Ask Rabbi Marcia Prager what a typical day at the Davennen’ Leadership Training Institute is like, and she won’t talk about the master classes, the skills sessions, the group work. Not at first. At first, she’ll start at the beginning.
“We wake up as the sun is getting up, molding our lives within the prayerful rhythm of the day,” she said. “People make their way to the synagogue. The mist is rising from the lake. The geese are beginning their calls. We are wrapped in our talleisim. A chant fills the shul.”
In a program that meets for four weeklong retreats during a two-year period, the institute seeks to strengthen the ability of rabbis, cantors and other members of the Jewish community to lead people in meaningful group prayer. Despite the institute’s emphasis on leadership, everyone is welcome, even individuals simply looking to deepen their own experience of prayer. Founded 10 years ago, the program received the Mintz Family Foundation’s annual award this year for creative Jewish education.
The philosophy of the program is that “even in those settings where there is a solo prayer leader, everyone needs to take their place as active creators, collaborative co-creators of the prayer experience,” said Prager, who co-founded the institute along with Rabbi Shawn Zevit.
Since one way for participants to become better prayer leaders is to start “deepening their own prayer lives,” according to Zevit, the retreats emphasize connecting spiritually and intellectually with all components of a prayer service — liturgy, chanting, history, even the way a person’s body moves during prayer.
The overall goal is to integrate prayer into every aspect of participants’ lives so that it “becomes not just an activity to do on Friday night, but an integral part of everything you do,” Zevit said.
Indeed, David Evan Markus, 36, came to the prayer institute two years ago as a lawyer with the New York State Legislature. Markus said that although he grew up going to synagogue regularly, “I always felt like I was doing the prayer, I wasn’t being the prayer.”
Practicing the profession of law takes a very rational approach, he said.
“You don’t realize how much you’re doing that until someone shows you another way,” Markus said. In July, Markus began his coursework to become a rabbi — a direct result, he says, of his experiences at the prayer institute.
Participants in the Davennen’ program come from the whole spectrum of Jewish life — from tiny, unaffiliated havurot to large Reform and Conservative congregations. The retreats, attended by about 50 students, are held in summer and winter at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in the Berkshires’ town of Falls Village, Conn.
Prager is the congregational rabbi at Jewish Renewal synagogues in Philadelphia and in Princeton, N.J., and director and dean of the ordination programs at ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal.
Zevit is director of outreach and tikkun olam and a congregational consultant for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation.
Both taught at Elat Chayyim, a center for Jewish spirituality in New York State. Elat Chayyim offers introductory classes on meditation and spirituality. Zevit and Prager founded the Davennen’ Institute when Elat Chayyim’s founder, Rabbi Jeff Roth, proposed offering students the next level of training.
Each day’s schedule includes morning and evening prayers, text study, small group work and classes in traditional skills like leining or Torah chanting.
Among the Davennen’ prayer institute’s more innovative practices are “davening labs.” After the morning prayer service, “People take their talleisim back out and we daven again, but this time in a master-class sort of format,” Prager said.
The instructors analyze, detail by detail, the service just completed. For instance, if you’re singing a song about joy, why is there not as much joy in your face as there is in the song?
Participants might be asked about different ways of praying: What if you floated the melody underneath? What if you carried the scroll like this? What if you smiled? Do you notice where your hands are? Do you notice whether you’re making eye contact with the congregation?
A well-executed service, Zevit said, is “almost like scene after scene in a good play rolling into each other, [with] entrances and exits.” Moments of transition between one portion of the service and another … need not be “dead space,” Zevit said.
In the months between sessions, participants keep in touch online via a listserv. A few have even started a cyber-davening group, in which a regular morning minyan logs on to a video-conferencing Web site to pray and members practice what they’ve learned together.
Zevit and Prager are planning an additional opportunity for participants to practice — an “advanced week,” part reunion and part continuing education session, in 2010.
“People now want a place where they can come back, re-tune and have an opportunity to be raised up to be teachers,” Zevit said.
Contact Beth Schwartzapfel at feedback@forward.com
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As a leader in a havurah in Aspen i took these classes and its complitley changed my way of leading a prayer i suggest this classes to any one who would like to emerses himself in dovening
Thank you so much, Beth and The Forward for this very gracious article! We are blessed to partner with the many participants from all streams of Jewish life in this endeavor. More info available at www.dlti.homestead.com and registration at www.isabellafreedman.org/dlti
I can't wait to hear the details of an "advanced week." Wonderful publicity! Mazal tov.
Lovely article, Forward. Thank you. Like others, I also am looking forward to an "advanced week/reunion" in 2010.
no wonder my own sweet rabbi sherril comes home from these events. i feel blessed just to be a small part of such holy joy.
may i truly say, no wonder my own sweet rabbi sherril comes home from these events so full of light and enthusiasm. i feel blessed just to be a small part of such holy joy.
please remove this and the first incomplete email asap. thank you and sorry for the trouble. beth's article is wonderful. regards, terry
The questionable!! article, I quote below.
Those of us who care about the quality.. leadership (and this means probably everyone on this list!) here is the url with some info on the Davennen Leaders Training Institute. DLTI is a program of Elat Chayyim, the Jewish Renewal retreat center in northwestern Connecticut. it is a great program that trains people in the sacred art of leading congregational worship-- not just the melodies but the whole spiritual/emotional dynamic of a service.
The program is directed by Rabbis Marcia Prager and Shawn Zevit; I do the nusach/music workshops.
I got quite excited as someone is really caring about Shule quality of davening. The words are exact, but... they dont fit the action or the photographs..
I was horrified, sorry to say and shocked, as I saw and couldnt believe the photos.
I first thought it was a Purim Shpiel, women dressed as men and wearing Tallit!! But as I realized to my dismay, its real!
Coming from an orthodox home and environment, ex British and now living in Jerusalem, it seems and is miles away from the 'real' thing..
I know the reform movement is quite wide in the States.
In America, there are always "new ideas" to catch on to.
It is an American thing, as you look into Europe, the practice is virtually non existant.
I am not asking you all to suddenly turn overnight into Charedi, or become fanatical ( I am modern orthodox- the movement of Benei Akiva.) But as you look throughout Jewish history, the fact remains that the orthodox, or whatever you would like to call it, has remained for thousand of years. Thousands of people, frum, traditional, non- religious visit the graves of our ancestors. Why,, its because every Jew has that feeling, spark of..belonging. whether orthodox, traditional or like your special movement.
Actually it is nice to see that you are caring, to daven.
Throughout the Jewish World there are now big Ba'al Teshuva movements It has just grown, and obviously there is a need for you to daven, to become involved in Judaism. That is really great, because otherwise you would be swallowed up into inter-marriage and the likes of the disappearing Jew in assimilation.
I feel, that despite it is quite outside the norm of Jewish practice, you are evidently clutching on to something. This something is the Jewish Neshama( soul) in each of us. Your need is a burning desire to communicate in your own ways, as a Davening leaders Institute. It is a wonderful idea ( I could recommend it to some of the orthodox brethren) BUT.. if you would only turn it into an Orthodox ( I dont mean fanatics, as you seem to think is the way of the majority of Jews)
Davening Leaders, with men and women separate, it would grow to most gigantic proportions. All these "orthodox' themes and many books have been written how a Jew should behave, in his life, in his prayers, how he should conduct himself. Why, its because there is a need for a Jew to become just that, and not to be caught up in the 'new' fashionable ways of our times. This 'old fashioned" way as you see it, has kept the Jewish people, or else the Jews and religion would just been assimilated years ago, starting with the 400 years of Jews as slaves in Egypt. Your movement theory is wonderful, but the practice is belies..
Its like trying to bake a cake, in an unorthodox manner.. The recipe calls for flour and water, oil spices etc, but you are trying to construct a new idea. baking it with glue, string, water, flour. yes the cake will hold for a certain while, but in the end the conventional cake will win.. eventually you will see the correct way and meaning.
Its a matter of logic, as otherwise, all these orthodox, traditional Jews would have disappeared long ago, in favour of the new.
As this is the month of Ellul, I ask forgiveness ( slicha) if my criticism offended anyone.
Come visit Israel, and please continue to daven
Wishing you all Shana Tova V'Ketiva V'Chatima Tova.
Kol Tuv,
Anna Schlesinger