Rabbis' Voice Articles

Trying Something New at Shul

My first year at Kol Rinah, Rabbi Brad Artson came as a scholar-in-residence, and I remember so clearly something he said. He asked, "Are you willing to make shul for the people who are not yet there?" What he meant by this was, "when we think about the way we construct the prayer experiences we offer, to what extent do we try to meet the needs of and engage people who are not currently being engaged by what we do?"

Some people reading this article might feel like Kol Rinah's current prayer services meet their spiritual needs just right. But I know that there are many members of our congregation whose spiritual needs are not being met by our prayer services. Maybe you are one of them.

It's hard, though, to try to change things without models for how they could be. And that's why I'm so excited Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann will be coming to Kol Rinah as our Scholar-in-Residence for the Shabbat of Presidents' Weekend, Friday-Saturday, February 14-15.

Rabbi Lizzi is the founder of Mishkan Chicago, an emergent Jewish community in Chicago. A Conservative rabbi, musician, and visionary (and friend of Rabbi Shafrin and me), Rabbi Lizzi had an idea of a different kind of community, and a different mode of prayer than existed in Chicago. So she started something new that is deeply rooted in traditional liturgy, yet not bound by it, that uses music and Torah and community to create something new.

At Kol Rinah in February, Rabbi Lizzi will give us a taste of what Mishkan is like, with a whole set of ideas of what a different model of prayer could look like at Kol Rinah. Friday night, she'll lead services in the style of Friday nights at Mishkan. And it may not be so different from what we already do on Friday nights! We'll also have dinner, and then study together with Rabbi Lizzi.

Saturday morning will be pretty different from our regular Shabbat morning services. She'll lead services with a guitar; we will not do the full liturgy; we will not read the entire Torah portion (but we will read the Ten Commandments, which is part of that week's reading!), we will not read the Haftarah, and we may not even get to Musaf. But we'll think, and listen, and sing, and pray, and learn, and breathe into a different way of being together on a Saturday morning. Following Kiddush, Rabbi Lizzi will lead us in a conversation processing our experiences of the Shabbat morning service.

I know that this will not feel familiar to many of us, and that's why we'll also have a quick but complete service in the chapel starting at around 7:45am, for anyone who wants to be at a traditional service, whether before or instead of this experimental Shabbat experience.

Please come join us for this special Shabbat, whether you like things the way the are, so you can give us feedback on how something different feels, or whether you're not someone who comes to services much, so that we can see if something different would speak to you more.

Change is hard, but as Psalm 96 reminds us, "Sing to God a new song!"

Rabbi Noah Arnow