Alma institute offers alternative 'slichot' in Yarkon Park

Evening of study and music offers a mixture of traditional and modern liturgy with Hebrew songs.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
tel aviv sea 88 224 (photo credit: Oren Klass)
tel aviv sea 88 224
(photo credit: Oren Klass)
Tel Aviv's Alma institute for Hebrew culture is organizing an alternative slichot event tonight at the Wohl Amphitheater in Yarkon Park on Thursday. The evening of study and music, held in the open under the autumn night sky, offers a mixture of traditional and modern liturgy with Hebrew songs of introspection and yearning. "Slichot is one of a number of activities organized by Alma that aim to revive 'landmarks' in the Jewish calendar that have lost their meaning and relevance to the secular community," said Dr. Ruth Calderon, who founded Alma "in the hopes of building a home for Hebrew culture - a center of study, ritual, celebration of the Jewish calendar for the non-affiliated majority in Israel and the world." She herself grew up in a "very Jewish" secular home, but when she sought to study classic Jewish texts and spirituality, she said, she had trouble finding a non-affiliated educational framework in Tel Aviv. Alma is the culmination of her vision to create what she felt was missing in the city. "Over the past few years," said Calderon, "we have witnessed a renewal of Jewish-Hebrew life among the secular population - a cultural renaissance. A large part of this community has become dissatisfied with its role as spectator, and wishes to take an active but not 'orthodox' part in Jewish life. All over the country, secular batei midrash have sprung up, offering the secular public the opportunity to reclaim the treasures of their Jewish heritage and become familiar with classic texts and traditions." Calderon notes that, over the past decade, "Israelis who do not define themselves as 'religious' and for whom the synagogue does not play a central role in their lives, have returned to the custom of slichot - prayers of atonement. This takes a different form from the traditional service - and includes tours through the narrow lanes in neighborhoods where slichot prayers are recited at dawn, community 'soul-searching' events, alternative prayer meetings, and even new music that makes the mainstream play-list of Army Radio." Alma's annual slichot event, she said, "is aimed at creating a time and place where Jews from different traditions can come together to celebrate the end of one year and prepare for the new one. The Alma slichot event, similar to the annual Tikkun Leil Shavuot in the spring, provides a contemporary cultural alternative to the synagogue." This year's gathering will features lectures by Calderon ("The lure of the forbidden - on the nature of sin in Talmudic stories") and Yair Lapid ("Jacob and Esau - the forgiveness that never was"), and live music by Abate, Shem Tov Levy and Rona Kenan, performing traditional and modern arrangements of songs of prayer and liturgy.