Closing the Gates
Sermon, December 14, 2007
Rabbi Bruce Kadden
This evening is the last service we will do from Gates of Prayer, a
siddur that has served the Reform movement for more than 30 years since its
publication in 1975.
In many ways, Gates of Prayer reflected its time. The introduction notes,
“Ours has been a time of almost perpetual strife…. Our civilization is unstable;
information has grown exponentially, without an equivalent growth in wisdom; we
have experienced tremendous changes, material and intellectual.” Among the
monumental events that Gates of Prayer, at least in part, responded to
were the Holocaust, the rebirth of Israel, and the changing status of women.
Gates of Prayer reflected these changes, as well as the diversity of
the Jewish community. Again, the introduction said it well: “We are a
diversified people. Within our Reform community are proponents of many
viewpoints. There is disagreement among us on many issues.
Rather than attempting to stifle or ignore this disagreement, Gates of
Prayer attempted to reflect it, offering 10 Shabbat evening services and 6
Shabbat morning services. Among the Shabbat evening services, for example,
Service I reflected the “Classical siddur,” with Hebrew close to the traditional
liturgy and English reflecting a fairly literal translation. Service V sought
to honor the Reform heritage, following closely the service of the Union
Prayer Book, which preceded Gates of Prayer.
There were also services which reflected the themes of “Religious
Naturalism,” “The Mystical Search,” Social Justice,” and “Confrontation with
Estrangement.”
Then there was Service VI, known as the “Equivocal Service” in which
“theological language is either omitted completely from the English or phrased
to allow a variety of understandings.” Certain prayers, such as the Barchu
and Shema were simply not translated.
Gates of Prayer, like earlier Reform prayer books, followed four basic
principles:
--shortening the liturgy by eliminating repetition as well as more obscure
passages;
--bringing the liturgy in line with contemporary Reform theology:
--referring to the messianic age rather than a personal messiah;
--eliminating references to the sacrificial cult;
--eliminating references to resurrection of the dead;
--enriching the liturgy with modern writings;
--providing a variety of services to avoid monotony.
While Gates of Prayer was welcomed by most rabbis when it was first
published, it was not as warmly received by many congregants.
--it was much larger and heavier than the Union Prayer Book;
--it eliminated the classical English prose, the “thees” and “thous” which for
many were the hallmark of reverential language.
--it introduced traditional elements such as the option of opening as a Hebrew
book; more Hebrew prayers (although not as much as it appeared because UPB had
much Hebrew, but many congregations ignored it);
--restoring the traditional text of prayers such as the Aleinu.
Any one of these changes would have sent ripples through the congregation.
When they were combined, they often were a bombshell. In addition, at about the
same time that congregations were beginning to introduce Gates of Prayer,
other changes were also being instituted:
--new music from young songwriters such as Debbie Friedman and Jeff Klepper and
Danny Friedlander;
--eliminating the organ in favor of the piano or guitar, not to mention
experimentation with moog synthesizers.
The changes that all of this brought to worship led many who grew up in
Reform Judaism to believe that it was no longer their congregation.
Nevertheless, Gates of Prayer was adopted by about every Reform
congregation in North America and has been widely used for the past 30 years.
In 1994, an abbreviated version was published to reflect gender sensitive
language which had become important.
In many ways, Gates of Prayer reflected the best and worst of the last
quarter of the 20th century:
--diversity of thought and practice;
--re-embracing of tradition;
--freedom of choice;
--but also confusion, uncertainty, an anything goes mentality.
As we move along in the 21st century, we realize that times have
changed and thus we are ready for a new siddur to guide our worship.
Though we leave Gates of Prayer behind as the prayer book for our
worship, many things from it will stay with us:
--moving English passages that have touched our souls;
--Hebrew texts that it restored to the liturgy;
--religious language that did not have to be elevated language with thees and
thous.
Let me conclude with this passage that is included among the many excellent
meditations and readings at the beginning of Gates of Prayer. It was
written by Henry Slonimsky, a long-time professor at the Jewish Institute or
Religion in New York.
He wrote, “I regard the old Jewish Siddur as the most important single
Jewish book—a more personal expression, a closer record, of Jewish sufferings,
Jewish needs, Jewish hopes and aspirations, than the Bible itself…. Whatever is
quintessentially needed for daily use has been squeezed out of it into the
prayerbook and so made our daily own. And if you want to know what Judaism
is…you can find it by absorbing that book. The Jewish soul is mirrored there as
nowhere else, mirrored or rather embodied there: the individual’s soul in his
private sorrows, and the people’s soul in its historic burdens, its heroic
passion and suffering, its unfaltering faith, through the ages.”
Gates of Prayer, at its best certainly accomplished those goals and
will be deeply cherished and dearly remembered by those of us who have
worshipped from it for most of our lives.
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