Three Dot Journalism & A Book Review (Tzvee Zahavy, God’s Favorite Prayers)

Long-time San Franciscans will no doubt remember the famous columnist, Herb Caen. Caen wrote a daily gossip column for the San Francisco Chronicle for decades and was a force to be reckoned with in the City (a term for San Francisco that he was responsible for promoting).

I mention Herb Caen because one of the ways that he put together a column was through what he described as “three dot journalism,” the three dots referring to what lawyers and book editors call elipses, i.e. * * *, which he would use to separate his thoughts. I’ve been looking for a means to present more than one thought or theme in a weekly blog post and the answer was, in a way, in front of me all along. So I plan to introduce a new type of blog post, incorporating this format, from time to time. This is the first.

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I had the opportunity to use the (relatively) new Conservative machzor (High Holiday prayerbook), Mahzor Lev Shalem, on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. (For my book review of both Mahzor Lev Shalem and its Orthodox equivalent, the new Koren Rosh Hashanah Maḥzor, please go to this link.)

As is often the case, a latercomer asked me what page we were on and I now realize that one deficiency in all High Holiday prayerbooks (and prayerbooks generally for that matter), is the failure to print the page numbers in large type (and I mean really large type – 36 points would do nicely). Most of my age group need, at least, reading glasses, and the expedient of just showing the latecomer the place we are at in the prayerbook does not really work for what I might call the bifocal set. The solution is simple – enlarge the page numbers. (For less observant readers, you should know that it’s considered inappropriate to speak during much of the prayer service – yes, I admit that this practice is observed in the breach – but for those of us who follow traditional practice, the availability of large-type page numbers allows us to be helpful and avoid being rude). I know enough about print format to see that there is plenty of footer space in Mahzor Lev Shalem so this should not be a problem.

So if any of my Conservative Movement macher (mover and shaker) friends are reading, please pass the word along. You did a great job with Mahzor Lev Shalem and this small tweak would make the book even easier to use.

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Book Review, Tzvee Zahavy, God’s Favorite Prayers (Talmudic Books, Inc., 2011)

When I re-read my book reviews of Mahzor Lev Shalem and the Koren Rosh Hashanah Maḥzor (again, here’s the link), I realize that I hit my readers over the head pretty hard with my discussion of the structure of the service as well as some personal ideology and observations. While I remain satisfied with the discussion, as a practical matter, the reason to be interested in new machzorim can be expressed in far simpler terms – the High Holiday service is just too long, too complicated, and too overloaded with disparate themes for the average synagogue-goer to comprehend. That is why I am very happy to recommend Tzvee Zahavy’s excellent book, God’s Favorite Prayers, to my readers. It’s available on Amazon (here’s a link) and the price for the Kindle version of the book is ridiculously cheap, $2.99 (the print version at $8.99 is fairly priced, too).

But before I get into why I like the book so much, I need to make both a disclaimer and to tell my readers a little bit about the author.

Rabbi/Dr./Professor Tzvee Zahavy is a very serious Jewish scholar who is the proprietor of the highly popular Talmudic Blog. Here is the URL: http://tzvee.blogspot.com/ I should mention at the outset to my readers that the “Talmudic” in the “Talmudic Blog” is metaphorical – this is not a blog about Talmud as such as opposed to using the term “Talmudic” as a rubric to classify concepts, ideas and even people. Basically it’s a springboard for Tzvee to write about many, many different things. You absolutely, positively, do not have to know anything about Talmud to thoroughly enjoy what he does and there is a lot to enjoy.

When I started out blogging, Tzvee’s blog was one of my inspirations and he very generously added me to his blogroll, with the result that many of the earliest visitors to this blog came via Tzvee. So, in a sense, I owe him, but that is not why I am writing this review. Where the sense of obligation came in was in my buying a copy of God’s Favorite Prayers.

Now, to be perfectly frank about the matter, abstract theology bores me. I’m reminded of that wonderful line in T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral involving Henry II and one of his nobles. When the King asked the nobleman if he read books, he answered to the effect that he did not because they made his head ache. That is largely how I react to theology. So while I bought the book out of a sense of loyalty, I only got around to reading it this year in connection with my personal preparation for the High Holidays. I am glad that I did.

Tzvee is a popularizer – he takes complicated concepts and makes them accessible, a wonderful skill. While I try to do much the same thing (referring specifically to my series entitled The Use of Hebrew in the Prayer Service – part one of which is found here), Tzvee has serious academic and professional chops that I do not possess. So when he writes about the prayer service, he does so with authority.

One thing that Tzvee does in God’s Favorite Prayers that I particularly like is his identification of six different archtypes, representing six different approaches to Jewish prayer. Specifically, he identifies the following: the “Scribe,” the “Performer,” the “Mystic,” the “Meditator,” the “Priest,” and the “Celebrity Monotheist.” While the nomenclature he uses is a little confusing, at least for me (for example I might have used “Textualist” in place of the “Scribe” and “Triumphalist” in place of the “Celebrity Monotheist”), Tzvee’s archtypes ring true.

Tzvee is clearly right that some prayers make the most sense when viewed from the perspective of Jews who are focused on the Temple service and restoration of the Temple and the Priestly Class (hence his “Priest” archtype). Similarly, I find myself davening (praying) in a community that has a large number of Scribes (my “Textualists”), Jews who are focused on the text of the liturgy and the beauty of the prayer service – basically a quasi-professional view of religious expression. I had a very recent experience that reminded me of Tzvee’s “Performer” archtype – while I generally avoid the style of cantorial over-musicality that is called Chazzanut in Hebrew, I genuinely enjoyed a Sephardic-style Cantor who brought life to the prayer service through his beautiful rendition of portions of the Shabbat Shacharit (Morning) Service.

Tzvee takes the interweaving of these various archtypes a step further in his analysis of the Musaf (Additional) Service that takes place on Rosh Hashanah. This is the longest single Jewish prayer service of the year, including Yom Kippur. It is also the one that tends to propel all but the most serious worshippers out the door, not only because of its length, but because of its inaccessibility. Tzvee does a terrific job explaining how the three subtexts of the Additional Service, Malchuyot (Kingship), Zichronot (Remembrance), and Shofarot (Shofar), reflect his different archtypes. That alone makes the book a wonderful preparation for the High Holidays and the lessons to be learned are translatable to other portions of both the High Holiday prayer services and Jewish religious services generally.

There is one other aspect of the book that also struck a chord with me. Tzvee, like me, is clearly a “shule yid,” someone who grew up in the synagogue world and he is clearly a sophisticated consumer when it comes to religious services. This is hardly a surprise – his father, Rabbi Zev Zahavy, was a pulpit Rabbi of considerable distinction in New York and whose sermons were often featured in the New York Times. Tzvee’s description of the synagogue service as a pulsating, energetic event full of behind the scenes activity is dead on.

Tzvee also takes the trouble of defining basic terms and offering newcomers to the prayer service ample orientation – pretty much anyone interested in the Jewish prayer service will benefit from reading God’s Favorite Prayers.  Highly recommended.