A different way to pray
Day schools offer creative alternatives to traditional morning services

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

As the bulk of Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School students head to the synagogue for morning prayers, 20 students instead make their way upstairs to a large open space that has become their sanctuary — in more ways than one.

Separated by a blond wood mehitza, 12 boys and eight girls discuss a topic taken from the morning newspaper, hold an abbreviated service, analyze some of the prayers, and conclude with a student’s presentation on worship. The participants say it’s a world apart from the prayer experiences to be had downstairs, where students take part in the full ritual of the traditional morning service.

Some upstairs worshipers like the more intimate environment; some like the shorter service. For Beth Prupis Kern, it’s about finding a comfort and interest level. “Downstairs it’s boring, and a lot of rabbis get up and say, ‘I don’t understand why you’re not davening.’ Up here, there’s no pressure, and I have a reason to daven. I can daven to myself and that’s okay. We spend the days focusing on these special prayers and it’s comfortable.”

The upstairs minyan, or prayer service, at the Livingston yeshiva began three years ago as a way to offer an alternative experience in learning about prayer to a self-selected group of juniors and seniors. It’s an acknowledgement, increasingly common in day schools, that some middle and high school students find it difficult to sustain concentration during the lengthy and structured morning service, known as Shaharit.

In fact, a new approach to morning prayer is emerging as a “very serious issue” throughout the day-school world, according to Jeremiah Unterman, director of the Association of Modern Orthodox Day Schools and Yeshiva High Schools. He acknowledged that because of the pressures of the dual English-Hebrew curriculum, many schools do not spend time teaching the meaning and significance of the prayers, either at the elementary level or even at the more sophisticated high school level.

The alternative minyan, he said, gives students a chance “to really understand specific prayers. The philosophy is that it is better to say fewer prayers with more meaning and intention, or kavana, than to say more prayers with less meaning. The goal should be eventually to cover all the prayers and move into the regular minyan with greater kavana.”

The Conservative movement is seeing a similar trend. The Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union has just begun experimenting with alternative minyanim. Since the December break, on any given morning, the West Orange school has at least 15 different options, from a musical minyan to an outdoor minyan. And for a handful of students, the idea of worshiping from a standard siddur, or prayerbook, is scrapped altogether.

Brooke Raskin of West Orange, 16, doesn’t feel comfortable with the liturgy of the siddur. “There are things I don’t agree with,” she told NJ Jewish News. Her feelings deepened after her father nearly died last year, an event that challenged her beliefs about God and mercy. Now, she spends the time allotted to prayer in the library, where she is creating an alternative siddur of art and poetry.

One January morning, she completed a pencil sketch to accompany Modeh Ani, the traditional prayer thanking God upon arising in the morning. In the drawing, a girl, standing near a bed, looks out an open window at the rising sun. “It’s wonderful that they are trying to accommodate how I feel,” Raskin said. “Now I am able to express myself and have begun to understand how I feel and why. I spend this time writing, thinking, and drawing.”

‘The right match’

For Schechter students, who are drawn from homes with a wide range of observance, daily morning prayer may not be a family tradition. But even for youngsters at the Orthodox Kushner, Shaharit can be fraught with issues. “These kids wake up tired; a lot of them are getting off a one-and-a-half-hour bus ride, and they don’t want to be forced to daven,” said guidance counselor Rabbi Richard Kirsch, who leads the alternative service at Kushner with Varda Weinstock, the school’s learning coach and Learning Lab coordinator. “They want to come to it on their own terms…. We’re waking up to the reality that kids today are not finding the fulfillment they should be getting from davening.” Kirsch said he believes that students who find a comfortable niche become more engaged.

At Schechter, Ami Abramson and Carrie Zucker-Siegel, known as “experiential educators,” take a similar approach. “We’re creating opportunities for students to find individual and personal meaning, and to build community,” said Abramson.

He pointed to those students in the minyan shira, the musical minyan, led by Rabbi Herbert Kavon. “If kids don’t find the right match, they don’t respond,” Abramson said. The students who select the musical minyan are those who look forward to reciting the prayers through song.

Kirsch has found that that principle holds true for Kushner’s alternative minyan as well. “Kids lead the davening here who never have the courage to lead downstairs,” he said. “And some kids have approached me to work one-to-one with them because they want to lead the davening. It’s unbelievable.”

Kirsch views his work within the Orthodox community as nothing less than outreach, a term that usually applies to education among unaffiliated Jews. In his case, it means inspiring kids who already have a strong background. “I came from the JCC world. I thought in the yeshiva world I couldn’t be an outreach worker and use my skills,” he said. “But now I feel this is so important for the school.” The alternative minyan is limited to about 30 juniors and seniors. Occasionally, exceptions are made for freshmen or sophomores. Kirsch, however, would like to expand the number of alternative experiences available.

Kushner student Benji Fischer, 17, of Monsey, NY, said he appreciated the analyses of particular prayers, which followed a discussion of current events. “It gives me a better approach to davening — I understand it better,” he said. “I understand more: like what God is saying.”

“There’s more listening and discussion here,” added 18-year-old Joshua Yoselosky of West Orange. Katie Roth of Staten Island said she particularly enjoys Weinstock’s reviews of the liturgy. “She touches on the prayer; she tells stories that connect us to the davening.”

At Schechter, Abramson acknowledged that not every idea will succeed. “With adolescents, some don’t know what will speak to them, so we give them different experiences,” he said. “I don’t think the same formula works for everyone. But you can’t just create a traditional minyan and think everyone will walk out and feel incredible about prayer. Some students will be excited; some will not.”

And that goes for the alternatives as well, about which he added, “Some will be successful; some will not. We’ll see how it turns out.”

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnews.com.