A minyan on the high seas
I was on sabbatical from Congregation B’nai Israel of Emerson for the month of December, so Shelly and I decided to visit Southeast Asia.
We’ve always enjoyed cruises (I always say that you put your luggage in your hotel room, and a couple of weeks later you pack up and fly home). Our go-to cruise line has been Seabourn, so we looked there, and we found a journey that fit our time schedule perfectly. The Seabourn Encore sailed from Singapore on December 9, with stops in Thailand, Eastern Cambodia, and various ports in Vietnam, before ending in Hong Kong.
One night, about 25 of us were sitting in the card room on the ship when a woman said: “Why don’t we introduce ourselves?”
“Hi,” she said, and she told us her name and her husband’s. “We’re from Austin, Texas,” she said. We went around the room. There were three couples who live in the Boston area, originally from Ukraine; two couples who live in Tucson, originally from Chicago; a family of three from San Diego; a couple from Palm Springs; four people from various cities in Florida; a couple from Winnipeg; a couple from Toronto; a man from Bangkok, Thailand, and us.
“My name is Lenny Mandel,” I said. “I’m an ordained rabbi and cantor, and since you asked, I’m from Brooklyn, New York. We live in New Jersey (which I ‘lovingly’ pronounced GNU JOIZEE) and I have been on a pulpit in New Jersey for the past 27 years.”
You must be wondering why I not only introduced myself, but told them that I’m a rabbi.
As a rabbi, a great talmudic scholar, said to me: “Lenny, you will find out that there are many, many possible answers to questions that people will ask, so choose your words wisely, and very carefully, before you answer!”
Well, simply put, it was erev Shabbat, they were all there for Friday night services, and I was leading the service.
The religious affiliations of this group of Yiddlach were as diverse as we are as a people (the family from San Diego was Orthodox), but to welcome Shabbat we began with Shalom Aleichem (an interesting double entendre, as we welcomed each other) and then moved right into Lecha Dodi.
Hearing the voices of this eclectic group of tribe members davening as one was as thrilling to me as hearing the voices in my shul praying erev Shabbat services to the melodies of Peter (may he rest in peace), Paul, and Mary (may she rest in peace), The Beatles, Les Mis, or any of the 30 casual Shabbat services I’ve written.
I spoke before the Shema, explaining why we cover our eyes. (You’ve heard of a bubbe meise — well this was the Lenny Mandel meise): Sadie saw Harry looking at Molly in shul and was livid, so from then on Harry would cover his eyes, leaving a space between the fingers so that he could look at Molly without Sadie catching him.
“Your congregants must love you,” they said as they laughed. I explained the real reason we cover our eyes, but they liked the Lenny Mandel version better.
We came to the Amidah (Shmoneh Esrey), and I repeated what Rabbi Debra Orenstein and I say when we get to the amidah at Congregation B’nai Israel: This is a time for silent meditation. You can pray the words on the page or the words in your heart, and when you’re done with your prayers, please be seated.”
I turned around in the middle of my davening the Shmoneh Esrey and couldn’t believe my eyes.
Every single man and woman in the card room, converted into a shul that erev Shabbat, was davening with the utmost kavanah. (Kavanah is the Hebrew word for intention, or purpose. In its simplest meaning, it refers to concentrating the mind in the performance of a religious act, ensuring that it doesn’t devolve into rote, mechanical action.) Their bodies were shukling, rocking and swaying back and forth, and they were fully immersed in their prayers. I always shukel when I pray, but seeing them shukling was incredible, and I was overwhelmed by seeing their passion while they prayed.
We moved forward, ended with Adon Olam, and as I poured the wine for kiddush (Seabourn provided kosher wine), some of it spilled.
We smiled, but before I could make kiddush, three gongs sounded over the loudspeaker. “Good evening,” we heard. “This is the captain speaking. We are experiencing rough seas with wave heights that can be more than four meters. Please exercise caution as you walk around the ship.”
I smiled as my mind equated my concept of their kavanah to Macbeth (“Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.”). “Shukel, shukel, beards have stubble. I rocked back and forth ’cause the waves moved me like knubbel.”
This was, to say the least, a minyan on the high seas!!
Cantor/Rabbi Lenny Mandel, who left the wilds of Manhattan almost 50 years ago and lives in West Orange, has been the chazan at Congregation B’nai Israel in Emerson for the past quarter century (or a little more by now).
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