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August 20, 2010
Growing a spiritual toolbox
DLTI retreat attracts international communal leaders and learners.
SUSAN J. KATZ
“We are in a time of tremendous potential and peril for our world – a time that requires of those of us who are willing to rise to the very best we can be, to become the people who can truly manifest our most hopeful vision of the future. Jewish spiritual practice offers a very potent toolbox for that work.” These are the words of Rabbi Marcia Prager, who spoke with the Independent at the Davvennen’ Leadership Training Institute (DLTI) held early this month at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Centre in Connecticut. Prager co-led the prayer leadership education program along with Chazzan Jack Kessler, Rabbi Shawn Zevit and Daniel Sheff.
“The DLTI is one of the most important and beloved things I do. One function of spiritual practice is to school the soul so we can grow into our own capacity,” Prager explained. A spiritual toolbox consists of “Torah, mitzvot, cycles of Jewish life and practice, and the synergy created by their practice.”
Participants at the retreat program came from all corners of the globe and included members from Canada, the United States, Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands and Costa Rica.
According to Effron Esseiva, a resident of Bowen Island, who attended this first of four DLTI sessions, “It’s not hard to imagine davening (praying) Shacharit, Minchah and Ma’ariv as a daily routine, squeezed in among other daily routines such as work and school. It’s an entirely different matter to make it the sole focus of a week.”
According to organizers, DLTI is for those seeking a unique learning experience to help lead worship and other communal events in a Jewish context, and to deepen the quality of communal prayer so that it activates the body, touches the heart, engages the mind and nourishes genuine spiritual growth and insight. Employing the participatory approach of an intensive master class, the program coaches participants in the art of leadership in public ritual and prayer. The full training is a two-year program consisting of four five-day retreats. Participants become a living and learning fellowship. Throughout each retreat, the group and faculty join in ongoing davening, text study, group discussions and master-class style coaching.
According to Zevit, “Co-leadership is one of the unique features of the program. You can get the siddur and tapes, but here we give participants feedback on an informed liturgy, rather than the vacuum of not knowing what they are doing. This may or may not bring new skills, but it does engage people in a different way, without changing the liturgy. The program is not just for leading, but for community connection.”
In a workshop to open the voice to Jewish nusach (musical prayer modes), Kessler told the group gathered in the spacious synagogue, “We are physical and spiritual. Singing is a factory-installed program. The start of grounded singing begins with our first cry.” According to Zevit, “Pray with your instrument: the instrument is your davenin’ voice.”
The focus of nusach learning for this first week was the weekday Freygish nusach, otherwise known as the Ahavah Rabbah mode. Musically, Ahavah Rabbah is considered to be the most Jewish sounding of all the prayer modes, because of the interval of an augmented second, contained between its second and third scale degrees. The nusach serves both to identify different types of prayer and to link those prayers to the time of year or even time of day in which they are set, and is an important component of the Jewish toolbox. According to Kessler, unlike Western music, the minor keys in Jewish music, such as the Freygish, are uplifting, and the major, brighter keys are the serious tones.
Sheff, who finished the DLTI program in 2002, is a physician who practises internal medicine and rheumatology and is a graduate of A Society of Souls’ program in kabbalistic healing. “I grew up with a secular Jewish background with no organized Jewish education,” he explained. “In 1987, I saw a young rabbi with a guitar at shul, and loved it. I learned prayer by reading lips. The music touched me. It gives voice and substance to things I’d always had a sense of.”
Sheff went on to learn more about Judaism and, shortly after 9/11, he was returning home from a Shabbaton and “stood at the stairs to the subway home, transfixed. I needed more – I stayed and spent the day with Prager.” He is now a core member of the DLTI staff.
A typical day at DLTI begins just after 6 a.m. with meditation, a Shacharit service led by three or four and a silent breakfast, followed by a three-hour morning study session and break-out group discussions. Then it’s lunch, and back again into the sanctuary for afternoon master classes in vocal skills and the “davenin’ lab,” where morning service is re-created and several moments are singled out to illustrate key conceptual shifts. After a break to rest, swim, read, catch up on e-mail and have dinner, participants meet with a group for personal sharing, followed by a participant-led Ma’ariv service.
According to Esseiva, “To be here, in a kosher setting with a large group of like-minded people, was like an instant-friendship chicken soup for the soul. I hope that the deepening of my knowledge will allow me to contribute in different ways to my communities on Bowen Island, Or Shalom [in Vancouver], and more. Being connected to other DLTI students and the teachers is a tremendous resource and source of energy for me.” In other words, “Keeping it Freygish!”
Information about DLTI can be found at davvenenleadership.com.
Susan J. Katz attended the DLTI and is a Vancouver freelance writer and editor.
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