Baal tefillah vs. baal koreh
For the life of me, I couldn't remember the circumstances that inspired me to write my Praying on autopilot post--I couldn't think of any time when a baal tefillah (prayer leader) in our local synagogue would be facing the congregation and reciting a prayer in which he would visibly fail to close his mouth to make a properly-pronounced mem sofit. Then there was yesterday. And the prayer in question was Birkat HaChodesh/Blessing of the New Month. Three times in the course of that prayer, the baal tefillah failed to close his mouth to make a properly-pronounced mem sofit.
Sigh.
So I mentioned to him that he pronounced Hebrew much better when he was leining than when he was leading.
Later, I realized that there's actually a logical explanation. A leiner's/baalat(at) koreh's (Torah reader's) reading is strictly controlled. First of all, s/he must chant in accordance with the trup/trope/cantillation accepted by her/his particular community (Ashkenazi, Sefardi, Yemenite, etc.). Second, any mistake in pronunciation will (or should be) corrected by a gabbai, or whatever the Torah-reader's assistant is called in that particular community. If a gabbai misses an error, the rabbi and/or cantor may very well chime in with the correction. In some synagogues, even a congregant or two might get in on the act--a baal koreh in our own shul might occasionally be corrected by one of our Israeli-American members calling out a correction from the back of the sanctuary!
A baal(at) tefillah, on the other hand, has a choice of standard nusach (traditional tunes that anyone who can read Hebrew and sing on key can lead), chazanut (traditional tunes more suited to those with vocal training), and/or more contemporary music (such as Shlomo Carlebach's or Debbie Friedman's Jewish religious music, or borrowed secular melodies). So he or she might make the, to me, egregious error of paying more attention to the music than to the words. And, depending on the synagogue, a baal(at) tefillah who has made an error might not be stopped, or criticized later.
By way of illustration, let me borrow this comment of mine from my Learning from the inside out post:
"Years ago, when we lived in Manhattan, we belonged to a dual-affiliated Conservative/Reconstructionist synagogue that observed the Shalosh Regalim/Pilgrimage Festivals in accordance with Israeli minhag/custom, not holding services on the second or "last" day. So we used to go "shul-hopping" on "shenis and acharons" (second and "last" days) to more traditional Conservative or Orthodox synagogues. On one such occasion, the cantor of one such traditional Conservative synagogue was giving quite a show. His hands were holding his carefully-folded tallit as if he were an opera singer and the tallit were a prop. But there was something else really bothering me about his "performance," and I couldn't figure out what it was--until the show-off accidentally substituted Shabbat [Sabbath] words where Festival words should have been, and I suddenly realized that he was looking straight ahead at the "audience" and wasn't looking down at his machzor (holiday prayer book) at all! I didn't set foot in that shul again until they got a new chazan/cantor.
Wed Mar 02, 01:23:00 PM 2011
Sigh.
So I mentioned to him that he pronounced Hebrew much better when he was leining than when he was leading.
Later, I realized that there's actually a logical explanation. A leiner's/baalat(at) koreh's (Torah reader's) reading is strictly controlled. First of all, s/he must chant in accordance with the trup/trope/cantillation accepted by her/his particular community (Ashkenazi, Sefardi, Yemenite, etc.). Second, any mistake in pronunciation will (or should be) corrected by a gabbai, or whatever the Torah-reader's assistant is called in that particular community. If a gabbai misses an error, the rabbi and/or cantor may very well chime in with the correction. In some synagogues, even a congregant or two might get in on the act--a baal koreh in our own shul might occasionally be corrected by one of our Israeli-American members calling out a correction from the back of the sanctuary!
A baal(at) tefillah, on the other hand, has a choice of standard nusach (traditional tunes that anyone who can read Hebrew and sing on key can lead), chazanut (traditional tunes more suited to those with vocal training), and/or more contemporary music (such as Shlomo Carlebach's or Debbie Friedman's Jewish religious music, or borrowed secular melodies). So he or she might make the, to me, egregious error of paying more attention to the music than to the words. And, depending on the synagogue, a baal(at) tefillah who has made an error might not be stopped, or criticized later.
By way of illustration, let me borrow this comment of mine from my Learning from the inside out post:
"Years ago, when we lived in Manhattan, we belonged to a dual-affiliated Conservative/Reconstructionist synagogue that observed the Shalosh Regalim/Pilgrimage Festivals in accordance with Israeli minhag/custom, not holding services on the second or "last" day. So we used to go "shul-hopping" on "shenis and acharons" (second and "last" days) to more traditional Conservative or Orthodox synagogues. On one such occasion, the cantor of one such traditional Conservative synagogue was giving quite a show. His hands were holding his carefully-folded tallit as if he were an opera singer and the tallit were a prop. But there was something else really bothering me about his "performance," and I couldn't figure out what it was--until the show-off accidentally substituted Shabbat [Sabbath] words where Festival words should have been, and I suddenly realized that he was looking straight ahead at the "audience" and wasn't looking down at his machzor (holiday prayer book) at all! I didn't set foot in that shul again until they got a new chazan/cantor.
Wed Mar 02, 01:23:00 PM 2011
posted by Shira Salamone at 1:39 PM
3 Comments:
"In some synagogues, even a congregant or two might get in on the act--a baal koreh in our own shul might occasionally be corrected by one of our Israeli-American members calling out a correction from the back of the sanctuary!"
Maybe we're just contentious. We don't have any Israeli-Americans among our regular attendees, but this is pretty common for us. I think most of those who are able to follow along will call out an error if they catch it before someone else does.
"this is pretty common . . . "
We synagogue-goers certainly don't keep our thoughts to ourselves, do we? :)
Here's another true story:
Over a decade (and several rabbis) ago, our local synagogue hired a High Holiday chazzan/cantor who wasn't paying too much attention to the "nusachy" parts of the Musaf service. In the middle of speed-davening his way through a quotation about sacrifices, instead of chanting "isheh lAdoshem (a fire-offering for G-d)," he chanted "ishah lAdoshem (a woman for G-d)." Say WHAT?! After the service, I told the chazzan that, while I might not be the most traditional member of our synagogue, that was too heretical even for *me*! [He certainly wasn't *supposed* to be praying to Zeus!] For the record, our rabbi gave strict instructions to the Ritual Committee never to hire that chazzan again.
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