Biennial, Day 3 (content observations part 1)

Day 3 at the Biennial began w/ services outdoors ("God is in This Place..." Finding God and Ourselves Outside the Sanctuary led by Rabbi Daniel Gottlieb of Kol Ami in Thornhill, ON, and Cantor Micah Floryn Morgovsky of North Country Reform Temple-Ner Tamid in Glen Cove, NY. I did not get as much energy from it as I had the day before with the singing service, but it was okay. It was a little too chilly to be outside, but the sky was spectacular and the sunrise was beautiful. The tenor of the service itself did not really suit my particular preferences, having one cantor with a voice that was good but show-y, and awkward congregant participation. I would also like to point out that I need to figure out how I feel about the silent Amidah repetition. In my home temple we do not do this, so whenever I am in a service where it is customary I feel somewhat awkward with my prayer. I think part of it is the time allotted does not seem to really give people a chance to go through the prayers fully or with any kind of consciousness. Every time I have encountered the silent Amidah it has been stated that when you are done you should sit down. I get very distracted by this, seeing other people finishing, wanting to hurry along myself. I have never been able to fully connect to praying this way any time I've done it.

On another point: while the title of the service suggested that we were leaving behind the sanctuary, in my opinion, we did not. Yes, we were outside instead of in, so there were no walls or ceiling. But, there were still chairs lined up in sections and rows, there was still a microphone and podium. It felt no different in many ways than being in doors. While the sunrise and the sky were gorgeous, I did not feel like we were really leaving a traditional sanctuary setting. If we had gone down to the water or onto a beach, perhaps it would have felt more removed from the traditional setting. Or if they had taken away the chairs. I don't know, but after attending the workshop the day before about finding spirituality in nature, I expected more. This was simply a change of location, not a change of setting, if that makes any sense.

(A sidenote: there were usually 4 morning services to choose from, including one focused on meditation, one on yoga, one for women, one for men, one all in Hebrew, etc.)

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Workshop #1
Think Globally, Act Locally: Dialoguing with Christians and Muslims about Israel
w/ Rabbi Meir Azari, Rabbi Paul Golomb, Ethan Felson, and Rabbi Peter Knobel

I really enjoyed this workshop despite being a row directly in front of a bunch of NFTY kids who were obnoxious and loud and rude the entire time (though I did, at one point, turn around and say "you might not be here to listen and learn, but the rest of us are, so BE QUIET").

From my notes:
• "Clergy are the necessary evil in dialogue."
• When we engage in dialogue w/ Christians we use Christian terminology/language (ie. the 10 "Commandments" being displayed in government space)
• We need to express our commonalities, but more importantly we must get to our differences to come to grips with them!
• The Holy Land: what do we mean by this? What is holy? (Torah, people, Shabbat)
---Torah: we stay far, physically from it, only use it w/ strict rules
---Shabbat: we rest, we do what we don't do the rest of the week
---Holiness is that which is antithetical to the norm
• The idea of what the "Holy" in "Holy Land" means for each group MUST be discussed.
• In what way is Jerusalem holy? It can't be assigned in the same was we usually assign the word holy.
• The use of "Holy Land" by evangelicals and protestants is very different than how we think of the word holy (I wish I had more on this, but I think at some point I stopped writing so I could just listen).

One of the major things brought up was the fact that we cannot discuss Israel w/o discussing Zionism and we need to go into the conversation w/ Muslims not expecting to change their minds about Zionism. One of the rabbis was from Israel and he really brought home exactly why we must have conversations with people about Israel, and why we must be committed to it even if we disagree with some policies.