Cantor's Corner - Thoughts

This summer I spent a week at Elat Chayyim, a Jewish retreat center for renewal and healing, located in the Catskills in New York State. It was a unique experience, one that I'd like to share with you. Elat Chayyim is affiliated with the Aleph movement for Jewish Renewal but it embraces Jews from all the movements. While I was there the community consisted of Orthodox, Hassidic, Reconstructionist, Conservative and Reform Jews from all over the country. The facilities are not luxurious. In fact, they could be considered rundown. But the setting is beautiful, the food is organic and delicious and the energy of the staff and teachers is infectious. The program that brought me to the center, was a Cantorial Institute, in which we studied with Rabbi Waskow (one of the leaders in the Renewal movement), Cantor Ari Previn (from B'nai Jeshurun in NY), Akiva Wharton (Shlomo Carlbach's, drummer, z"l), Rabbi Shefa Gold (the composer of many of the chants we now do in our services) and Julie Kutzen (a dance therapist). We studied text, drumming, feeling prayer in our bodies, sacred chanting and the finer points of leading a congregation through music.

In addition to attending classes, every day there were options for the entire community. In the morning you could do meditation, then either yoga or shaharit (morning services). After classes there was again meditation or yoga followed by minha services. After dinner we had mishpaha groups – randomly assigned groups in which you met with nightly to process your day – and then an evening program and ma'ariv. Evening programs included a Beit Midrash, a Rosh Hodesh celebration/bon fire, and a Tikkun Olam program. Meals were all communal and silence was requested from after ma'ariv until half way through breakfast the next morning.

I thoroughly enjoyed my first five days – learned new music, gained new tools and skills to help me in my work and participated in incredibly powerful and inspirational tefillot every day. But little did I know the best was yet to come....Shabbat! I love Shabbat at home – the change in routine, the time with my family, the community at services, services themselves, the naps – but this was an experience beyond my wildest imagination.

We began our preparations for Shabbat with a mikvah-like immersion. We gathered in the hot tub room (sometimes they use the pool, but that day it was raining) and chanted and sang while groups of four women at a time entered the mikvah together and dunked four times. With every dunk we were to think of something in each of the four worlds – spiritual, emotional, intellectual, physical – that we wanted to let go of for this Shabbat. Upon leaving the "mikvah" I felt cleansed and prepared to usher in Shabbat in a new way.

Needless to say, services were electric throughout the weekend with chanting, spontaneous dancing, kavannot that brought many of us to tears, and an overwhelming sense of joy for the gift of Shabbat. There were separate services for those who preferred a more traditional tone and a separation of the sexes. The dancing and singing exploded at Friday night dinner, complete with a band of drummers, that lasted for literally hours. On Saturday, there was engaging text study throughout the day that lead us to our Se'udat Sh'lishit with a "Frebregen," a lively story-telling, singing and dancing experience, and a creative and dynamic havdalah.

I left on Sunday very full of joy and contentment that stayed with me for the entire week. I had the fortune of leading my Iyun Tefillah minyan (meditation service) the following Shabbat, helping me ease a bit more slowly back into the real world. I am still processing the experience of Elat Chayyim: Is it something I would enjoy on a regular basis? Are there elements that could be incorporated in the style of davening in which we are accustomed? Can I capture the true feeling of joy from within or do I need the external help? And if I need the external help, what is my role in helping others find this type of Shabbat joy? And in the end, can anyone help another find joy or is this a personal journey in which we all need to embark?

While I continue to wrestle, I welcome your questions and comments. I very much want others to taste this experience and have already begun discussions with a few congregants about taking a group to Elat Chayyim sometime next year. Hopefully we can make that trip a reality. Anyone who might be interested, please call me at 952-920-3512 ext. 109 or send me an email. You can find out more about Elat Chayyim by visiting their website www.jewishretreatcenter.org.