Some sage or wag once said, “Change is the only constant in the universe!”  Whether or not that is true of the universe I do not know.  But this I do know:  It is most certainly true of our worship services.

For the past few months, we have been experimenting with moving both the opening and the closing of our services into the Social Hall.  Our goal was to increase our sense of a worship community.  We started each Shabbat in the Social Hall with lighting the Shabbat candles, greeting each other, and singing “Hinei Mah Tov” as we processed into the sanctuary.  And then, at the end of our service we returned to the Social Hall, not only for oneg, but for Kiddush and HaMotsi as well.

These experiments have met with mixed reviews, at best.  It seems that no one liked our opening rituals in the Social Hall.  In fact, there were some who were quite outspoken in their distaste for that change.  As for holding our closing rituals in the Social Hall, while there were some who liked the opportunity to grab a little cup of wine or grape juice and join more meaningfully in Kiddush, still there were those who missed having the children come up on the bimah for HaMotsi and there were those who missed having the Rabbi and Cantor greet them personally in the receiving line.

In light of the feedback we received, the Ritual Committee has re-evaluated these changes and has de­cided to scrap them, returning to our previous customs of having candles, Kiddush and HaMotsi in the sanctuary, with a receiving line at the end of the service.

As we consider these changes, we should realize that not only are they significant, but more importantly, they are instructive.

First of all, they remind us that change is indeed a constant when it comes to worship here at Temple Emanuel.  We are constantly evaluating and re-evaluating our worship services with an eye toward how we can make them more meaningful and more inspiring for our congregants.  It is in this spirit that change is not something that we are afraid of but rather something that we embrace, often enthusiasti­cally.

Second, these particular changes demonstrate that when it comes to worship, change is not mono-direc­tional.  We can move backward as well as forward.  We can return to something old as well as try some­thing new.  Our worship change can take us in the direction of heretofore unheard of practices; in the di­rection of traditional practices which in the past may have not been a part Reform Jewish worship; or in the direction of Reform practices which we have set aside but are now returning to.  The bottom line is that when it comes to altering our worship service, every conceivable option is a legitimate option and worthy of at least our consideration.

That freedom is one of the beauties of Reform Judaism.  We are not bound by ritual dogma.  We can play with our service, tweaking it to our hearts’ content until we get it to a point where we feel that it moves us, it inspires us, it excites us.  Even when we get to that point, we still keep a weather eye out for oppor­tunities to make it even better.  For in Reform Judaism, the service lives and breathes.  It needs to be con­tinually nurtured and nourished, just as our spiritual selves continually need to be nurtured and nourished.

One of the ironies of modern Jewish life is that the Reform approach to worship is truly the traditional approach.  While the Orthodox are quick to condemn our tinkering with our services, as they point to their prayer book, proclaiming it the authoritative, authentic Jewish worship manual - inviolate, written in stone as it were - one need only look to the history of Jewish worship to see how wrong they are.  For the history of Jewish worship - especially the history of prayer worship - is a history of experimentation; a history of tinkering with an evolving spiritual experience.  While the Mishnah, which dates to around 200 C.E., and the Talmud, which dates to around 500 C.E., deal extensively with issues of prayer, still the first actual prayer book does not appear on the Jewish scene until 860 C.E.  Up until that point, while the rabbis discussed the rubrics of prayer, prayer itself was an oral tradition.  Indeed, the nature of prayer was a matter of local custom, with each community creating its own worship nuances.  Indeed, the prayer book was created because there was such a diversity of local worship that there was a pressing need in the Jewish world for some sort of prayer standardization.

But even after the prayer book was introduced, Jewish worship never stagnated.  It evolved with each generation making its contribution.  Indeed, the prayer book that the Orthodox worship from today pres­ents us with a fascinating tour of Jewish worship customs across the ages and across the globe.  You find poetry from the medieval Jewish communities of Europe.  You find philosophical tracts from the Jewish communities of the Islamic world.  You find pieces of Jewish mysticism.  You even find prayers from our own age; prayers addressing the Holocaust and the State of Israel.

So you see, when it comes to worship, the Jewish tradition is a tradition of change, not stagnation.

I just returned from the annual conference of the Mid West Association of Reform Rabbis.  These confer­ences are a wonderful mix of study, community building, professional development, addressing the issues confronting our movement, and yes, leisure.  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that high on our discussion agenda was the nature of Mishkan Tefilah,  the upcoming new prayer book for our movement.  This was not an easy discussion for this may be the most difficult prayer book to publish in the history of American Reform Judaism.  Why so difficult?  Because we have become such a diverse group.  We all yearn for a prayer book which will speak for our movement; a prayer book that we can share in common, but there is little unanimity among us.  As Reform Jews, we stretch far to the right, seriously into Conser­vative Judaism, as well as far to the left, deep into our classical Reform Jewish roots.  Indeed, I used to think that our congregation was mainstream Reform in our worship, that is until last summer when I went to camp.  There I experienced a degree of traditional practice that even made me squirm a little - me, who wants to bring more tradition into our worship.  Therein lies the problem of the new prayer book.  A prayer book, to be effective and worthwhile, needs to speak to the people in meaningful ways.  However, what is meaningful to one segment of our movement is not meaningful to another.  While one group wants to see us return to praying for the resurrection of the dead - which to me is inconceivable within the framework of Reform Jewish theology - another group wants to insure that the prayer book has many inspiring contemporary English prayers - which seems to be an anathema to those on the more traditional end, who believe all prayer should be in Hebrew.  So what will be the answer.  The challenge facing the Liturgy Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and particularly the editorial board of this prayer book, will be to create a prayer book that is flexible; that contains enough choices in it that Reform Jews from across the spectrum can pull from it services that speak to them in meaningful ways.