Musical minyan lures crowds to Berkeley

Warren Gould doesn't really see himself as the unconventional sort.

Most of the time the retired resident of Oakland's Montclair District feels fulfilled by a standard Friday night service at his Conservative synagogue, Conservative Temple Beth Abraham.

But once in a while, Gould and his wife, Outi, have the inclination to add something a bit out of the ordinary to their spiritual menu. So every other month or so, they go to Berkeley to attend Shir HaShirim: Song of Songs Minyan at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center.

The egalitarian Kabbalat Shabbat service combines Sephardi, Mizrachi and Ashkenazi liturgy into an evening of music, prayer, dance and meditation. It mixes poetic and liturgical elements, audience participation and performances by professional musicians on authentic instruments from around the globe. It's held on the second Friday of every month and is free of charge.

For Gould and his wife, it's like stepping into another world.

"The energy and the music -- that's the big lure for us," Gould said, adding that it takes him away from his regular daily concerns.

"We're usually a bit more formal," added Gould. "But I'm impressed that there's a lot of ways to celebrate our faith."

The need for a new type of forum for celebrating faith is one of the reasons Shir HaShirim was formed three years ago, said Berkeley resident Rabbi Michael Ziegler, a founder and leader of the minyan.

"My experience in the East Bay was that there was very little going on in terms of Friday night services," he said. "Most synagogues were not very aesthetically appealing and the common wisdom was that nobody [except the fervently religious] would come out to a service on Friday nights."

With an eye toward the unaffiliated Jewish community, Ziegler, Cantor Richard Kaplan, cantorial soloist Rachel Brott, singer Laurie Polster, poet Laura Sheppard and oudist John Erlich created an aesthetic approach involving musical performance, poetry and prayer. Working on a volunteer basis, the performers rehearse once prior to their monthly service to prepare.

A new siddur, created with English translations and transliterations lined up with the Hebrew, allows for participation on all levels.

"Our goal was to make the service as accessible as possible," said Kaplan. "That way everyone can know and feel what they're singing."

"The thesis is that if you present Jewish liturgy from around the world authentically and with a high level of sophisticated presentation," said Ziegler, "all together you could create a context that people would be drawn to.

"And, in fact, it works."

It does, indeed. With only a short history, Shir HaShirim, modeled after B'nai Jeshurun, a standing-room-only service held in New York, has grown from a small space in an attendee's home to a dance studio in the JCC. Services draw anywhere between 250 and 300 people.

"By the time we get there, every seat is taken -- it used to be easier to find a place to park," said Gould. "But people really seem to get swept up into it. There's an atmosphere of enthusiastic participation, ranging from pleased to quite enthused."

Much of the music, such as the Moroccan, Iraqi, Syrian and Sephardi, comes from Middle Eastern Jewish communities. The group performs a mixture of up-tempo dance music and contemplative, meditative music -- using authentic Middle Eastern instruments such as the lute-like oud and the dombek, an hourglass shaped drum.

"The music is a powerful part of it," said Kaplan. "We try to find a balance between prayer, singing, meditation and dance. The goal is really to eliminate anything perfunctory, make every word count and to spiritualize the service as much as possible."

Many American Jews are unaware of the true spiritual nature of Judaism, said Ziegler. Jewish music can serve as a pathway to spirituality, he said.

Erlich, the oudist, said that Tarab, an Arabic term for enchantment, is the type of entertainment that rises to the level of spiritual experience for both the performer and the listener.

"This widespread outcry said Judaism doesn't have any depth -- there's spirituality in every culture but our own -- they're unaware of any Jewish poetic tradition other than what they've learned in their synagogue," said Ziegler. "We're trying to educate and raise the level of awareness about Jewish liturgy and where it came from. There's a huge community that doesn't live in America that are Jews."

Gould said he finds the Middle Eastern melodies appealing, calling them a nice variation from the "old Ashkenazi music I grew up with." Overall, however, he said he would never stop going to the regular Kabbalat Shabbat services at Beth Abraham.

But as Ziegler pointed out, the idea of Shir HaSharim is to add to the Jewish community, rather than take away.

"Shir HaSharim isn't a synagogue -- it's just once a month, there's no dues, you can't get married or bar mitzvahed," said Ziegler. "It's an important way to present the depth of our contemplative and traditional side that congregants would never experience in their own synagogue."