A Feminist Approach to the High Holy Days
Aug. 5, 2015
By Amy Sessler Powell
Editor's note: Fresh Ideas editor Amy Sessler Powell interviewed Marcia Falk about her book, "The Days Between: Blessings, Poems and Directions of the Heart for the Jewish High Holiday Season" and her journey into writing new liturgies.
Poet and scholar, Marcia Falk, acclaimed author of the groundbreaking "Book of Blessings" last summer, published "The Days Between: Blessings, Poems, and Directions of the Heart for the Jewish High Holiday Season." Why did she choose to focus on the High Holidays? For the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks. That's where the Jews are.
The High Holidays are the days when religious, as well as nonaffiliated Jews, attend synagogue services in unparalleled numbers. Yet much of what they find there can be unwelcoming in its patriarchal imagery, leaving many worshipers unsatisfied. For those seeking to connect more deeply with their Judaism, and for all readers in search of a contemplative approach to the themes of the season, Falk has recreated key prayers and rituals from an inclusive perspective.
But the story of Falk's engagement with writing prayer began several decades earlier.
"The words of prayer have always mattered to me," said Falk. "As a Jewish feminist in the 1970s and '80s, I thought it was important not just where and how we participate in synagogue life, but what we actually pray there. I had been a regular davener for years; I belonged to synagogues and attended services every Shabbat. I participated, gave drashot (talks about the Torah portion). But in the early 1980s, the liturgy was becoming more and more disturbing to me as a Jew and a feminist trying to live with integrity.
"I was in crisis. The liturgy wasn't speaking for me, and in many ways I found it hurtful. But I didn't want to give up my relationship to my community; I was attached to being a Jew in the Jewish world."
Falk started to silently change the language, sometimes while on her feet during the Amidah (the prayer recited silently, while standing). She was often the last one to sit back down because she lost track of time as she struggled to adapt the Hebrew words, changing the patriarchal image of God as the Lord and King to other, gender-neutral metaphors. She was not yet writing her new prayers down or sharing them publicly.
A turning point came in 1983, while she was a teacher at the Havurah Institute in Princeton. Rabbi Arthur Waskow was in charge of the Havdalah service to take place on Saturday night, and on Friday afternoon he asked Falk to provide a kavanah, meditation, for each of the blessings.
"I told Art I just couldn't do that, and when he asked why, I blurted out that I didn't say those blessings any more. That was the first time I said aloud that I no longer prayed with the traditional words. Without missing a beat, Art said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, 'So write your own blessings.' I told him I thought they'd stone me. 'Marcia,' he said in a booming voice, 'they won't stone you.' "
So I sat down that afternoon and wrote my first four blessings, and the next night, full of trepidation, I recited them before a community of 300 Jews, ranging in affiliation from atheist to Orthodox. I recited the new words without introduction, as though they had been written a couple of millennia ago by the rabbis rather than the day before by me. I offered no apology or explanation (I didn't dare to), and, to my puzzlement and disbelief, the community said, "Amen."
In March of 1985, Falk published an essay in Moment Magazine, in which she presented some of her new blessings, which would eventually become part of her path-breaking "Book of Blessings," published in 1996. The article engendered strong and voluminous reactions across the spectrum; Falk received fan mail as well as attack mail. While there were many Jews, especially Jewish women, who had been waiting for an alternative to the patriarchal imagery of the prayer book and who were thrilled that Falk had met the challenge, there were also people who insisted that she did not have the right to make changes, especially to the Hebrew. But, Falk says, Jewish liturgy has always changed over time. "If it doesn't evolve, it ossifies." And Falk believes it is not enough to change the English. Her work is unique in that it offers new prayer in Hebrew poetic language.
"Many Jews want a liturgy that expresses their values and concerns. Keeping it alive in a fresh way has always been part of Jewish tradition," she says.
It has been 18 years since the publication of "The Book of Blessings," and Falk's readers have waited long for its sequel. In "The Days Between," Falk offers Hebrew and English blessings for festive meals, prayers for synagogue services, and poems and meditations for quiet reflection. The Rosh Hashanah section of the book includes a blessing for apples and honey, a re-creation of the Un’taneh Tokef prayer, and a new tashlikh (waterside ritual). Among the Yom Kippur prayers are a Viduy (confession) and a new Kol Nidrey. "Window, Bird, Sky," a series of 10 poems and meditations (one for each of the 10 Days of T’shuvah) bridges the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur sections.
Emphasizing introspection as well as relationship to others, Falk evokes her vision of the High Holidays as "10 days of striving to keep the heart open to change." Her new book promises to open her readers' hearts and minds.
Amy Sessler Powell is HBI’s communications director.
Marcia Falk is the author of "The Days Between: Blessings, Poems, and Directions of the Heart for the Jewish High Holiday Season."