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Rosh Hashanah in the Charedi and the Modern Orthodox Worlds

In the comments to a Dov Bear post criticizing Jason Maoz's list of his favorite web sites (something that I would write about if I had the time), Jblogger extradoinaire Gil Student writes of my little blog:

I love his blog when he's not talking about sports. Anyone who reads his blog has to be aware of mine, since he frequently uses post of mine as a launching pad for his own.

Okay, for R. Gil then, here's a post that's not about sports, and that uses a post of his as a launching pad for my own post:

In his reflections on Rosh Hashanah, Gil writes that he prefers spending the holiday in a modern Orthodox community, because, among other reasons, the cantor is far superior and services are not as long. On the other hand, Gil notes that he does miss the "screamer", a congregant who screams out the prayers, something that, he writes, he has only seen in "yeshiva-style" services.

In a post by Godol Hador, the (non-)Godol writes that in the charedi world:

Rosh Hashanah and the Yamim Noroim are just that: 'Noroim' - Awesome, a little scary, time for some serious introspection and teshuvah. However in Baal-Habatim land, and especially in MO land, Rosh Hashanah is just another Yom Tov, kinda like Shavuos, only with longer davening.

I remember my first year out of Yeshivah, when this dawned on me, I could barely comprehend it. People came out of shul happily wishing each other good yom tov, possibly complaining about the length of davening or saying how good the tekios were this year, and then went off home to spend the day like any other Yom Tov or Shabbos. Yom Kippur was a little intense, but even then it was basically Tisha Beav with Vidduy. No biggie.

Until two years ago, when I was 30 years old, I davened every Rosh Hashanah and every Yom Kippur in charedi shuls in Boro Park, almost all with my father in a chasidic shteibel. Since 1986, my father has only davened in this shteibel on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, otherwise attending services in two other Boro Park shuls. Even when he served - for more than a decade - as President of another Boro Park shul, my father continued to spend the High Holidays at the chasidic shteibel.

My experience is quite similar to the (non-)Godol's and Gil's. In the shteibel, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are truly days of awe. The congregants absolutely feel as though they are being judged by G-d, and the davening is conducted accordingly. During the emotional high-point of davening, the U'Nesaneh Tokef prayer, many of the congregants scream the prayers, quite a few cry. All of this is done with absolute sincerity.

On the other hand, davening in this shul usually goes on from 8 A.M. until around 2:45 P.M., with a break of around 30 minutes after the Torah reading. I found the davening to be exhausting, and in the last hour anxiously looked forward to its conclusion so that I could eat.

Two years ago - and again last year and this year - I spent Rosh Hashanah with my in-laws. The shul they go to is probably best described as centrist Orthodox, though the congregants range from very modern to black hat. The davening is very nice. The rabbi, who I like and respect very much, speaks for about 20 minutes before the initial shofar blowing, and everything concludes at a reasonable time of around 1:15.

Yet while I don't know if Rosh Hashanah "is just another Yom Tov" there, the fear and the awe that is present in the chasidic and yeshivish shuls I have attended is simply not present there. U'Nesaneh Tokef is sung in a very nice melody, but the sense that G-d is truly judging who will live and who will die, the reminder that man is created from dust and that his end is dust, doesn't resonate quite the same way. When I first experienced this two years ago, it was a shock to me. I still resist - for better or worse - the instinct to shout out these prayers.

I wish there were a middle ground, a place where the davening is representative of a day of fear and awe, but where five hours of such davening is deemed sufficient. But I fear that, as Gil and the Godol indicate, there is no such shul.
posted on 10/07/2005