Holding It Together

Rosh Hashanah 5779 / 11 September 2018

[Sing Aly Halpert’s “Loosen” (A part) as a niggun]

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Hineni, prayer. It’s the opening personal prayer of the Shaliach Tzibbur- the community’s agent in prayer- that offers a glimpse into her motivation and desires to be an effective representative of the assembled worshippers. It says that, despite my own flaws, my shortcomings and distractions, my outright sins, I pray that I be allowed to pray. It’s meant to remind me of the stakes at hand, and how dearly I want to serve God and this Godly community effectively.

As is our custom, I will recite this prayer walking from the back of the room to my station at the front, as if gleaning the prayers from you, my fellow davveners as I pass through.

This year, I am more aware than ever that my strength to lead and to pray comes from a power beyond myself, a power that I find through you–  through the presence of God that I feel when we gather each of us together in sacred community.

I have been intentionally working this year to elicit more singing from you during services, bouncing around more, gesticulating with my hands. Looking out more at the faces in the sanctuary in the hopes of finding moments of connection. You have have experienced it this past year during our immersive Shabbat-long workshop on Building a Singing Community with Joey Weisenberg of Hadar’s Rising Song Institute. And you may have noticed me doing so yesterday during services.

Whether I am leading from the front of the room, as I am today, or from the middle, as I have been on Shabbatot this year, every bit of our participation in the group prayer experience- your open heartedness; the hopes, frustrations and yearnings, anger, heartache, joy- that you add to the harmonious mix of our group offering can be felt in this room. It fuels my prayer leadership. And I hope that that connection is felt by you as well.

We’re told that tefilah prayer – is one of the ways we can alter the course of our lives. Along with teshuvah– returning to our truest selves, and tzedakah– pursuing justice, prayer has the power to revise the chapter being written for us in the Book of Life. And so we utter words upon words, we flip through the pages of our hefty machzor, hear and sing our liturgy, songs old and new, wordy and wordless. We find space for the stirrings of our souls, for our inner-most desires, and we settle into the silences- The silence of rest, of opening to healing and renewal; the silence for when we don’t have language to adequately express our wonder, our awe; the silence of pain and discomfort; the silence where we are left wordless by the circumstances of this moment in which we’ve found ourselves.

You may notice that several of the prayers that I’ll recite as shaliach tzibbur during the repetition of Mussaf shift from the focus on the fate of our people, of humanity and the world as a whole and our dear planet to particular, personal prayers in which I ask for my ability to pray.

This year I am praying with everything I have for the ability to pray. I have been tending to symptoms of chronic illness- Crohn’s Disease- throughout this season, as I have for most of the past year. As I spend the past season preparing spiritually and logistically to lead this congregation in prayer for the holidays—-along with Rabbi Friedman, our choir, and our prayer leaders in the Kahaner services– my experience with the vulnerability and limitations of my condition have required me to profoundly rethink how I conceive of my role as leader, particularly as a prayer leader. As I have dealt with my own health issues and as our family has celebrated the birth of our son, Shir Emet, in July,  I have been moved by the acts of kindness, care, concern and generosity among our community members.

This year, I am overflowing with gratitude. I am saying “thank you, thank you, thank you.” And I am saying “please, please, please,” as I am yearning for healing for myself and all of us in need of healing. As I am feeling the weight of the world in my body and soul.

My strength to lead in prayer comes from a Divine life force that I find through you. We gather on our Shabbatot and holidays and pray together, because often we cannot do it alone. Many of us have our own personal spiritual practices, and some include formal prayer. Even for those of us with personal prayer practices, something unique happens when we come together in prayer and song. Our collective prayer holds a power we cannot access when we’re apart.

(Sing Loosen with words:)

I’d like to teach you a song now…

Loosen, loosen baby.
You don’t have to carry
The weight of the world in your
Muscles and bones
Let go, let go, let
Go.

Holy Breath and Holy Name
Will you ease, will you
Ease this pain?

[Hold the silence afterward]

Music is medicine. I’m looking around the room and seeing lots of doctors. And I’m just going to tell you this the established fact: music is medicine. I know that to be truth. I belong to a fellowship of Jewish prayer leaders, composers and musicians called the Rising Song Fellowship. My cohort has been meeting in retreats and sharing our work, our skills and our inspirations. One gift I have take from our last retreat is the song I just sang, written by my friend the beautiful songwriter Aly Halpert, that has been coming to me, running through my mind and heart, and on my lips this month as I have been preparing for the High Holidays, urging me on as I have been leading the davening. Aly wrote this song in memory of her beloved brother who died suddenly a year ago this week.

[Recite]:

Loosen, loosen baby.
You don’t have to carry
The weight of the world in your
Muscles and bones
Let go, let go, let
Go.

We find ourselves in a time in which so many of us are feeling overburdened by that which we carry. The pressures, the pains and ills, heartaches and vulnerabilities. While we carry our own personal burdens, it feels as if the weight of the world is growing heavier by the day. 

Oppressed and displaced people are crying out, the earth herself is crying out. It seems as if crisis after crisis is pulling for our attention, exacerbated by media coverage that leaves us fatigued and overwhelmed. The natural response is to protect ourselves [hold your chest and belly, where you protect yourself], to pull back, to shut down. But there is another way. As we do our best to hold it together we can hold it, together.

When things feel too big to bear; when it feels like they are falling apart, prayer and singing in community is a way we can hold it, together. Communal singing has the power to transform us–to bring us back to the breath, the exhalation and inspiration upon which our spirit rides–to connect us with each other and with a force beyond us.

This season, my intention as your prayer representative is to bring us together as the Rosh HaShanah liturgy says k’agudah achat– as one unified whole, made up of many distinct stories. Each of us here comes today with our unique souls and bodies–our own journeys, struggles, fears, blessings and hopes. My goal is to encourage each of us to raise our own distinct voices and to hold each others’ prayers and aspirations together in one powerful harmonious prayer.

Whatever you understand prayer to be, or to do, I know prayer is not simple, it’s not easy to open up and get into the spirit of it. Especially on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. So, I’d like to lead us in an exercise to warm us up for Mussaf that will open us up and get us resonating with each other.

As you’re interested and able- I invite you to stretch your bodies. You might prefer to do so seated or standing. Wiggle fingers, toes, do some neck rolls or eye roles. Any movement that comes to you is good. And feel free to keep moving and stretching as you are moved.

I’d like to take with you a bit about resonance. Who here has ever played a musical instrument? What happened if you strum the strings of a guitar? Yes, it rings, the tones ring. How about when you hit a drum head. Right is vibrates and rings. Of course, you can produce some great sounds that aren’t mean to ring, Like a slap, which can be used to great effect, but it doesn’t vibrate and with sustain resonance like a tone.

The same is true of our voices. When we hold tension in our body, our voices resonate less. Especially when we hold it in our throat and chests and bellies.

I’d like us to engage in a short exercise together to help us soften our bodies some to bring more resonance to our singing. Not because I want us to sound better when we sing together as a congregation, I think we already sound beautiful when we raise our voices together.

Let’s start with a krechtz, a voice sigh. Let’s breathe in together and let just let out a big krechtz together.

Beautiful! That’s prayer. That sounds that we just produced together was a group prayer. In a sense, the full variety of sounds that that we produce in prayer- our prayer noises– are the essence of the prayer. When we can let the sounds resonate and give voice to what’s inside of us- it doesn’t matter if it’s a krechtz or a song- that resonant sound that emerges- that itself is the prayer.

Let’s take one more krechtz together, this time putting you hand on your chest, if you are comfortable.

• Feel what it’s like to let the sound come out.
• Where do you feel that in your body?
• Inhale. Exhale.
• Notice if you feel any tension in our chest. Or elsewhere in our body. Are there places where we are holding tension that is getting in the way of letting sound resonate in our bodies?
• Can we bring some gentle awareness to those parts of our our body and invite some softening and release? Some receptivity?

When we are grasping and holding on to tension in our bodies, when we are holding on to old hurts and habits and fears that live in our bodies, it makes it hard to be open to change. Sound and song- all that prayer noise- can be a powerful tool for opening ourselves to the possibility of change.

At the start of the morning service we chanted “Baruch she’amar ve-hayah ha-olam.” We honored the One who brought the world into being with an utterance, acknowledging that for us too, opening our mouths and lifting our voices is an act of prayerful creation.

When we sing, if we can just get out of our own way and let the prayer come through us—-regardless of how we think we sound—-we allow the song to be our prayer. Singing can be a great practice of surrender. When we allow the song to come through us—-however we are in this moment, however our voices sound today—-the prayer that emerges is a fuller expression of our inner selves.

Personally, it has been difficult for me recently to relax my belly and diaphragm enough to get the breathe support I have needed to sing this Rosh Hashanah. The rituals of vocal exercises, breathing exercises, and stretching have been daily invitations for me to loosen and soften my body to allow my body to support my breath and voice so that I may lead the services in song. And it has been an embodied reminder that the prayer carried in my breath and voice is so much more than the quality of the tone that I produce.

[SING AGAIN]

Loosen, loosen baby.
You don’t have to carry
The weight of the world in your
Muscles and bones
Let go, let go, let
Go.

Holy Breath and Holy Name
Will you ease, will you
Ease this pain?

[INVITE THE CONGREGATION TO JOIN]

When we sing in a group and can listen and modulate our voice to really hear the other voices around us singing along with us, the sound we create can come together to become something profoundly greater the sum of our individual voices, like the strings of a guitar resonating together.

When we lift our voices together as a community, the distinct sounds of our voices join together as one harmonious prayer. The yearnings and joys and heartaches join as one harmonious prayer before the Creator.

As we sing the song again, let’s listen more to each other. Let the prayer sounds of the others in the room join together with yours.

[SING AGAIN AS A ROUND}

Music is medicine. Opening our mouths and letting the sound voice resonate is a powerful tool to invite our bodies to soften, to let go of our perpetual graspings and tensions, and to make space for something new to emerge. Song in prayer can create the possibility for change.

We when we sing together as a group in prayer, when we carry the melody together it allows us to feel the truth that we we need not carry our burdens alone, that we can hold the weight in this room together. That we can hold the weight of the world together.

Hayom Harat Olam. We’ll sing this phrase three times during Mussaf, after shofar blasts. Usually translated as “Today is the birthday of the world.” It can also be translated as “the world is being birthed anew each day.” “Hayom.” Today, and today, and today. This day, as we celebrate the original birthday of the world, reminds us of the the infinite possibility of renewal and change inherent in creation every day.

I invite you to find that awareness through our sung prayers. I invite you to sing out more today, and to listen for the beautiful sound of your voice rising up in our glorious sanctuary together with the voices of those around you

Sing with me. I can’t do it alone. I need your voices. We all need each other. May singing together help us hold what we need to hold and let go where we can let go. May it ease our pain. And let us say Amen.

[Choir back at front, leading LOOSEN very softly as I walk to the back for Hineni]

Loosen, loosen baby.
You don’t have to carry
The weight of the world in your
Muscles and bones
Let go, let go, let
Go.

Holy Breath and Holy Name
Will you ease, will you
Ease this pain?