Tag Archives: Kol Haneshama

SHUL REVIEW: Nava Tehila (Friday Night)

Rating: 6/5- By far the best Friday Night service I’ve been to in my life.  Lively, musical, spiritual.

Service Attended: Friday Night Services (September 5, 2014)

About: Egalitarian and inclusive, they use varied instruments and meditation type melodies to elevate prayer
Time of Service: Friday, 6:00-8:00 pm
Mechitza: None, open seating
Women: Full participation
Meals: No mention
Frequency: One Friday per month, plus select High Holiday services, see calendar here
Language: All kavanot (talking) in Hebrew and translated in English

Review: Nava Tehila is the idealized vision of prayer and instrumentation coming together in joyful bliss.  Rabbi Ruth Gan Kagan set the tone for the night by specifying that there would be absolutely no talking between prayers, but only singing and silence, and that if you came to just sit around, you were in the wrong place.  The kehilla was comprised of a very young crowd, and I recognized a number of students from the Conservative Yeshiva and Pardes present.

The seating was comprised of concentric circles (which fill up fast), with the majority of the inner circle belonging to the Nava Tehila band. One of the things that made Nava Tehila unique was the variety of instrumentation; there were guitars, an upright bass, flute, saxophone, cajon, and bongo, along with a number of singers. For Kabbalat Shabbat, they used selected lines from each of the psalms set to original tunes, in a meditative, repetitious way that lent to the entire kehilla singing and harmonizing together.  Each melody would last 5-10 minutes, and there would be absolute silence for a number of seconds between each prayer.  Bookending these psalms were the full versions of Yedid Nefesh and Lecha Dodi.

Kabbalat Shabbat ended around 7:30, and at that point the option was given for people to leave if they wanted, or stay for Ma’ariv, and many people left, which made it kind of an awkward transition, where by Ma’ariv was made less important. Instruments were put away for Ma’ariv (I would have preferred they be kept, since they had played into Shabbat already), but it was nice davening as well.  It ended with the usage of instruments for one last song at the end.

All said, while the traditionalists out there might not enjoy this, those willing to experiment with an alternative type davening will have a transformative experience that will have them wishing Nava Tehila met every week.

Nava Tehila is located In Kol Haneshama at 1 Asher Street, Jerusalem, in Speitzer Hall. Nava Tehila is also a band, so check out their music.  Also, be sure to check the calendar as they play occasionally at Tachana Rishona on Friday afternoons. For more information, visit their website.

SHUL REVIEW: Kol Haneshama (Saturday Morning)

Rating: 2/5- As a friend of mine so eloquently described it, it was just “bleh”

Service Attended: Saturday Morning Services
Date: September 6, 2014

Observance: Reform
Time of Service: 9:15am-11:30 am on Saturday Morning
Mechitza: None, open seating
Women: Full participation
Meals: Very light kiddush (two cakes).  No offer of meals
Frequency: Every Friday Night and Saturday Morning
Family friendly service: Friendly to families.  There’s a play area at the side of the sanctuary for kids
Sermon: Hebrew sermon, announcements in Hebrew and English
Neighborhood: Baka’a

Review: Kol Haneshama is one of, if not the only, Reform prayer community in Jerusalem, and one of the few in all of Israel. It’s located in a beautiful building in a beautiful sanctuary that fits around 150 in Baka’a. Unfortunately, it was maybe a third full on this morning, and the crowd gathered was rather aging.

I arrived before the beginning of the service, and we waited until there was a minyan. While the people there were very friendly, and I was given an aliyah, I found the service very disjointed and the nusach (melodies) very inconsistent. We’d start by reading a prayer together out loud, getting to a line where someone at some point wrote a song using those words, and then we stared singing the song, regardless of whether it fit into any nusach.  In the span of P’sukei D’zimrah and Shacharit, we covered ‘Stand By Me’, multiple Carlebach songs, some tune that sounding like it could have been taken from a musical, and other tunes to which I found it quite hard to sing along with, let alone harmonize with. Keeping with the more American style davening, prayers were typically sung together, as opposed to the more Israeli/Orthodox style of davening out loud at your own pace with in a framework. The entirety of the service was, as my friend who grew up reform described it, just kind of ‘bleh’.

If you are looking to be a part of an egalitarian service with somewhat non-traditional nusach in line with the American Reform movement, than you might consider Kol Haneshama.  It also starts later than many congregations, so that is nice.

Kol Haneshama is located at 1 Asher Street, Jerusalem, in Baka’a. For more information, visit their website.