The Message, Volume 44, Number 11, January 2009 Page: 2 of 10
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With Rabbi Rosen
energize
Movement,
111
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SHIR CHADASH
a new musical shabbat morning experience
W
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11IH 4
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way that told me we had literally “struck a chord” with it! Our
room quickly filled, then others from the convention started
looking in to see what was happening. People began lining up
around the perimeter of our hall, then began overflowing into
the outside corridor where crowds were already forming.
As with “Friday Night Alive!,” Hazzan Propis stood
front and center that Shabbat morning. His selection of
music, coupled with his uplifting and glorious voice, captured
everyone’s attention from the moment we began.
And when the service ended, “Shir Chadash,” “A New
Song,” was bom, and Hazzan Propis and I knew it was
something we would one day want to bring to our own
congregation, to Beth Yeshurun.
And so on Shabbat morning, Feb. 7, on the day
traditionally regarded as Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of
Song, our own Hazzan Propis will join with our wonderfully-
talented friend and co-creator of “Friday Night Alive!,”
Allan Naplan, to lead us in a new kind of Shabbat morning
celebration.
“Shir Chadash”
will be just one part
of an extraordinary
weekend at Beth
Yeshurun which will
bring our Rubenfeld
Scholar, Ron Wolfson,
to our congregation.
Ron is one of
our movement’s
great movers and
shakers; indeed, his
presentation at the
USCJ Biennial brought
the entire convention
to its feet! Blessed with
a keen sense of humor, marvelous energy and compelling
ideas, Ron Wolfson is one of the most interesting thinkers
in American Jewry today. His visit, timed to coincide with
“Friday Night Alive!” and the debut of “Shir Chadash,”
promises a weekend of prayer, song and learning that will
offer something for everyone.
So please mark your calendars to join us! And very
importantly, if you will be coming to “Shir Chadash” on
Shabbat morning, please strive to be with us from the start.
(Yes, it may require reversing a lifelong habit of being
fashionably late, but try!) We’d love for you to experience
the entire thing! And when it’s all over, we’ll be looking
forward to your comments and suggestions on how we can
continue to bring “a new song” to the spiritual life of our
great congregation.
A a
A “Friday Night Alive! “for Saturday Morning
t was little more than a year ago, in November 2007,
I that the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
JL approached Hazzan Propis and me with an interesting
proposition.
Eager to energize our
Conservative Movement, the
leadership of our national movement
wondered if we might have any ideas
on doing for Saturday mornings what
we had been doing for several years
with our “Friday Night Alive!” And
could we create an “experimental
service” at the USCJ Biennial
Convention in Florida that might
serve as a prototype other synagogues
in our movement might use to enhance Shabbat morning
within our movement’s 850 congregations?
It was a tall order, to be sure, and I can’t say that Hazzan
Propis and I knew
for sure what would
happen when we began
the service that Shabbat
morning of the USCJ
Biennial!
For one thing,
there are twice as
many prayers in the
Shabbat morning
service than on Friday
night. If we sang each
prayer as we did for
“Friday Night Alive!,”
the service would run
until Sunday! And yet
we knew we had to
somehow capture on Shabbat morning the musical energy
that has always made FNA! so special on Friday night.
We had to address, too, how we might transform the
Shabbat morning Torah service and the chanting of the
Haftarah. What could we do to make them more interesting
and relevant to congregants who had long despaired of
finding anything meaningful in them?
And finally, we felt compelled to remain true to the core
parameters of Conservative Jewish practice out of respect
for those who are the mainstays of our congregations and
for whom Shabbat morning worship is already a vital part
of their lives.
With those challenges in mind, we began our service
that Shabbat morning in Florida, and within minutes, the
congregation was clapping, singing, and clearly engaged in a
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Congregation Beth Yeshurun (Houston, Tex.). The Message, Volume 44, Number 11, January 2009, periodical, January 18, 2009; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1318688/m1/2/?q=%222009%22: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.