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Prima Haveners
By Rachel Anne Rabinowicz
A liking for Chassidic
davening is something of an
acquired taste and relatively
few people trouble to acquire
it. To the patrons of the “big"
synagogues , it is anathema.
\Vhal! Forsake, bright lights
and liturgical delights, cantor
and choir, crimson carpet and
crystal chandelier, the week’s
news and the pew’s views?
Forsake a magnificent Temple
(a fortune it cost to build and
it’s not paid for yet) for a
-habby shtiebel, an ordinary
room in an ordinary house
packed with extraordinary
characters, a stark maybe dark
little room with bare floors
and hard benches, all crowding
and clamor and chaos . . and.,
and what else?
A Chassidic minvan is a
gathering, small but corre
spondingly select, albeit self-
selected, of the elite—faithful
guardians of the Sabbath, care-
lul keepers of 613 (all right,
who’s counting?) command
ments. the plentiful offspring
of Chassidic parents (Chassidic
families are very fruitful)—or
simply people who live next
door or up the road or round
the corner.
They meet together in an
atmosphere friendly, informal.
Although ceremonial is not
lacking no one stands on cere
mony. They feel at home in
their Father’s house. Everyone
is known and knows his neigh
bor—sometimes only too well.
Yet here familiarity breeds
content. For in a Chassidic
shtiebel the daveners are num
bered and every man counts.
Mister Green and Mister
Flack shed their working-week
personalities, become Rch
Vessel and Reb Yankel. Day-
to-day ups and downs, business
deals, family affairs, foreign
affairs, current crises and com
munity catastrophes, all art'
wodiedig, paling into insigni
ficance beside problems of
precedence, esoteric and al
most insoluble. The distribu
tion of aliyot. Torah honors,
is no easy matter. Do you
really think that maphtir can
be given away just like that?
To anyo le? Not when the
claimants claim genealogies
that make diplomatic protocol
seem kindergarten by compari
son.
Paradoxically enough, the
pioblems of paramount im
portance are who is to daven
and how he is to daven. Al
though, of course, everyone
davens, someone has to daven
for the other ejaveners as well.
And from this fact assorted
davening dilemmas are deriv
ed. For basically these^ daven
ers fall awkwardly into dwo
categories: those who want to
but can’t and those who can
but won’t. And what a tem
peramental bunch of prima
daveners they are! The voice
less are vociferous while the
mellifluous retire from prof
fered privileges and must be
wooed with promises of rich
reward (not in this world but
the next).
So much depends upon the
Baal Tefilah, the Master of
prayer; not only the whole
tone of the service but also the
time the congregation will get
home for the Sabbath seudah.
Why. there are record-setters
who can rattle off a musaph
in 25 to 35 minutes, gaining in
intensity with the passing of
those mystic minutes ere the
i tidday clock strikes noon.
The Baal Tefilah, once ap
pointed and accepted, has for
his brief half hour or so of
power a completely free hand.
Or should it be free voice?
Nothing and no one. save his
own vocal limitations, can stop
him. True, there are traditional
niginim. but these melodies
are mainly for guidance. If the
Master of Prayer wishes to in
sert some cantorial twists and
twiddles of his o w n, an
operatic aria, an undertone
here, an overtone there, an
echo even of Conservative
nusach. or what sounds suspici
ously like a bar or two from a
current “hit". . . well, so much
th(> livelier and lovelier.
They're all for self-expression.
And those of them who aren’t
must just sit still and suffer
in more or less seemly silence
. . . until their own turn comes
to lead the congregation in
prayer.
In more conventional syna
gogues—it is allege d—the
Heading of the Law is regard
ed as an interlude, a well-
earned respite, time for a little
talk or a little walk in the ves
tibule, certainly time to relax.
But in a Chassidic shtiebel this
is a period of the closest con
centration. Experts—and that
means everyone—follow the
official reader, repeating every
word under their breath and
bursting out from time to time
m a gieat correcting chorus.
To err is human, to amend
divine. Yet reading is so pop
ular that many Chassidic con-
giegations institute a note.
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