[HANASHIR:1464] Re: Adrian's query on 'liberal chassids'

[Rachel Gurevitz <rgurevit...>]

Dear Adrian,

Quite ok for you to rant - especially when I agree with your rantings :-)

I feel that I have 'found' the chassid liberals - they're in Jewish
Renewal.  I guess you all in the US have a wider range of experience of
Jewish Renewal so you may have mixed opinions.  However, I'm a member of
the only renewal chavurah in the UK and often take responsibility for
creating and leading our services and festival celebrations.  Now, actually
Jewish Renewal crosses the whole religious spectrum - there are many
'Orthodox' renewal leaders, but the divisions become increasingly
unimportant in the central ideas.

With regard to the liturgy and the music, I have found Renewal approaches
have helped do several things for me:
1) The joy and ruach of a chassid-style approach to prayer is central.
2) The basic structure of a creative service and many of the techniques
used in services help congregants to understand the structure of a service
- ie. the list of psalms, Barechu, Shema, Amidah, etc. and everything
inbetween suddenly becomes transformed into an amazing journey, not just
'we've finished song a)/reading passage a) and now we are onto b).'
3) Musically, I've been able to completely mix styles and draw from the
deep well of different musical traditions, especially including chassidic
melodies and niggunim, and chanting styles that some of us might associate
more closely with Sufi tradition (but which are part of Jewish tradition
too), which are entirely missing from most Reform communities.

Last Hava Nashira, Debbie F ran a workshop about services, and a question
was asked about what is actually/needs to be 'in' a service - this took up
a large chunk of the session, and many songleaders, who do great
songleading work, didn't really seem to understand the religious/spiritual
(I'm not sure what words to use here) sequence of a service.  

I'd like to suggest that a Renewal-style service or workshop-service at
Hava Nashira would be a great way to teach about service structure, and
simultaneously introduce some new music at HN too. - If Jeff Klepper is
reading, I'd heard that you had some involvement with our Ruach chavurah
lot (Jenny Goodman, Stewart Linke, etc.) when you were in the UK?  How
about it at the next HN?  (And I'd be very excited at the possibility of
helping to make it happen - I'll also be on a Spiritual leadership program
at Elat Chayyim, the renewal center in NY for 9 months from the end of
January, and would love to bring some of the work I'll be doing there over
to HN).

Regards,
Rachel
____________________________

Rachel Gurevitz
Department of Geography
University College London
26 Bedford Way, London
W1CH 0AP.  UK
Tel: 0171 387 7050 x5526