Give me a break

Maybe I'm unusual (I hope so, but in a good way).

I go 6 days-a-week to bet knesset (“shul”) - Sunday I stay home so I can say my prayers slowly and correct reading errors and study commentaries and footnotes.

Monday through Friday I go to work right after the minyan. Ideally, I'd like to start at 6 or 6:30 so I can be “on the job” by 8. We normally start at 7, but with the extended s'lihot (that doesn't start until 6 or a little later) and add the extra prayers for a fast day, I got to the office at 8:30.

Young Israel down the road – which only now is encountering s'lihot – has an earlier minyan and, if the one time I was there years ago is any indication, the service moves along at a rapid pace; perfect for the working man (who “davens” Nusach Ashkenaz – don't ask me which “variation on the [Ashkenazi nusach] theme” is used at YI; I wouldn't know Litvak from German from Chelm).

In Bet Shean the nusach changes (to nusach North Africa), but a fast, albeit complete, service is the rule. No hazan.

Because some – OK, much - of the service is recited with a melody, the Bet Shean morning service, complete with Torah, takes maybe 10 or 15 minutes more than the same service at Young Israel. Both YI and the congregation I join in Bet Shean are “working men's minyans.”

I'm not anti-social; if I'm on vacation or have a day off, I'll gladly join my fellow “minyanaires” for a cup of tea (with nana [spearmint] and too much sugar, if you please) and maybe a cookie. But for day-to-day services, I'd like the hazen to either take a break or get with the program. My congregation “imports” a hazan from Israel for Yomai Noraim – same fellow every year, I'm told.

His voice is OK, but – as you may have guessed – I go to synagogue to pray, not to be “entertained.” In short, I am not a fan of “hazenute” and I particularly am not a fan of paying to bring, house, and feed a hazan from elsewhere, especially when we HAVE a hazan.

To me fair, both the resident hazan and the rent-a-hazan have good tenor voices (I'd prefer a baratone, but those apparently are harder to find) and, to his credit, the rent-a-hazan showed up at the Monday-after-Rosh HaShanna morning minyan … as “just another Jew.” He has my fullest respect.

There was a self-proclaimed hazan at one congregation who dragged out a blessing soooo long that by the time he finally got to “Baruch atah” we'd forgotten what the blessing was all about. It's about the same on Yomai Noraim, especially on Yom Kippor.

I don't begrudge the time I spend with HaShem, but do I have to listen to what pains my ears? Next year I'm going to look for a congregation that is too poor to hire a hazan, one where the members come to pray rather than be entertained.

My brother-in-law and his son are part-time hazens in “the olde country.” They are nice guys, but even with the family connection my opinion of hazenute stays at the same level - “spare me.” Maybe I'll chalk up the “entertainment” as “afflicting my soul” on Rosh haShanna and Yom Kippor, but if I had a choice . . .

Yohanon Glenn
Yohanon.Glenn at gmail dot com