How Do We Use This Machzor?

How Do We Use This Machzor?

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

July, 2012

 

This coming Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur we will be using a new Mahzor entitled "MahzorLev Shalem ," meaning: "A Complete Heart," or "A Whole Heart." It is published by the Rabbinical Assembly, the international organization the Conservative Rabbis. It has been many years in the making.

 

This is a very unique edition: in the first instance it looks and feels different – it exudes richness, luminescence, newness and antiquity all at once.

 

This is a very different edition: it includes things that have hardly or never been in our past mahzor:

            There are clear headings to indicate where we are, what is the piece, its name, its structure.

            There are clear instructions what, when and how to do things. We do have some Beth-El traditions that are at variance which we will observe, but nonetheless, this is very helpful.

            The different Shabbat pieces that are color coded.

            The Hebrew and English fonts are warm and inviting to the eye.

            The bottom of the page indicates the service and the section.

            There are many transliterations enabling everyone's participation in Hebrew chanting that creates a community and creates our Jewish ambience.

 

But even more important:

 

On the far right margin of the two-page layout [English/Hebrew texts that we are accustomed to] there is a running commentary on the liturgy. Explaining either key phrases or extended concepts, this invites the worshiper inside the liturgy. This is an intricately woven text, created over time. It hypertexts [we knew this concept long before the current craze] between prayers, the Bible and Rabbinical texts. The commentary is the key to the gateway into our religious treasure house.

 

On the far left margin of the two-page layout are meditative texts: some are ancient, some are newly created. There is an interplay between the text in the middle of the page layout, the commentary on the right, and the meditations on the left. Liturgy "is a many splendid" text. The meditations are meant to provoke us, make us think, make us feel, make us question, and make us affirm.

 

Perhaps you will 'get lost' in thought because a meditation caught you off guard and you stop to ponder its meaning, its implication, because it 'grabs you.' Wonderful! Perhaps you will 'turn to yourself' and say 'that's what I was thinking!' or, 'I never though of that.' You might totally disagree. That is good, too.

 

I recommended to the Ritual Committee that we change to our book and so transform our service.  During the services there will be times for people from within the congregation to come to a floor mike and read a piece. There will be times when we will pause and enable people to focus on whatever piece they chose within several pages, what I call "Individual Silent Time."

 

This year Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will be very much the same – same prayers, same order, familiar tunes – and will be very much different, new commentaries, new meditations, new feel in our hands and to our eyes, new translations.

 

Many things happen in the Sanctuary and Social Hall on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. People see each other for the first time in months or a year. We notice who is no longer present and who is here for the first time. We note the heat or coolness. We even see new fashions, the least important part.

 

Most of all through the liturgy, the prayers we come to speak to God, and have God speak to us. In the aura of the magnificent synagogue building, we come to engage in Judaism, to pray, to forgive, to remember, to forget, to ascend in spirit and to grow in soul.

 

Yet a book is just a book, paper, ink and binding.

In a Midrash we read of a Roman Emperor who wanted to know why the food on Saturday tasted different. He learned that there is a special spice called "Shabbat." Similarly, one could ask: "How does this 'book' work differently?" The answer is: there is an extraordinary, the most precious spice of all: you!

 

 

 

 

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Temple Beth-El

3330 Grove Avenue

Richmond, VA 23221

Phone 804-355-3564

Fax 804-257-7152

www.bethelrichmond.org