Shabbat Shira (a week early)

Friday night we went to services at Yakar, the Karlebach synagogue behind our apartment. We tend to avoid their downstairs minyan, as the tunes are dirge-like and haunting, and the Rabbi's speeches tend to be rambling and difficult to hear. All of these things happened, but the trip was worth it because Abba Parker got to see Rabbi MIntz, a long-time friend from Buffalo who now spends half of each year in Israel. We then had dinner with the entire Melton convention at the Prima Royale.

For Saturday's davening we finally made it to Shirah Hadashah, a progressive halachic minyan that gives women the opportunity to participate in many leadership and prayer roles closed to them in standard Orthodox synagogues. While the singing was perhaps the most beautiful collection of tunes and harmonies we have ever heard in a service, Jon was very disappointed that there wasn't a minyan for the first twenty minutes, and there wasn't a minyan of members until at least שמע. To our thinking, if you are going to express commitment to pushing the borders of Orthodoxy into the modern era, you should be committed enough to show up to shul on time, and to making sure there is a minyan. That Friday night services garner greater and more timely attendance than those Saturday seems to indicate that what brings people together here is socializing and song, not a commitment to a religious ideal, which is fine, just not how they advertise themselves.