Dreading the Length of High Holiday Services? The Yerushalmi Talmud Feels Your Pain

I enjoy my e-mails from Maqom and Rabbi Judith Z. Abrams, who is helping adults experience the joys of studying Talmud, especially the lesser-known Jerusalem version of this epic text.  According to scholars of Jewish literature, the Jerusalem Talmud predates the more widely studied Babylonian version by about 200 years.  There are some similarities between the two versions.   However, it is the differences that often peak our interest as we delve into the lives of the two Jewish communities, the one that remained in Judea after the destruction of the First Temple, and the other that had been exiled.

We are about to begin another new year in the Jewish calendar.  For many of us, September 8 seems awfully early for such things, coming on the heels of  Labor Day and the start of school.  The truth of the matter is that Rosh Hashanah comes each year exactly on time, on the first of Tishrei according to the cycle of the moon.  (By the way, next year Tishrei begins at the end of September because this is a leap year in our calendar, in which we add an extra month of Adar to keep the Pilgrimage Festivals in their proper seasons.  Seven times out of a cycle of 19 years we insert an extra month to our year.)

Regardless of the date, there is a sense of excitement about the High Holidays. People are preparing their menus, arranging in their minds the seating around the table, what to do with the leftovers, what they should wear to the synagogue.  We anticipate seeing our friends and acquaintances, and the awe and wonder of the services. The holidays also evoke some feelings of dread, including the ones in which we think that the services will never end.

A Talmudic passage supports this feeling. Even the sages of long ago “wish the whole thing could be shorter,” to quote Rabbi Abrams.  Perhaps the most tedious passage is the Shofar service that is part of the Musaf Amidah.  All morning long we wait in anticipation of the blowing of the shofar, only to wait even longer for the chazzan to chant verse after verse of Tanach (Torah, Prophets, and Writings). Three times we wait – first Malkhuyot, God’s Kingship;  then Zikhronot, God’s Remembering of the promises made to each of us and to Israel as a community; and finally Shofarot – the voice of that ancient instrument that pulls at the heartstrings.  So many verses!  Is this all necessary?

Here is what the sages of the Yerushalmi had to say on the matter.  We read in Y. Tractate Rosh Hashanah 4:7:

“Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said:
If one recited three (verses)
he has fulfilled his obligation.
We used to think to say:
three verses from each [part of the Tanach, i.e., 3 from Torah, 3 from Prophets, 3 from Writings].
But it was found to be taught (T. Rosh Hashanah 2:12):
Even three from all of them, [i.e., 1 from Torah, 1 from Prophets, 1 from Writings],
he has fulfilled his obligation.”

Sound off if you will on the topic. It appears as though the sages are trying to say “fewer words and more shofar music.” Do we “get more” from hearing the shofar being blown than from reading a bunch of words on a page?  Is less talk more meaningful?

If the goal of being together in prayer is to support each other in our vulnerable moments and to celebrate with one another in moments of happiness, how would you restructure the service so that we don’t lose the majesty and the mystery created by the addition of piyyutim, liturgical poems that are designed to help us focus on the theme for the day? Please feel free to share your comments.