snarkyman

I joined Beth Shalom in August. I'm still time-sharing Shabbat between there and my minyan, though that's winding down. (Sorry, minyan, I love my friends, but I'm settling into my new religious home.) Beth Shalom's Shabbat services are very comfortable and I'm seeing what I've been missing in the Reform movement. So I looked forward to Rosh Hashana this year.

It was great! Also, uh, long, but still a big win. I noticed that a lot of people drifted in over the course of the morning; there were not many people at the beginning and I could get a good seat, it was filling up by the torah service, and filled up more on the way to the sermon and then Musaf. On Rosh Hashana all the "big action" is in Musaf.

In addition to the Unataneh Tokef prayer, Musaf contains the themes of malchuyot (kingship), zichronot (memory), and shofarot (the shofar's call). For each of these three, the machzor (prayerbook) includes relevant passages from torah and prophets, piyutim (liturgical poems), and the sounding of the shofar. I've presumably heard some of those piyutim before, as I did go to Chabad for Rosh Hashana during the pandemic lockdown, but some of them stood out as if new to me this year. One in particular, Melech Elyon (king on high), stood out with some choreography -- this is sung in front of the open ark, except for one verse that talks, in contrast, about earthly kings, where we close the ark (and then open it again for the next verse). Neat, I thought -- as if to say, we will not trouble the king on high with stuff about mere human kings. And maybe that verse also stood out this year because of what is going on with our would-be earthly king, but I'll have to get a copy of the text before I can say more about that. (I do plan to buy both the siddur and machzor used by my new congregation, but haven't yet.)

The Reform services I have attended do basically none of this. The core part of Unataneh Tokef is sung, some other parts are read in English, and I think some of those biblical passages are included in the machzor. I never knew why they were there, and we usually didn't read them. And of course the shofar was sounded, along with the song after each set of blasts, but again, I didn't really grok the structure. And it wasn't in the Musaf service because Reform doesn't do Musaf; it was spread around in other places. I always thought my lack of connection with Temple Sinai's Rosh Hashana service came from an abundance of fluffy alternative English readings where liturgy should be -- and yes, that too, but not only that, I don't think. This year I felt like there was an integrated whole and that I was coming home to something I hadn't realized I was missing.

I knew that Rosh Hashana morning is the longest service of the year, but was still a little surprised by this one. (I expected four hours; it was more like four and a half.) Nonetheless, I appreciate that when we got to the silent repetition of the Musaf Amidah, they allowed us time to really do it. At other times I can't do the silent Amidah (any of them) in the time they leave for it; I'm just not that fast. But for this, we had space. That made a big difference to me.

During the public repetition (which is what takes up most of the time in Rosh Hashana Musaf), there were places where the congregation sang along, so it wasn't just "stand and listen to the leader". And some of those piyutim had lively, uplifting melodies.

I'm looking forward to Yom Kippur. (And Shabbat before then.)