A Letter From The High Holiday Committee

We, the High Holiday Committee (Rabbi Seidel, Eitan Gutin, Susan Catler, Josh Furman, and Michele Sumka) are thinking about making some significant changes this coming year in the way we do High Holiday services at TI. But before we progress too far in our thinking, we wanted to run our ideas by you, and get your feedback.

SUMMARY

We are thinking about tweaking our downstairs service into an adult, family-friendly service, led by Eitan Gutin (with much participation, in the TI style, from TI'ers of all ages). We think we can develop a service that will work both for the regulars downstairs, as well as the families who have been enjoying the Family Service we have started in the past few years.

HISTORY

We have had a downstairs service at TI for many years. The general pattern has been that these services were offered on the first day of Rosh HaShanah, on Kol Nidre night, and during the day on Yom Kippur and used the Harlow Mahzor, not the Silverman Mahzor that was used in the Wolman service. As some of you may remember, Rabbi Seidel, while still a Rabbinical student, was hired to lead these services a few times in the 1980's. For many years these services were entirely lay led (except for Rabbi Seidel's giving the drash on Kol Nidre), though Rabbi Seidel helped extensively behind the scenes, especially with finding volunteers to read Torah, give drashot, blow shofar, etc. During this period each of the three services had a lay leader who was, overall, in charge of the service. And these lay leaders were themselves coordinated by a congregant.

A few years ago, the overall coordinator job passed to Rabbi Seidel. For the last two years, it has gotten increasingly difficult to find leaders for the three services. Last year, TI'er Josh Furman led one of the services, but we had to hire TI'er Rabbi Jason Kimelman Bloch to coordinate and lead services on the first day of Rosh HaShannah and during the day on Yom Kippur. Also last year for the first time both services used the same Mahzor, the new Mahzor Lev Shalem.

Over these past two years another trend is apparent. The family High Holiday services started by Rabbi Seidel and Rabbi Jane Berman two years ago, and continued by Eitan Gutin last year, have been much appreciated, and have grown. These one-to-one-and-a-half hour services have started at 9am for all three mornings of Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur. This has not been the ideal start time, or length, for such services, but we had to start early and finish early so that the Cherner Auditorium would be available for the downstairs adult High Holiday service.

INCENTIVES TO CHANGE

• Despite all of the excellent davenner-leaders in our congregation, it's become increasingly hard to find qualified leaders for the High Holidays. For one thing, most of our best davenners have their own paying gigs for the Days of Awe or are already leading parts of the services in the Wolman. For another, the liturgy is long and taxing, and a person who can do a good job leading, say, Musaf on a regular Shabbat, may not be up to leading Musaf on Rosh HaShanah.
• It would be nice to be able to give families and our children a service that is more complete, with a better, longer time slot.

GOAL

We think that we can create an adult service that is both family friendly, and has all the traditional components that an adult expects. A service that has an energy level and pacing that will appeal to adults as well as young people. A service in which it is possible for kids to wander around and be themselves in a way that's not possible upstairs, given the architecture and the fixed seating of the Wolman Sanctuary. We think such a service would be appealing to most, if not all of the downstairs regulars, whether they have children or not. We think Eitan has the ability and the presence to pull it off. We understand that such a service, roughly the length of the downstairs services we've had in the past, would be too long for many kids - so there would still be separate childrens' programming and childcare, especially for the younger children.

We also have a hunch that, though this change is meant for the betterment of our own community, it may end up attracting some unaffiliated families. An adult, family-friendly service would not be competing against the free services at 6th & I and Har Tzeon. It would be offering something different, something we have a sense that many people want - a chance to daven with their kids in a way that is satisfying to both.

We think it's worth a try this coming Holiday season.

LOGISTICS

Should we go ahead with this plan, we would need to be very clear to the entire congregation about the changes we would be making. There may well be some who have regularly attended the downstairs service who will want to switch to the Wolman. The Wolman (which has only a handful of unbought single seats in a typical year) may actually get sold out. Therefore, we would need to warn everyone who wants to sit in the Wolman to buy their tickets early. Note also – our tentative plan would be to charge for this downstairs service about what we have in the past. We'd also need to coordinate with the Tot High Holiday services.

Moreover, we want to solicit your feedback about this idea, as we are doing with this letter (which will also be published in the upcoming Menorah).

Your High Holiday Committee