Leslie Feldman
Congregation Or Ami in Lafayette Hill is looking to redefine the Shabbat experience.
“Our Shabbat service experience is designed to be inclusive, relevant, thoughtful, participatory and easily accessible,” said Scott Allen, the synagogue’s executive director.
Throughout the service, Senior Rabbi Glenn Ettman and Cantor Jordan Franzel intersperse explanations of the prayers and contemporary connections to Judaism between the traditional liturgy.
Drawing from a statement by Ahad Ha’Am (the pen name of Hebrew essayist Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg) that “more that the people have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the people together,” Or Ami’s goal is to create and foster authentic relationships and connections. The rabbi and cantor explore at least five unique moments in the Torah portion — they call it “Five Points of Torah.”
To further bolster the experience, the synagogue will implement a new Shabbat concept this fall called The Rhythm of Shabbat.
The concept’s seeds were born out of the congregation’s strategic plan completed in the fall of 2019. The synagogue’s program director, Carrie Matez, took the approach of “how can we get the most people in the building” — the idea was to have various offerings providing different points of entry to allow congregants to best experience Shabbat.
Matez believes that it is one thing to come together for Shabbat services to appreciate the liturgy and music, but it is another to find ways to enhance the Shabbat experience by creating different points of entry.
“The synagogue’s goal is to provide different ways to access Shabbat by creating more musical-based services, inviting speakers on certain relevant topics, celebrating our students participating in services and explaining what the prayers mean,” she said. “By creating these unique experiences, we hope to enhance existing relationships while enabling new ones to be formed, all the while making Shabbat more relevant.”
The service will focus on how the various rhythms in our lives connect to Shabbat. Each week, there will be a particular theme — either celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, highlighting religious school students as they participate in some way, hearing from speakers on particular topics like mental health, antisemitism and more, and finally, a musical celebration infusing nonliturgical music in prayer settings to help create deeper connections.
Ettman believes that there is always room to grow and lives with the idea that we can always reflect and try to be better at what we do.
“Stemming from a Chasidic idea that we are not yet the best version of ourselves, mixed with a desire to get people back in the building celebrating our community, we decided to create weekly offerings that would appeal to different segments of the population,” Ettman said.
“We realize the rhythms of daily life, and we want our services to be part of people’s Shabbat experience. By inviting people to celebrate their birthday and anniversary month with a special blessing from the cantor and me, or having our students participate in the services themselves along with bringing speakers and musical participation, we are finding different points of entry to experience Shabbat.”
As the synagogue kicks off the programmatic and school year, it is excited to launch the concept.
“We promise that there will be something for everyone including new connections to prayer and community, which are the hallmarks of Congregation Or Ami,” Allen said.
Leslie Feldman is a Philadelphia-area freelance writer.
