Complacency

At Selichot Services last night I realized that the melodies we chant once a year had, after many years, become familiar to me.  

I did not attend services as a child because all the synagogues around us were Orthodox and they were far too restrictive for my parents. It was only as an adult with children of my own, living in a suburb with more worship choices, that I began to attend. Unfortunately, I distinctly remember the feeling of not belonging. It seemed that everyone else knew the words and melodies while I struggled to keep up. Even after I learned to read Hebrew, I got lost when a phrase was repeated, or paragraphs were omitted.

Now, I feel at home. There is, however, a danger in becoming too comfortable, as one of my favorite alternative readings from our Shabbat prayer book warns us:

               Disturb us, God, ruffle us from our complacency…

               Wake us, O God, and shake us

               from the sweet and sad poignancies rendered by

               half forgotten melodies and rubric prayers of yesteryears

It is easy to recite ancient prayers by rote and be lulled into forgetting the human suffering surrounding us:

               Make us know that the border of the sanctuary

               is not the border of living

               and the walls of your temples are not shelters

               from the winds of truth, justice and reality.

Rather, we should be “stirred and spurred to action.”  

I am gladdened by my ability feel part of a community praying for forgiveness and peace during this holy season. But I am well aware that prayers are not enough.