by Roni Handler and Lori Lefkovitz

As we approach the High Holy Days, Jews world over prepare themselves for the work of teshuvah (repentance) and the autumn experience of renewal. In addition to the time-honored rituals and liturgy of the season, the internet offers innovations, new poems, prayers, and practices to enhance the spiritual lives of contemporary Jews. These include gender-inclusive versions of the classic “Avinu Malkenu” (Our Father, Our King) prayer and “tashlich” meditations for casting away sin. The internet has become a resource for Jewish spirituality. People are searching the web before Thanksgiving for something Jewish to add to the Thanksgiving table and for ways to incorporate a Miriam’s Cup into the Passover Seder.

 

The combination of Jewish women’s increased participation in Jewish practice and the internet have had a noticeable effect on Judaism. In the several decades since spirituality was rediscovered and popularized by a generation of middle-class Americans in rebellion against empty religious conventions and in search of meaning and self-expression, Jewish women’s spirituality has been manifested largely in creative prayers and innovative Jewish rituals. Sharing the ironic fate of many successful rebellions, religious expressions that once derived their appeal from spontaneity and originality are now vying for formal recognition and acceptance in a spate of new publications, including rabbis’ manuals and websites created with the purpose of both sustaining inclusive, progressive Jewish communities and meeting the spiritual needs of mainstream American Jews. Innovative and traditional at the same time, Rosh Hodesh (New Moon) groups became a laboratory for creative rituals.

 

The very words, “spirituality” and “ritual” carry some competing connotations. Where “spirituality” may be taken as pointing to freedom of expression, individuality, and internal processes of the spirit, “ritual” connotes rote behaviors, shared communal norms, and traditionally prescribed physical actions (often involving ritual props). Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of Jewish women’s spirituality in the last decades is that it participates in a larger trend of progressive Judaism to create and institute non-compulsory Jewish practice. Many minhagim (customs), while they do not have the status of halakhah (Jewish law), are nevertheless widely accepted in some parts of the Jewish community; examples include chag habanot (a celebration daughters on the seventh night of Chanukah, once practiced by Jews of Mizrahi origin), men’s use of the mikveh, and the recitation of techinot (women’s Yiddish folk prayers). There is a Jewish principle that repetition (classically, three repetitions of an observance) has the force to transform a custom into a rule. We may be working towards the elevation of some new rituals, such as those for naming baby girls, the bat mitzvah, and Miriam’s Cup, to the status of “commanded at Sinai.” 

 

The sanctification of our individual lives, separately and apart from the national story, is another new emphasis, one that derives partly from the spirituality movement’s concern for an individual’s personal religious experience. So it is that Ritualwell.org, a project of Kolot: The Center for Jewish Women’s and Gender Studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, which provides a collection of contemporary and creative prayers and rituals, includes prayers for beginning kindergarten, getting a driver’s license, and retiring from work.  Whether people dip into Ritualwell for complete ceremonies to sanctify their life transitions or whether they are seeking inspiration for the own creative, more personalized efforts, the increasing popularity of non-compulsory, individualized practice might represent a change in how Judaism will manifest itself in the lives of many American Jews.

 

It is interesting to think about how Jewish customs and ceremonies have been codified and canonized over time, how innovation and tradition balance one another in the march of Jewish history. And it is comforting to know that no matter when a prayer or ceremony actually entered Jewish practice, our children imagine that it was chanted by Avraham Avinu in the company of their own great grandparents. We may also wonder how the internet, with its long reach and unprecedentedly democratic character, will influence the adoption of gender-sensitive ritual and liturgy into what rising generations of Jews consider “Jewish.”

 

Ultimate authority for new Jewish practices rests in the hand of the users. The lively give and take of this process ultimately results in the creation of a new canon. What may be emerging is a path that winds between reified and spontaneous ritual practice, a distinction more classically phrased as that between keva (“fixed” liturgy) and kavvanah (spiritual “intention” or inspiration). This path is characterized by a democratization of leadership, a reduced role of rabbis and hired professionals in lifecycle rituals, and more people feeling free to invent rituals and compose prayers that personalize their occasions. The publications and success of The Jewish Catalogue was an early expression of this phenomenon. Today, the internet is the vehicle for contemporary extensions of this new Jewish spiritual democracy. If the technology of the printing press had something of a freezing effect on the once more flexible liturgical practices of Jews, the internet may have a defrosting effect, bringing us closer to the creative spiritual practices of our ancestors.