The Pre-Friday Shacharit Kvetch

[debka_notion]

I just got the pre-Friday morning class davenen email. So- the usual kvetch, which usually doesn't get written, but my usual audience is in Germany, so...

Ok, fine, they aren't doing P'sukei D'Zimra unless you do it on your own before coming or if you come at 7:45 instead of 8:00 to do so. I worry about the halakhic validity of this, as some folks will probably do neither. Myself, I'll probably show around 7:45 and such. And sure, niggunim and some silence are pretty, but couldn't we do Those before PdZ rather than after? Silent meditation is nice too, and even less problematic, although I'm iffy on the "speak up if you have something to say" thing that they'll be doing during it.

But well- I'm currently still fine with including the imahot in the amidah, although having been given a quick rundown on a list of problems with it, well, I'm sort of thinking about trying to find some other way of including my feminism in my davenen: I'm thinking a trip to the library to play with tekhines might be in my future. Maybe even tonight. So much more interesting than my homework... But, they're promising an alternative list of imahot. I'm wondering what this is going to include, and I'm sort of worried that this is going to involve Bilhah and Zilpah, and well- somehow that feels like it's pushing too far even conceptually, let alone halakhically.

Ok, off to the library. We'll see what happens.

Comments

[hotshot2000.livejournal.com]

Pesukei dezimra is somewhat optional -- that's why women lead it at Shira Hadasha/Darkhei Noam/etc. And it certainly doesn't _require_ a minyan or a sha"tz. (Sepharadim, however, take a stricter view on the necessity of pesukei dezimra, with which I tend to sympathize.) A straight read of the Shulhan Arukh takes a dim view of a sha"tz who hasn't said a minimal pesukei dezimra. It may also be problematic to have a hatzi kaddish w/o pesukim or a berakha before it, and skipping that kaddish would fail to fulfill the requirement for the # of kaddishes.

The whole thing strikes me as odd. They don't want to force people who want/need/are indifferent to the standard/traditional pseudo-Ashkenazic davening model, fine. But why force people who like that model to daven something else? If it's because they want them to experience such a thing, that's fine -- but to do it in place of allowing them to daven as they see fit, is coercive and yucky. (I've gone to my share of Reform/Reconstructionist/joint/pseudo/whatever davenings -- on my own terms, and having chosen whether to daven in a different tzibbur first, daven privately first, or try to cram my halakhic requirements into the structure of their davening. The key is that I had the space to choose those things, and was not made to feel unwelcome by having done so.) Moreover, there are so many options within traditional Jewish cultures -- maybe someone should suggest a Karliner shouting service, or a Sephardic-style service (heck, try even try Nusah Sefarad or Edot haMizrah) where the sha"tz chants everything out loud (and/or different people chant the various psalms in pesukei dezimra).

I'll stop before I start ranting, but you get my drift. Good luck anyway (and I'm sure WLSS will need luck to get a minyan as well).

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

R' David Golinkin recommends inserting piyyut into birkat avot as an authentic and halakhic way to get the Imahot in there. Now we just need a paytan . . .

feminism and immahot pt 1

[jonahrank.livejournal.com]

I may have misunderstood your post, but why is it that you say immahot to include feminism in your davenen? Also, why would you feel that it is necessary to include feminism in your davenen?

For me personally, I say the immahot when and if they're on the page I've turned to (or in the case of Va'ani Tefillati [or other books where the option of the immahot is on the same page as the option without the immahot], whichever way I end up reading it - fairly randomly). When I am leading in WLSS, I say the immahot out of deference to those to whom including the immahot matters as they have no other outlet at JTS generally for davenen with a community where the immahot would be included. Generally my own inclusion of the immahot is cyclical in that nature. The only reason I recite it is because either it's there to be recited or to cater to somebody else for whom it is important.

I have simply never understood the absolute importance of adding in the immahot. Clearly without the immahot, there would be no lineage/heritage. But the lineage/heritage would also be lacking without Bilhah and Zilpah. It is important for Jewish women to be able to look at Jewish(-ish) female role models, but the Matriarchs are not used in the Amidah as role models per se - and I don't think that the Patriarchs or the Matriarchs as groups qualify as great role models. If the question of the immahot refers back to history, I still think it is historically bereft to ignore Bilhah and Zilpah.

Perhaps the next possible level would be to preserve any of those ideas as concepts working within monogamous relationships, but Jacob was not really in such a monogamous relationship with Rachel and Leah. Then we get to the idea of perhaps simply the institution of marriage (regardless of polygamy), and then I think we might be catching onto something, something that could build a second level to the section known as Avot (Ve'immahot): that we must see a monotheistic marriage as a relationship that is not divorced from God.