Yesterday, a friend took me to Shabbat services at a Reform
temple. It was my first time. I realize this is long, long overdue: I’ve spent time
overseas visiting a wide range of religious sites, but I have never set foot in
the houses of worship of my own Jewish neighbors here at home save for a
handful of concerts and lunches.
The Reform Jewish congregation I visited yesterday used a recently
published prayer book called Mishkan T’filah. Prayers are printed in Hebrew,
transliteration, and English translation; additional poems and prayers supplement
them. Care and attention has been given to naming important biblical women
alongside the customary patriarchs. Images for God range from traditional to inclusive
and even expansive in scope and gender expression. No instructions are printed:
congregations can sit or stand and adapt the liturgy according to their own
evolving customs and needs. I know that it is a challenge to negotiate the
politics of liturgical change in any tradition, but to the uninformed eyes of
this liturgy geek from a Christian tradition, Mishkan T’filah is a beautiful
work of liturgical craftsmanship and artistry.
Two bits of poetry and prayer took my breath away. I’ve
recovered them by searching for key phrases, but I cannot attribute them to individual
writers or thinkers with any certainty, for which I apologize here.
The first is an exhortation for peace:
Don’t stop after
beating the swords
into ploughshares, don’t stop! Go on beating
and make musical instruments out of them.
Whoever wants to make war again
will have to turn them into ploughshares first.
into ploughshares, don’t stop! Go on beating
and make musical instruments out of them.
Whoever wants to make war again
will have to turn them into ploughshares first.
The second was printed near the Aleinu and Mourners’ Kaddish:
It is a fearful thing
to love
what death can touch.
A fearful thing to love,
hope, dream: to be --
to be, and oh! to lose.
A thing for fools, this, and
a holy thing,
a holy thing to love.
For
your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings a painful joy.
'Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing,
to love
what death has touched.
what death can touch.
A fearful thing to love,
hope, dream: to be --
to be, and oh! to lose.
A thing for fools, this, and
a holy thing,
a holy thing to love.
For
your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings a painful joy.
'Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing,
to love
what death has touched.
