Ask The Rabbi: Mattot 5779

Since my interviews last year, I have consistently maintained that if there is something odd or confusing encountered in any of the changes to our services that have come up while I have led services, that I would much prefer that the questions be asked directly to me than spoken about in frustration where I an unable to aid in the dialogue. If something comes up, I encourage you to email me at: rabbi@sinaileeds.uk with the heading “Ask the Rabbi” and I will happily answer them in order in this space. This week, the question was “why do you have a silent Amidah on Friday evening (Erev Shabbat) and an out-loud Amidah for Saturday morning (Shacharit Shabbat)?

First of all, we have to ask what the Amidah is.

Although the Talmud does give us multiple answers in chapters 4 and 5 of Tractate Berakhot (Blessings) the primary answer is that it is an ersatz or a stand-in for temple sacrifice. When the second temple was destroyed by the Romans 70 ce, the sages had the centuries-long task of convincing Jews that Judaism could continue to exist without a temple. One of the cases made quoted various prophets such as Isaiah who commented that the Eternal was not interested in Temple service, but rather what is described in Tractate Taanit (2a) as service of the heart (avodah shebalev.) The case was made that not only was prayer an appropriate replacement for sacrifice, Rabbi Eleazar had the chutzpah to make the case that it was superior!

Thus, every time a sacrifice was made in the temple, we have a service with an Amidah. On weekdays, sacrifices were made in the morning (Korban HaShachar), the afternoon (Korban HaMinchah) and then a quasi-sacrifice in the evening (Korban HaArvit). On Shabbat, biblically mandated holidays, and Rosh Chodesh (the new moon or first of the month) an addition sacrifice was made, the Musaf. This means that Jewish liturgy is mostly built around these prayers (Shema and Torah readings are the other building blocks and will be discussed later) and means that the essential form of Jewish prayer is that if there was a sacrifice in the temple, we have an ersatz prayer service at that time with an Amidah recited. For a variety of reasons, this mostly meant that all would fulfil their personal obligation of prayer/sacrifice by reciting the Amidah silently themselves, followed by a prayer leader (Shliach Tzibur or Sha”tz for short) reciting the Amidah out loud to make sure that anyone without either a prayer book or knowledge of how to say the Amidah would still be able to fulfil their obligation by answering “amen” to each blessing.

The problem lies with the evening sacrifice/service. Instead of having a traditional offering of animal sacrifice, grain or wine, all the remains from the previous offerings were gathered together on the altar and burned to ash over the course of the entire evening and night and then cleaned away in the morning by the Levites in preparation for the upcoming morning sacrifice—Shacharit. Since this wasn’t as specific of a sacrifice as the others, the sages were unsure whether to call the recitation of an evening (Erev or Arvit) Amidah compulsory. In short, Jewish Law reconciled this by stating that if we are present when an evening Amidah begins, we are to pray the Amidah to completion, but there was not an out-loud repetition by the prayer leader (a chazarat haSha”tz). This creates the major implication that there was never a musical rite that was composed over time for the evening Amidah, and in communities where an out loud Amidah is recited on Friday evening, the Shabbat morning melody is used.

So, what’s the big deal?

In many ways there isn’t one. In many congregations around the world, especially Reform, the Friday evening service has been the largest and most well-attended service of the week. A genuine and respectful tradition developed to recite the evening Amidah out loud with the Shabbat morning melody in order to ensure that the majority of members that attended services would be able to hear and learn these prayers. This is positive, laudable, and certainly the norm in the vast majority of Reform synagogues worldwide.

 As a musician, however, I have developed a slightly different interpretation of that over time. I have come to believe that one of the things that help most to evoke the awe and majesty of our tradition is by evoking specific melodies at specific times. For a very blunt example, most would feel very uncomfortable if I chose to use the melody for Kol Nidre or Avinu Malkeinu for Lecha Dodi. It would just feel wrong. In both Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions, the underlying modes that build these melodies have developed over hundreds of years, sometimes many hundreds of years. There are of course many variations, but music works on us at both conscious and unconscious levels.

 It is my profound belief that associating different services with these underlying and differing modes and melodies draw us deeper into our tradition. If we only sing Shabbat melodies on Yom Kippur, for example, then what is to differentiate this day from our weekly Shabbat celebrations? To me, a silent Amidah on evening services—all evening services including the Pilgrimage Festivals and the High Holy Days— ties us back to centuries of dialogue and invokes deep, forgotten parts of our collective consciousness. Friday evening is different than Saturday morning and we should embrace the differences including differing melodies. The fading light of the day and silent meditation of the past week dance with each other in the changing colours of sunset while the joyous major modes of Shabbat morning echo the bright sun rising and the hours we have already spent celebrating our sacred space in time.

One of my orchestra directors at the University of Montana, Dr. Joseph Henry z”l, used to say that there is no such thing as a “rest” in music. The silent measure or two or even a hundred have to be “played” as sincerely as the most technical passage.

The silence of the evening Amidah is not an absence of prayer, it is a call to “play” the silence—to offer service of our hearts as we honour the difference between evening and morning, elevate ourselves and each other through our liturgy, and draw nearer to the Eternal Source.