While I’m restoring my iPod in an attempt to get it to be less annoying, I may as well write something.

There are some great things going on at my shul. Great people with great projects and great innovations and the like. All of the people in charge, I believe, are wonderful and well-intentioned and doing really good things that could be real positive contributions to the synagogue.

And I’m worried.

I’m worried about what I’m hearing from other congregants. I’m worried about certain attitudes I feel brewing around these innovations, approvals and disapprovals and divisions and personality cults etc.

So I’m going to discuss principles rather than people, because I’ve not yet had conversations with the people involved, and I’m trying not to engage in Lashon HaRa here.

I love to sing. I mean I really, really love to sing. There is very little else in this world that makes me happier. Singing is up there with Really Good Learning and sex on my enjoyment meter. So I can easily see why people call the experience of singing “spiritual.” And indeed, I do find that singing and harmonizing and clapping and dancing can enhance my davenning experience.

But there is a difference between a singing experience and a davenning experience. I might feel the same visceral thrill singing Eddie From Ohio or Great Big Sea songs with my friends as I do singing Havu L’Adonai at Kabbalat Shabbat. The difference is in the content. The difference is the singing as the experience itself, versus the singing as an extra set of wings to elevate the davenning.

Getting the content, folks, takes work. I’m really sorry, but there’s no getting around that.

Now, the problem arises when you’ve got two minyanim, one which is, shall we say, “traditional” in the sense that it follows more or less a certain established pattern, shaliach tzibbur, a standard nusach, a sanctuary of a certain size with immobile pews, etc. The second is, shall we say, “neo-Chassidische” in the sense that it intentionally utilizes a smaller, less formal-appearing space, leadership is shared (people stand around the sha”tz and kind of co-sha”tz together), upbeat catchy niggunim are used to encourage harmonizing, hand-clapping and the like, etc.

It is not the existence of these two minyanim that is the problem. On the contrary, I think it is wonderful. When I was living in Jerusalem over the past two years I loved the fact that I had the option to go to a relatively standard traditional Conservative service, a Chassidische Carlebach service, a quasi-egal Carlebach-y service, a standard Orthodox service, a young hip non-denominational egal niggun-heavy service, etc. you get the idea. Options are good. Having the ability, the resources, to switch things up is good. Exposing yourself to different davenning experiences is good. Being able to pray effectively in different communal models is good.

Competition, however, is very very bad.

I wish to reiterate, it seems to me that it is not the leaders who are fostering the competitive attitude I am sensing. It is those who make presumptive statements about one service or the other’s lack of “authenticity” or “neshama” or “kavannah.” It seems to always boil down to something political, something that becomes personal, something that is insulting or imposing or lacking…

Personally, I think there needs to be some re-education going on here. We need to start talking about what it means to daven in a community, as part of a community. Perhaps we need to back it up further and teach people what it means to daven, period.

Davenning is less about you and your experience than you think it is. I think someone needs to be brave enough to say that out loud to our population of middle class American Conservative Jews.