Living with Friday Night Live

This past Shabbat was another Friday Night Live in my congregation. I've mentioned a couple of times my feelings about Friday Night Live, but I do want to go into a little more depth here. When the phenomenon was first introduced to my congregation 5 years ago it was like this breath of fresh air. At that point we had two soloists, neither of whom were Jewish, who had been at the temple for over 30 years. They were both strong singers, but they had a style that really discouraged participation by the congregants. Add to that the fact that much of the music was slow and or overly dramatic, or just plain stale, and you find yourself not engaging with the service as much. As an effort to inject some life into our music we brought in the Friday Night Live band from HUC; basically a bunch of rabbinic students who were musical and who really knew how to use music to engage people in prayer. It was a tremendous evening, with a lot of singing, a lot of dancing, and a lot of heartfelt praying. Many of the students were being ordained that year, and having a band of rabbinic students is somewhat impractical anyway, as they all have student pulpits of their own. But, the following academic year introduced a regular Friday Night Live band to my temple. It was made up of mostly temple members who were either professional or amateur musicians, plus a local rabbi (who had been in that original band and had just been ordained) and our own intern.

That first year of Friday Night live services were still incredibly powerful. The band was small enough that it was unobtrusive and it didn't feel like a show. People participated, sang along, and really got into the new melodies and this new way to have kavanah. Unfortunately, though, after awhile the services became overly rowdy. Children were allowed to be noisy, to go in and out of the sanctuary, and in general, to be very disruptive. The band itself grew to the point that it no longer fit on the bimah and moved down in front of it on the floor. It was around this time that I began to dislike Friday Night Live services. It was too loud (the bass would regularly overwhelm any of the guitars or instruments playing melody), and it had morphed into almost a performance. I got the feeling that there were many people coming to temple not to pray, but rather to be entertained. I continued to attend, but my enthusiasm for the style had waned. I was always much more fulfilled by praying the next morning in our small and intimate Saturday service, which made me wonder if I just didn't like crowds when I pray. Except that I have found kavanah in a larger crowd just as I have found kavanah in the smaller services, so that wasn't it. It really came down to the performative aspects of Friday Night Live.

Now, I'm an opinionated person, and I'm not one to keep something to myself if it bothers me. I happen to have an excellent relationship with my rabbi, built, partially, on the fact that I have always been honest with what I think, whether it be something that happened at a service, or something that had to do with a Torah portion, or a Jewish custom. We have spoken many times on how you balance the need for something like Friday Night Live to engage people with the need to keep it a prayerful service and not devolve into a concert. And it truly is a balance. Do you put the band on the bimah? Do you put them to the side, off the bimah, but not in front? Do you ask the professional musicians to turn their volume down? Do you insist that people be responsible for their children just as much at this service as they would at any other?

This is something that is still being tweaked at my temple. On weeks that we have a Friday Night Live we usually have a Tot Shabbat the next morning; this allows parents who want to expose their kids to fun music to do so in an atmosphere that is more suited to their attention spans. Our Tot services have grown incredibly over the last few years, and it is a wonderful thing to see.

There has also been some experimentation with where to put the band. A few times they were partially on the bimah, and partially on the floor where the pianist and soloist usually stand. This brought the congregation back in closer but took the feeling way from the bimah-as-stage. It felt better, but it was a bit of a logistical nightmare, I believe. More recently the singers have sat in from of the bimah to one side, the musicians to the other side. This, however, has pushed the chairs in the congregation further away from the bimah (as was the case this past week). My rabbi commented that it took awhile for people to engage this week, and I really think it had to do with our physical proximity to the bimah. I, personally, felt removed, sitting just in the 2nd row. The fact that the musicians and singers were on our level combined with the fact that the seating was pushed much further back, made the space feel unbalanced and odd.

I am still on the fence with Friday Night Live. There are times when it feels right, when it clicks and it feels prayerful. There are others when I feel like I haven't attended a prayer service at all. I think it has potential to be a great form of worship, but I think it also has the potential to cause problems. If people only come for Friday Night Live and we don't have one between now and August, will they attend services? How will they learn to connect with other types of prayer? And if we make this style more prevalent, do we run the risk of alienating people who are not engaged with this type of music? When you are a small congregation that cannot hold 2 Shabbat services to provide for the needs of various constituencies, which do you choose? Do you need to choose? Is the compromise to mix things up each week? What is the final goal? Is it to have people attend Shabbat services every Friday night? Or is getting them there once a month good enough?

My rabbi has said many times that music can make or break a service, and I couldn't agree more. I find it much more difficult to engage, to step outside the keva and to find the kavanah when the music does not speak to me. I can do it, it is just harder to do so. But, maybe prayer shouldn't be easy. Maybe it shouldn't always be comfortable and maybe we shouldn't be able to just slip into it like an old sweatshirt. Perhaps sometimes the greatness of prayer is found in its challenges, in the words that seem to not grate, in the melodies that bore you, in the ideas that don't speak; transcending those problems and finding that kavanah, in engaging God in this eternal conversation is, perhaps, the point.