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Even in the midst of our dedication weekend, committees and staff are busy trying to figure out how best to use our new facility. We still have kinks to be worked out, as some recent listserv dialogues have made clear. The Religious Practices Committee (RPC) has been ironing out one of these kinks: the concern over being "blocked" from prayer at particular times. Unlike at the JCC theater, now late-arriving worshippers of any age cannot hear or see until they fully enter the room, which poses new challenges.
As a community, we are trying to balance two important and occasionally conflicting goals. One is to be as inclusive as possible, and provide easy access in and out of the service (especially important for parents with young children). The other is to provide a focused environment for meaningful prayer, song, study, and silence within the service, without undue noise drifting in from the lobby at inopportune moments. (There is also a vital third goal of meeting the needs of our youngest members and their parents, which is a related but separate matter). We ask members of our community to keep these various goals in mind, as did the RPC in coming up with new guidelines for the ushers.
The new understanding is that the doors leading into our sanctuary will be open at most times; worshippers and their families are encouraged to be reasonably quiet in that part of the lobby closest to the entrance, which will be far easier once the crying rooms and social hall are freed up. Service-goers arriving after 9:30 may enter at most times, but are asked to be conscious of what’s going on at the moment: often you may stand in back for a couple of minutes, until there’s a less disruptive moment to walk around the sanctuary and find your seats. Of course some people will need to come and go throughout the service, so we ask that priority for the seats closest to the entrance and along the nearby aisles be given to families with small children, older people, and others who need these seats.
So what are the exceptions, when the RPC would not have us enter at all? For the most part, they are minimal--the 20 seconds or so of the Bar’chu, Shma, and ending of the Yotzer Prayer, for instance, when worshippers are especially focused on the liturgy and the voice of the cantor. The same goes for the responsive Shma during the Torah service, and of course the Mourners’ Kaddish near the end of services.
Two lengthier times are worth explaining, starting with the Kedushah prayer (third stanza) of the Amidah. Tradition holds this prayer to be so important that you should not budge during it, even if a posionous snake wraps itself around your leg! We should have no such worries in our new home, but the rabbis make a point: some prayers deserve special treatement. Yet to bar entry for the entire Kedushah and silent prayer which follows could create an ‘exile’ as long as eight-minutes.
We will strive for balance by keeping the door closed during the first half of the Kedushah (p. 303, including the calisthenic "Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh", into the top of p. 305, usually Cantor Rachel’s most powerful "chazzanische" moment). In the middle of the "Mimkomkha malkeinu tofiyah" paragraph, the mood shifts; we enjoy energetic communal singing for "V’eineinu Tir’eneh," continuing through the bottom of p. 305 to "Ledor Vador." During this time the door will be open, and late arrivals are encouraged to step inside, stand in the back, and join in the rest of the Amidah. The door will then be closed again for the few minutes of silent prayer while we finish (through p. 323), and opened once more as we begin "Oseh Shalom" to take us out of our silence.
The last time when the door will be closed is during our "Meditative Musaf Moment," at the conclusion of the Torah service. Often, though not always, we will chant a line (Ma Gadlu, Kol Haneshama, etc.) together, fade into meditative silence, and pick up the chant again after a couple minutes of focused "down-time." Though this can be as much as five or six minutes from start to finish, the RPC was unanimous that here, the needs of the 300 already inside take precedence over the desire of the 10 outside to return that much sooner.
Obviously there will be other moments we have not yet anticipated. If the sound in the sanctuary is good, we need not close the door during from-the-floor comments in our Dvar Torah Discussion--but if people have a hard time hearing each other, we may. Likewise, a quiet bat or bar mitzvah student may require us closing the door during their Dvar. But the value from which we begin is to provide as unfettered access as possible, short of where late entry is significantly disruptive to the worshipping community as a whole.
We ask for and appreciate your patience as we work through this new system, and the countless other systems we will yet devise around the unique opportunities the new building presents us. Members of all ages have much to look forward to in each of the wings of our new home, and I hope you will join in its prayerfulness and its community-spirit, alike. Enjoy!
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb
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