SHABBAT IN SYNAGOGUES:

IT’S CHANGED A LOT!

by RABBI HAYIM HERRING

How much have synagogues’ celebrations of Shabbat changed in a generation? In broad strokes, a trip back to the 1980s offers some clues to the revolutionary evolution we have witnessed.

If you walked into a Conservative congregation on Shabbat morning in the 1980s, you would typically find a mostly Hebrew service led by a rabbi and cantor that lasted for approximately three hours. You would also be able to attend a late Friday evening service, which would attract an older crowd and the Bar or Bat Mitzvah family, if one was being celebrated on Shabbat morning.

In a Reform congregation, the primary community service was held on Friday evening. If you were a member of a Reform congregation, it probably wouldn’t occur to you to attend a Shabbat morning service unless you were invited to a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. Whether on Friday evening or Shabbat morning, the service had much more English than Hebrew.

THE AMOUNT OF CHANGE and innovation in the celebration of Shabbat is quite breathtaking when contrasted with the way Shabbat was observed only a generation ago.

And Orthodoxy? Typically, whether on Shabbat evening or Shabbat morning, you would find a straightforward Hebrew service, with little communal singing. Needless to say, you would not have expected to find women leading any aspects of the service.

Another standard feature of Shabbat in the synagogue was the Dvar Torah. This was a time prior to personal computing, the Internet and social media. Maybe I’m being unduly nostalgic, but it seems like people’s attention spans were longer then. The sermon might therefore have occupied 20 minutes of the service.

In sum, a little over a generation ago, Shabbat celebration was characterized primarily by prayer and the sermon. It was very much pulpit focused — the sage was on the stage, the cantor conducted services and lay people were much more passive, with the exception of Orthodoxy, where the norm remains for lay people to lead services. It was very easy to identify the type of congregation one was in by the amount of Hebrew used, the presence or absence of musical instrumentation and the involvement of women in the service. Moreover, denominations across the country generally maintained commonalities in terms of melodies and minhag (custom).

What’s more, services were centered in synagogue buildings, where vestiges of formality continued to exist (for example, in levels of decorum and child-friendliness). In many places, the expectation for dress was jacket and tie for men and dresses and skirts, or dress pants, for women. Services were thought of as multi-generational experiences and not niche or generation specific, with the exception of “junior congregations” for children. One similarity that spanned denominational boundaries was the standard fare at the Kiddush: some version of tuna salad with too much mayonnaise, nasty-smelling herring and bad coffee.

There wasn’t any singular event that caused the rather dramatic change in communal Shabbat celebration that we now take for granted. But in retrospect, it’s quite incredible how radically different Shabbat is celebrated today. What has changed about the celebration of Shabbat? In sum, it is the sheer variety of experiences that constitute the celebration of Shabbat across America.

When historians and sociologists write the history of synagogues that pioneered new pathways for Shabbat in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries, clearly, B’nai Jeshurun (BJ) and Kehilat Hadar, both in Manhattan, and Temple Sinai and IKAR, both in Los Angeles, will take their rightful places. These four congregations are often cited for their Shabbat experiences because their respective rabbinic leaders have invested and continue to invest significant efforts in creating intentional Shabbat communities characterized by high-quality music, spirited and spiritual davening and attention to choreography. But these are not the only efforts of note.

Within the past couple decades, each of the four major denominations has published a new siddur. With the relatively recent publication of the Koren Sacks Siddur (Koren Publishers, 2012), we’ve seen greater attention to a more eloquent English translation for the Modern Orthodox Jewish community. Conversely, the Reconstructionist and Reform prayer books now incorporate much more Hebrew than previous iterations, and the Reconstructionist siddur incorporates beautiful artwork. Current versions of the Conservative siddur include contemporary translations and readings in English and still adhere primarily to a traditional egalitarian Hebrew liturgy.

Meanwhile, the venues for Shabbat services now transcend the walls of the synagogue building, whether that means they take place at the lake, at the beach, in the park or in a parking lot under the stars. And if you can’t physically get to a Shabbat service, some synagogues will bring the service to you by live streaming.

Instrumentation (outside of the Orthodox community) plays a much larger role on Shabbat than in the past. Not long ago, you’d find musical instrumentation primarily in Reform congregations. However, it is now increasingly common to find some form of musical instrumentation in many non-Orthodox congregations. In addition, liturgy and musical styles are much more original and eclectic. Melodies written by Debbie Friedman in Reconstructionist, Conservative and Reform congregations, and by Shlomo Carlebach in every kind of congregation, are now common. In Modern Orthodoxy, there has been a clear shift away from the melodies of Eastern Europe to a more contemporary style of music from Israel and the United States. The Institute for Jewish Spirituality, the Reconstructionist movement and others have spawned more energetic and more meditative chanting styles, and other congregations continue to innovate in this essential element of Shabbat celebration.

Synagogue 2000 did a significant job at promoting healing services, which are still very popular at many congregations on Shabbat. STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal), the foundation that I led for almost a decade (and which was supported by The Steinhardt Foundation among other philanthropic partners) also had a major impact on the variety of experiences one still finds today in Shabbat services. Some may take for granted that in non-Orthodox congregations, one might typically find multiple experiences in addition to prayer on a given Shabbat. Torah and yoga classes, meditation, drumming circles, discussions of contemporary Jewish issues and a host of other experiences can be found in congregations that were directly or indirectly influenced by Synaplex™, one of STAR’s signature initiatives, which focused on building a Shabbat community.

Because of these demographic-specific experiences, some of which are very casual, the way people dress for Shabbat has changed. I’ve been in synagogues where individuals in dress clothes bump up against those in yoga pants or bicycle clothing. More often than not, in this era of business casual, people tend to dress down for Shabbat anyway.

The amount of change and innovation in the celebration of Shabbat is quite breathtaking when contrasted with the way Shabbat was observed only a generation ago. This innovation, combined with a sensitivity to the traditions and values of Shabbat, is yet another sign of the vitality of the American Jewish community. There is every reason to expect that the American Jewish community, nurtured by some exciting developments in Israel, will continue to be an incubator of innovation in the years ahead. Counting a holographic projection of a person in a minyan, siddurim that you can customize and download, hybrid digital and physical Shabbat services involving congregations in other communities — all of these and more are possible. With any luck, synagogues will find more creative staples at Kiddush lunches than tuna, herring and bland coffee. ■

Rabbi Hayim Herring, Ph.D. is C.E.O. of HayimHerring.com, a consulting firm that “prepares today’s leaders for tomorrow’s organizations”™ by advancing future oriented solutions for nonprofit leaders. He recently authored Tomorrow’s Synagogue Today: Creating Vibrant Centers of Jewish Life (The Alban Institute, 2012).