Every Soul in Praise of God: Reflections on a Week in Jerusalem

I spent the past week in Israel with a cohort of rabbis as part of the rabbinic leadership initiative at the Hartman Institute.  We learned, prayed, joked, sang, hiked and jogged together.  I made the mistake of going jogging with a few colleagues who jog every day outdoors.  The first two miles along the old train tracks through the neighborhoods of Baka and Katamon were very pleasant and at one point I realized that we were jogging downhill.  I was happily schmoozing about life and the universe when we turned around and, as I should have intuited, the two miles seemed a lot longer .

The learning was very unique.  The Hartman scholars are chosen from a variety of areas – Bible, Rabbinics, Jewish Mysticism – and the overarching theme that was studied was תקון עולם tikkun olam, often translated as the “repair of the world," though it has a variety of meanings connected with actual creation.

A related theme emerged for me that underscored the formal learning as well as the informal experiences I had with my colleagues in different parts of Jerusalem, a theme that is crucial to my vision of my rabbinate and our community.  Without it, actually, tikkun olam in any of its variations isn't possible.

The theme emerged during a special a special Rosh Hodesh service I attended.

Fortunately, we were in Israel during Rosh Hodesh Adar I, the beginning of the Jewish month of Adar I.  For services that morning, I went with some of my colleagues to join the Women of the Wall, a group of women who for decades have been getting together at the beginning of each Jewish month at the Kotel to pray.

Gathering on the Kotel plaza before the Women of the Wall service began to usher in the month of Adar I.  

At times, the situation has become violent, as onlookers have thrown eggs and even chairs over the mehitza into the group of women praying. A typical tactic that has been used in recent months is for Haredi, ultra-Orthodox, Jews to gather nearby and try to drown out the prayers of Women of the Wall with their own singing.

Our female colleagues joined the women’s section.  I stood with my male colleagues behind the back partition of the women’s section, so that the women were in the front and we were in the back. 

At first a few Haredi Jews walked by where we were standing to check out the situation during the initial part of the service.  Slowly more gathered.  The Women of the Wall and their supporters were singing and the Haredim started to sing as well.  And I wondered if indeed the Women of the Wall would be overpowered.

As the Women of the Wall reached the end of Pesukei d’zimrah, the introductory songs of praise, they started to sing the final verse of the final psalm of the book of psalms, which concludes Pesukei d’zimra:  כל הנשמה תהלל יה הללויה Kol haneshama tehalel ya Hallelu-yah.  Let every soul praise God.

The Haredi Jews were singing loudly while the Women of the Wall and their male supporters kept singing kol hanesham tehalel ya. And I started to get a little emotional and a colleague of mine asked if I was OK.  And I said to him, “The thing is that nothing can drown out kol haneshama tehalel ya.”  Ultimately, nothing can overpower each of our voices singing out in praise of God.  

And that moment of realization helped me to appreciate some other moments that I experienced during my recent time in Israel and how they might inspire the work that we do right here at Temple Israel.

On Shabbat morning, I joined a few colleagues to seek out a Syrian synagogue in Nachlaot.  We didn’t find it.

But we did find a synagogue named Kehillat Tzion, Congregation of Zion.  We arrived toward the end of Pesukei d’zimrah.  When they got to Hallel, they used a melody that I knew because of my fortuitous exposure to a variety of Sephardic melodies in Great Neck.  There were, of course, numerous other Sephardic customs, including walking around with the Sefer Torah completely open so people could look inside and kiss it with their talitot.

After the service, there was a brit milah in the synagogue and as the baby boy was brought in, everyone started singing lichvod chemdat levavi. . .In honor of the esteemed Elijah the prophet.

We loved the service, except for one thing.  The women were in the back and they only opened the door separating the women’s section from the men’s on two occasions – once when the grandmother of the baby came out to throw candy on the father and again when a woman said birkat hagomel, the prayer of thanksgiving.

So I started to think.  At Temple Israel, we have such a unique opportunity to include more Sephardic melodies and customs, to create a service that brings the best of all of our traditions to this sacred house, and here, unlike in the synagogue in Jeruslaem, men and women fully participate.

Kol haneshama – every soul in praise of God - includes the souls of men and women whose ancestors came from places including Vilna and Baghdad and Kashan and Jerusalem.

Also in the spirit of kol haneshama, every soul:  In Nachlaot, the mixed neighborhood of Hareidi, modern Orthodox, secular, Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews where we prayed on Shabbat, we subsequently met with a modern Orthodox rabbi who is trying to break the monopoly the Chief rabbinate has on Kashrut.  All establishments that want to get a Kashrut certificate have up until now needed to go through the Chief Rabbinate.  The supervision is problematic for a number of reasons.  There are documented instances of inefficiency and corruption.  In addition, the Chief Rabbinate demands a standard that even many Orthodox Jews don’t require.  The rabbi who spoke with us has started an alternative supervision system that is mainstream traditional without the additional restrictions of the Chief Rabbinate and slowly, slowly, restaurants are starting to abandon the Chief Rabbinate’s supervision and to adopt this new system.  As a result, a wider variety of traditional Kashrut practices are being supported.

One more thing.  Kol haneshama – every soul in praise of God – extends beyond the Jewish community.  It’s sort of a sweet source of puzzlement to my colleagues that I like to spend a little time in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher when we’re in Jerusalem.

On our last day, I asked the colleague who had inquired about me at the Kotel if he wanted to come with me.  So after he bought rugelach for his family at Marzipan bakery, we took Jaffa Road to the end and walked into the Christian quarter of the Old City, stopped into a store where he considered buying a wooden camel for his two-year old, and then turned left onto St. Helena into the outer courtyard of the church.  We quickly prayed minha as the sun was about to set and then entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

We walked around and at one point heard chanting coming from one of the chapels.  A group of monks were marching through the church as they were chanting.  I said to my colleague, I know you may find it curious how much I like to witness worship in other religions and he said that he really appreciated it too, actually.

Though mostly we pray in separate settings based on our respective faiths, there are times when we pray together.  If you have never taken part in our interfaith Thanksgiving or MLK services, you’ve missed something truly inspirational.  Kol haneshama means every soul, male and female, different backgrounds, different faiths, and whenever our voices rise up together, it’s quite something.

View of the moon from the courtyard near St. Helena Street in the Old City of Jerusalem. The crescent shape confirms that it was only a few days into the Jewish month, in this case, Adar I.  

I imagine that every rabbi came away from the week in Jerusalem with a different takeaway, leading to a different sermon, because his or her ears were tuned to different frequencies.  I can’t resist saying that my theme actually embraces whatever they might be saying.  Kol haneshama includes rabbis, after all!

The mishkan, the tabernacle, whose construction we are reading about during these weeks, was built with donations מאת כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו me’et kol ish hasher yidvenu libo, from each person whose heart wished to give.

Whatever is given with love contributes to the overall reserve of holiness, of kedusha.

If Tikkun Olam, Hartman’s official theme of the week, is indeed possible, it will require the enlistment of every soul.  The scope of the work is too great for anyone to sit on the sidelines.

The power of each soul’s praise of God in song and word and deed can’t be drowned out, nor should it be. With creativity and love, in Jerusalem and in Great Neck, we can harness that power and we should.

To that, I say: Halleluyah!

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on February 8, 2014