Folk songs and the Shema
blur the religious-secular divide
By Yair Sheleg
Fri., June 9, 2006

Every other Friday, a group of secular men and women gathers at the Alma College in Tel Aviv for Sabbath eve prayers. Two years ago, there were 15; now, there are regularly about 80 worshipers at the "Israeli prayer house," as it is known.

"The basis is the traditional service - Psalms for the Sabbath eve, Lecha Dodi, and the evening prayer that follows," said Rani Yeger, a lecturer in history and Jewish philosophy at Alma College and among the founders of the congregation. "But we have inserted additional elements that speak to people's hearts. Our main addition involves the connection between the Psalms and our private reality. Because traditionally, each of the six Psalms corresponds to one of the weekdays, we stop after every page and ask people to tell about significant events that happened to them on that day. When we started, it was hard to get people to respond. Today, they say they wait all week to share things that happened to them during the week."

A similar congregation has been active for five years at Moshav Nahalal in the Jezreel Valley, . Shai Zarchi of Kibbutz Ginegar, one of its leaders, also says the basis is the traditional service, "because we wanted to connect to the essence of the generations - to grandfather and grandmother."

Additions here include a prayer written by the members of the community for the well-being of soldiers, or prayers for the recovery of a loved one, but not in the format of a request for healing from God. And of course, in veteran Nahalal, folk songs about the Jezreel Valley occupy a respectable place, such as "Sabbath Descends on the Ginnosar Valley," sung after moments of silence as a kind of preparation for a sacred moment.

The Nahalal congregation is the most veteran of the secular congregations (not to be confused with Reform congregations or Sabbath eve services at kibbutzim, which have existed for years). It is no coincidence that the founders are members of secular batei midrash, study houses, which started in 1989 at the kibbutz movement's Oranim teacher training college.

"We wanted to stop talking about the Sabbath, and start experiencing it," says Hen Tzfoni, one of the prayer leaders.

A visit to the Conservative congregation Bnei Yeshurun in New York, where Sabbath prayers include singing and dancing, settled things once and for all. "We suddenly saw people like us, defined as secular, for whom prayer is a natural and authentic part of life," Tzfoni says. Oranim's director, Dr. Moti Zeira, a member of the Nahalal congregation, says there are a few larger congregations and some 15-20 others that conduct some form of Sabbath eve prayer.

All the congregations, especially the larger ones, were founded by people who had been involved some way in Jewish study. For them, the establishment of a congregation was one more step into their Jewish world.

Still, many of those who attend services are not steeped in Jewish learning, but come directly for prayer. For example, the congregation in Tel Aviv only began holding regular study over the past few months.

"If we ever thought study was the only way for the secular to approach Judaism," Yeger says, "we realize that there are young people today who do not feel the need for study, and are sometimes not interested in it at all."

"Many young people are on a spiritual search," Zeira says. "They come back from India with this yearning , and naturally they seek a 'Jewish parallel.' On another level, there is a need to band together. The past decade has seen a weakening of the kibbutz movement in particular, and of social solidarity in general. Congregational prayer partly fills this need."

"Secular prayer" is somewhat of a contradiction. Does prayer to God not clash with one's secular identification? Can a secular individual recite the words "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one?"

Tzfoni says her congregation's original solution was to recite the Shema silently, so everyone could choose whether to participate or not. Now those who choose to recite it out loud. With regard to the traditional Eighteen Benedictions, Tzfoni says, "The traditional prayer appears on a page for those who want to recite it," while others sing songs associated with each blessing.

Kaddish was also not part of the original service "until some people's relatives passed away, and especially women, who can't say Kaddish in an Orthodox synagogue, wanted to include it," Tzfoni says.

Yom Kippur, and its Judgment Day aspects, presents another dilemma. But Yeger says that, "People in our congregation were very moved by U'netana Tokef [a traditional spiritual poem emphasizing an individual before divine judgment - Y.S.]. They saw it as a metaphor for facing one's fate."

"I hope the day will come when the distinction between secular and religious will be a thing of the past," Itamar Lapid, the prayer leader of the congregation at the community of Shimsheet in the Lower Galilee, says. "I don't care about definitions, but rather creativity, which, by nature, breaks through boundaries.
 

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