Why I Like Sephardi Selichos

Originally published in The Jewish Link of New Jersey on Thursday, October 3rd, 2019.

I don’t have many negative religious memories, but one incident does come to mind. I was about 12 years old, and I made the decision to attend Saturday night Selichos at my local shul. Being 12, I couldn’t stay up that late, so I went to sleep at a normal hour and woke up in time for Selichos. All I remember is being completely exhausted; in fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever been more tired in my life. I was so tired that I could barely stay awake, let alone concentrate on the words. 

Since then, I have never been a fan of Saturday night Selichos. I always find myself tired not only the next day, but practically the entire following week. While I do respect those who make the effort to stay up late on Saturday night to say Selichos, I personally do not feel that destroying my sleep schedule is the best way for me to do teshuva. 

About two years ago, I shared my grievances with my father, and he told me that he felt the same way. We decided to look for a minyan in Teaneck that had Selichos on Sunday morning, as opposed to Saturday night. Unfortunately, no such minyan existed, save one— the morning minyan at Shaarei Orah- the Sephardic Congregation of Teaneck.

My father and I had never been to a Sephardi Selichos before, but we thought we would give it a try. We woke up early on Sunday morning and headed to shul. The first thing we noticed was that everyone was sitting down for the duration of Selichos (except during the declaration of G-d’s thirteen attributes, when everyone stood). This differed from the Ashkenazi practice to stand during Selichos. I noticed that this created a more relaxed atmosphere for prayer.

The second thing that we noticed was that there was no Shliach Tzibbur. Instead, individual congregants took turns leading the congregation in Selichos, most of which were responsive. There was one Selicha when almost every member of the congregation got a turn to say one verse out loud, including my father. As an Ashkenazi, I was not used to saying so few of the words— practically half of the words were being read by someone else!

The difference that stood out the most, however, took us by complete surprise. During the recital of the thirteen attributes of G-d, multiple congregants unexpectedly blew the shofar. After years of becoming used to the sound of the shofar, this was the first time in my life that the sound of a shofar actually woke me up.

This Elul, I began studying at the Yeshiva of Greater Washington. While I very much enjoy the yeshiva davening (as well as everything else about the yeshiva) I was disheartened, but not surprised, to see that the first Selichos of the season was scheduled to begin at 1:01 AM on Saturday night. As I began calculating how long of a Shabbos nap I would need to take beforehand to minimize the sleep deprivation, I wondered if there were any Sephardi minyanim in town. Sure enough, a quick search on godaven.com informed me that there was a Sephardi minyan at Young Israel Shomrei Emunah of Greater Washington, the shul right down the block from my yeshiva, with Selichos beginning at 6:40 AM. Not bad.

Once again, I woke up early on Sunday morning. I entered the building not quite sure where to go. I saw an older fellow in the hallway and asked him if he knew where the Sephardi minyan was. “Follow me!” he said. I followed him.

The man asked me if I was Sephardi. I replied that I was Ashkenazi. He asked me if I knew how to daven Sephardi Selichos. I said that I didn’t really know how. “You’ll learn” he said, reassuringly. 

We entered a small beis midrash to find around twenty men of varying ages and dress fervently saying Selichos and, of course, sitting down. The fellow who showed me the way there handed me a Selichos book. I took my seat and followed along.

All the things that stood out to me the previous time stood out again. The interactivity, the sitting, and the frequent shofar blasts. At one point the gentleman running the minyan motioned to me if I would recite one of the verses out loud for the congregation. (This was the same Selicha that my father previously participated in.) I couldn’t say no. However, I hesitated for a moment. Should I read the verse with my natural Ashkenazi accent, or should I try to fake a Sephardi one? I smiled and went for something in the middle. Nobody seemed to mind.

After Selichos and Shacharis, the Sephardi rabbi of the minyan gave a short shiur on the laws of blowing Shofar from the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch of Rav Ovadia Yosef zt”l. I listened carefully to see if I could notice any differences in halacha between Ashkenazim and Sephardim.

Afterwards, I thanked the rabbi and introduced myself. “Epstein is a Sephardi name?” he asked. No, I explained, I’m just an Ashkenazi that doesn’t like saying Selichos at midnight. He laughed.

As I left the shul and began heading toward yeshiva for morning seder, I began to think about the differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Selichos. I realized that I could learn a lot from the Sephardi customs that I had witnessed.

First, I noticed that the Sephardi practice to sit for the duration of Selichos (and practically all of Shacharis) creates an entirely different prayer environment. Ashkenazim, who alternate between standing and sitting, have a tendency to shuckle back and forth anxiously, sometimes with their faces screwed up really tight. A passerby of a typical Ashkenazi minyan might conclude that davening is a stressful activity. 

While davening ought to be taken very seriously, it’s not supposed to be stressful. A Jew must be calm and at ease, even while standing, to use davening for its intended purpose— to converse with G-d.

Second, I noticed Sephardi Selichos do not prioritize saying all the words. Since most of the Selichos are responsive, one finds himself saying half the words at best. I noticed that over the years I developed a bad habit of trying to say as many words as I can without really caring about the meaning of what I was saying, a habit that is not only unproductive, but in direct opposition to the halacha (Shulchan Aruch O”C 1:4). Most minyanim recite Selichos somewhat fast, and it is often difficult to keep up. For me, this created a race against the congregation, turning Selichos into a task, instead of an opportunity. 

Saying Sephardi Selichos, however, forced me to pay attention to the words being said, and this allowed me to experience a moment of connection. There was one particular Selicha when the congregation repeatedly responded to the leader with the phrase “Avinu”-- “our father”. After a few times of repeating this phrase, I actually felt like I was calling out to my Father in Heaven. Saying fewer words allowed me to focus and connect.

Finally, the interactive and responsive elements of Sephardi Selichos made me more aware of the other people I was praying with. When davening, it can be easy to put your nose in your siddur and tune out all the other members of the congregation. While this is ideal during certain parts of davening (Shemoneh Esrei, for example), other sections of davening are designed to be a group activity. Selichos is certainly an example of the latter. Being aware that you are part of a group can turn prayer into a powerful experience.

I returned to yeshiva to find out that there was in fact a second Selichos that morning at 7:45 AM. But that didn’t bother me. I genuinely enjoyed the Sephardi Selichos, and I think I’ll come back for more next year.

From the Desk of a Yeshiva Student: The Case for Label-Free Jewry

Originally published in The Jewish Link of New Jersey on Thursday, April 4th, 2019.

I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan until my family moved to Bergenfield, New Jersey when I was nine. Growing up, I wasn’t familiar with the terms “chareidi”, “yeshivish”, or “modern orthodox”. During none of that time did I ever hear my parents label themselves as belonging to a specific stream of Jewry. I knew we were religious and even “Orthodox” but nothing more. I always knew that there were different levels of religious observance to be found within the Orthodox community, but it never occured to me that my family belonged to a specific group.

As I got older, I noticed that many people defined themselves by a specific group within Orthodoxy. I compared them with my father, an independent thinker with his own, unique worldview based on his upbringing, his teachers, and his own perspective. This is what guides all the decisions he makes, as opposed to adopting a pre-programmed social standard without thinking for himself.

Despite my upbringing, however, as my first year in Israel came to a close, I found myself beginning to align with the chareidi label. This was primarily because the rabbis and fellow students I looked up to in my yeshiva were self-proclaimed chareidim. They were smart, truthful, and genuine Jews. They were devoted to serving G-d. They had beautiful families. And they were chareidi. So I, too, donned the velvet kippah.

But one Shabbos, all that changed.

I spent a Shabbos at the house of somebody I work for in the summer. But he’s more than just my boss. He’s a mentor, a role model, and someone I have a lot of respect for. He lives in a small yishuv in Israel with his wife and six children. He is serious about learning Torah, observing Halacha, and taking responsibility for the Jewish people.

He is also not chareidi.

Just by spending a Shabbos at his house, I began to reassess: Do I need to be chareidi in order to be authentic? The only reason I began to lean in that direction in the first place was because of my limited exposure in Israel to non-chareidi Jews, which prevented me from seeing passionate Jews anywhere else on the spectrum. Yet now I was confronted with a passionate Jew that doesn’t identify as chareidi or, for that matter, with any “group” within Orthodox Judaism at all. This got me thinking.

From that Shabbos on, I gave up on trying to label myself. I exchanged my velvet kippah for a more neutral terylene one, the kind my Zaidy--who belonged to a time when these distinctions barely existed in the struggle to maintain American Orthodoxy--wears. In fact, I was embarrassed that I had ever considered labeling myself to begin with.

I'm not suggesting to do away with labels altogether.  For some people, labelling forces them to maintain a certain standard of behavior and keep certain rules. The implied structure that comes with a label will prevent them from getting into trouble. Additionally, labels provide people with a social circle and culture that is to their liking.

However, there are many disadvantages of labelling.

First, when people label themselves, they often automatically embrace the opinions of their group without thinking about each issue independently. In fact, labels generally assume a package deal of certain social and political beliefs. A person who labels himself without contemplating every issue first is forfeiting his ability to think.

Label-free Jewry, on the other hand, means you’re free to think, and that no stance--beyond what is expected by Halacha--is assumed. It means undergoing the often painful task of searching for the truth, using your brain and the advice of expert rabbis to find truthful solutions to complex problems, and doing what is right even if it is outside of your comfort zone.

Second, labels lead people to put too much emphasis on certain aspects of religious observance while overlooking others. Many people feel that moving to a certain community or wearing a certain uniform will define their level of religious observance. This leads to a false sense of security in one’s religious behavior even when obvious improvements are called for. For example, many Jews will spend a lot of time checking their esrog for any slight imperfection, but don’t make the effort to greet people with a smile and a “good Shabbos.” This is not because Arbah Minim perfectionists don’t value the equally operative command to greet people courteously, but because they are often content with their religious observance to the point where they don’t notice simple mistakes.

A label-free Jew on the other hand is always on guard. Without the safety net of a label, he knows to pay careful attention to all of his actions and make sure that they are in line with the demands of the Torah, even if some of those demands are neglected by others.

Third, labels, by definition, attach importance to external features of observance. Jews are set apart from each other in the eyes of G-d based on their behavior and choices given their life circumstances, not based on the material of their kippah. Labels are of no significance in terms of what makes one Jew different from another. Nobody would say of his shul “Our shul is so diverse. We have left-handed Jews, right-handed Jews, even ambidextrous Jews.” This is because those differences are trivial. Why are other external features more important?

Finally, the biggest problem of labelling oneself is parents’ expectations that their child will gladly bear the same label as they. People who label themselves do so for a certain degree of security for themselves and for their children. When children disagree with their parents about the best way to live as Torah Jews, many parents, fearful that this security has now been breached, push back. The resulting tension sometimes causes the child to further abandon any semblance of his parent’s version of Judaism in favor of a spitefully different one, or worse, leave observance altogether.

Labels don’t determine the course of your life, decisions do. You can wisely choose where to live, where to daven, and where to send your kids to school--and you still don’t have to label yourself. You can even surround yourself with people who do label themselves. The key difference between labelling and non-labelling is how you approach social and halachic issues, what you attach importance to, and what message you convey to your children.

That's why I won’t label myself. Because I know that to be a genuine Jew, you have to find the truth, no matter what it is, and live by it. Because a person’s actions are more important to G-d than his clothing. Because I want my children to be independent thinkers.

And a label will get in the way of that.

From The Desk Of A Yeshiva Student: Can Modern Orthodoxy Survive the Smartphone Generation?

Originally published in The Jewish Link of New Jersey on Thursday, January 17th, 2019.

For years, Modern Orthodoxy has fought hard to allow elements of secular culture into the Torah world. Modern Orthodoxy must now face a new challenge, unparalleled by any other in its history.

Once upon a time, most American Jews were able to set up their own barriers of how much influence non-Jewish culture could have on their children—how much and to what extent it could enter their homes. Television programming, monitored by the once strict Federal Communications Commission, was kosher, and inappropriate books, magazines and movies were difficult for children and young adults to access. In other words, parents, and on a larger scale, communities, had the ability to set up their own, custom-made filters between Jewish and non-Jewish society, keeping out bad influences while welcoming all the positive things secular society had to offer.

Obviously, this system wasn’t perfect. Kids and certainly teenagers can always find ways to get into trouble. But this can be said of any time period and social circle and is nearly impossible to prevent. So, parents and communities did their best to selectively benefit from non-Jewish culture, which—when done right—was a physically and spiritually safe way to live.

Unfortunately, as society changes, negative cultural influences can sneak into Jewish society without the consent of parents and community leaders. Even when they are alert and proactive, decisions are often made for them before they get the chance to voice their opinion.

Moreover, individuals may disagree with their neighbors about whether or not a particular aspect of secular culture should be embraced by Jewish society, and become frustrated when everybody else accepts it as the norm and they can no longer do anything about it. Such frustration is likely to occur if the modern world becomes increasingly immoral and spiritually dangerous, creating more causes for conflict.

When Modern Orthodoxy encounters such turmoil, it must then make a decision—to distance itself from certain aspects of secular society or to accept them—and then must be prepared to deal with the repercussions of either choice. For a while, this system worked pretty well.

Fast forward to 2019, when smartphones allow nearly every yeshiva high school student to enter into any virtual reality that an unsupervised teenage brain could hope for. By far, the primary threat posed by the modern world to Modern Orthodoxy is technology, specifically smartphones with unmonitored internet access for teenagers. The very influences that Jewish parents fight hard to keep their children away from are visited by many teenagers in the privacy of their own bedrooms on a nightly basis.

Many if not most Torah-observant parents would be horrified by the idea of their children going to parties with alcohol and drugs, and visiting bars with non-Jewish friends. Yet, many of their children are doing those things right now in their bedrooms, with their fictional, televised non-Jewish friends.

This exposure results in Jewish teens who are under the same influences as average American public school students. And this results in Jewish teens who act and talk and think like average American public school students, at least when their parents aren’t looking.

When you have a generation of young adults who visit the same places and mimic the lifestyle of average American public school students, it is nearly impossible for them to simultaneously live as Torah Jews. Every parent who spends tens of thousands of dollars annually on yeshiva tuition acknowledges this. Unfortunately they don’t acknowledge this when they hand their child his first smartphone.

But it gets worse: the availability and accessibility of offensive media on the internet is so undeniably widespread that any parent with a son or daughter who has unmonitored internet access and denies the strong probability that their son or daughter is falling victim to viewing explicit content is in complete denial of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Any parent who remains confident in their child’s ability to make proper decisions under the covers, at night, when nobody else is watching, should at least consider the fact that advertisements and pop-up ads seek out and lure even the most innocent of victims.

And let’s be honest about the filters: Do we really know that they’re working? While filters are a great way to protect one’s child from the dangers of harmful online content, teens who discover how to get around weak filters don’t subsequently inform the filters’ programmers. Even parents who install strong filters on their child’s phone but don’t update and monitor them run the risk of their child finding ways to circumvent them.

While all these issues are obvious to members of the smartphone generation like myself, most parents are failing to keep up with today’s world of technology. What adults fail to realize is that today’s technology has transformed the world into a radically different place from the world they grew up in.

Fortunately, some are catching on. One local parent of a 12-year-old boy wrote to The Link about the dangers of social media platforms such as Snapchat, the importance of installing internet filters on children’s devices and the need for parents to talk to their children about internet safety.

In response to this article, Yavneh Academy of Paramus, New Jersey, launched the Yavneh Parent Technology Suggested Guidelines to help parents create safe limits on their children’s internet usage. Yavneh also asked its parents to work together to enforce a unified device shut-off time at night for each grade, to avoid the risks of leaving children unsupervised with their devices during late hours.

This is certainly progress. But let’s do more.

We need a critical mass of parents saying no to unmonitored internet access for their children. Parents need to get back in the driver’s seat and be unafraid to set house rules for internet usage. Allowing a child to freely access the internet is as dangerous for his brain as allowing him to drive a car without a license is dangerous for his body. Parents can start Facebook and WhatsApp groups to create a strong alliance of people determined to keep their children safe from the dangers of unmonitored internet usage.

Schools can follow the example of Yavneh Academy by educating and encouraging both parents and students about the dangers of unmonitored internet usage, providing support to switch to filtered or supervised internet. One way schools can do this by taking advantage of organizations like The Digital Citizenship Project, which seeks to help yeshiva students use the internet responsibly. In addition, schools can provide incentives for students to install filters on their phones, or to trade in their smartphones for basic phones.

Shuls can assemble their congregants on a Sunday afternoon and sponsor tech experts to check and help install filters on their children’s phones, just like they sponsor sofrim to check their mezuzas.

Let’s work together. If we all put in the effort, we can be confident that Modern Orthodox teens will grow up to proudly carry on the legacy of the Jewish people and make the same smart choices their parents made when raising their own children.