted words. Nothing on display, nothing bought or sold or negotiated. Silence. Shofar blasts. Silence again as the heart wends its long, long path to emotional truth and spiritual dignity.
Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav once noted that, if I am no better tomorrow than I was today, then of what use is tomorrow? May God bless us that we use our time, which grows shorter with each passing year, very wisely. For who knows when the chance to improve tomorrow will, in the blink of an eye, run out?
