[HANASHIR:10659] Re: Looking for Guidance...

[David & Susan Esterman <estermans...>]

Just back from holiday, and missed the start of this thread. However we have
for the last 15 or so years encouraged our young people to participate in
and lead services and ANYTHING to keep them involved and interested.
This year I am hoping to have a 15 year old girl lead the communal seder
singing. She's more than competent to do so. We have numbers of young people
who can and do lead services including reading Torah and acting as chazzan
(it should be stated that we have no professional staff at the moment, being
between rabbis, and all our music leaders are volunteers, as are all our
workers except for the secretary!!)
One of our board of management is aged 18, holds the fundraising and youth
portfolios and has been a wonderful worker for the shul for 6 years already.
And no, she's not the only one, but she is exceptional.

Just the NZ perspective for y'all up there .
Our Beit Midrash kids also all take part in at least one Shabbat service per
year.

Sue (in summer though you'd never guess it!) Esterman

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org [mailto:owner-hanashir (at) 
shamash(dot)org]On
Behalf Of Ethan Leigh Bueno de Mesquita
Sent: Sunday, 13 January 2002 4:28 a.m.
To: Jewish Songleading/Music
Subject: [HANASHIR:10650] Re: Looking for Guidance...

Hi,

I like a lot of what's been said already. But I just wanted to throw one
more thought out there. I think some of the negative response to this
person's request has to do with him being a teen and so people not really
believing he is up to the job. If we want our teens to act like members
of our synagogues then they ought to be treated as such. Imagine if a
rabbi had written to this list and said, "a congregant came back from a
year in Israel, where she learned all year and led services frequently at
a shul in her neighborhood. She came back very excited about all this and
wanted to lead services for the congregation every once in a while. But I
feel a synagogue is a community and she has been a way fro a year, does
not serve on the ritual committe, has not been to Torah study, etc. So I
told her that she could only lead a service if she joined the ritual
committee, attended services at the synagogue for 3 months first, etc."
What would we say? I think we would say that any congregant who wants to
lead worship should be encouraged to do so with as few roadblocks as
possible. What is the downside of encouragine a congregant who wants to
lead? Especially a young one.

As music director, I think you have a responsibility to make sure that
your congregant knows the music and understands the minhag hamakom, but as
long as he is copetent and motivated, why not? Maybe junior choir isn't
his thing. And suppose it is ego (which it almost certainly is, in part)?
How many of us can say that we didn't get involved in song leading, at
first, because of ego. I think many many many a camp song leader fell in
love with jewish music and the idea of being the guy/gal with the guitar
at the exact same moment. Over time, and with maturity, the ego thrill of
song leading fades but the connection to Judaism remains. This teenager is
expressing his ego through Jewish leadership. I think he should be
encouraged.

Ethan


*******************************
Ethan Bueno de Mesquita
Ph.D. Candidate

mesquita (at) fas(dot)harvard(dot)edu
www.fas.harvard.edu/~mesquita

Department of Government
Littauer Center, North Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA  02138
(617) 384-7303 (office)

"Can lack of bias ever compensate for absence of insight?"
        -Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel



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