Modes of Davvenen

Modes of Davvenen 1) Meditate or chant around the core of the prayer. Find a key phrase or word to repeat that evokes a noticeable feeling. 14) Have a copy of the Arnidah from the Aquarian Minyan Makhzor handy. (Reprinted in AMida section of this book). Explain that as each person in tum receives the sheet, they let their eyes fall on a phrase, and then call it out and let everyone respond repeating the phrase. (The phrase should be short so as not to tax the memory.) After a while suggest that people may have a phrase that comes from their heart that they can substitute for the phrase from the paper being passed around. On the second go around, take away the paper and have everyone say a phrase from the heart to be repeated by everyone. 2) Read each line silently and then close your eyes and chant it aloud with feeling. 3) Ashkenazic Mode: Everyone chants prayer in silence, praying alongside each other but nor in unison, and the Hazan picks up on the last few lines of each paragraph to let· everyone know where the bulk of the people are. 4) Sefardic Mode: Everyone chants the prayer aloud together in Mid-Eastern modality. 5) Everyone closes eyes. Hazan chants phrase; community re-chants the phrase. 15) Read a prayer but stop when a word or phrase strikes you and keep on saying it softly or meditate on it. 6) Everyone chants the prayer together aloud; then everyone chants spontaneous prayers on the same theme. 16) Prayer leader chants prayer line by line or phrase by phrase, but stretches out the last word. People harmonize on that word. 7) Get in touch with an event or image in prayer and imagine that you are participating in it as a .present living reality. 17) Make up songs on the words and themes of Twelve Torah Ideas to Memorize, found earlier in this book. 8) Mime out a word or phrase and invite the community to participate in this. 18) Sing the Basic Prayer Cycle (p. 16) as if it was the Passover Order of the Seder. Sing a tune without words describing your own emotional state right now. This need not be melodic, but even a chant, wail, cry, or piercing scream. Hazan chants and the community spontaneously improvises a dance or movements that they relate to the prayer. 10) Chant a series of questions about prayer, about God, to God, to the community, that have to do with the theme of the prayer. 20) Chant the word Shma over and over. 11) Say the prayer aloud together; in whisper. 21) Sing the English to a prayer such as Adon Olam as if it were the Hebrew. 12) Do a movement to body out the words of a phrase from the prayer. 22) Pray for someone by reciting verses (found at the end of section 4 of this book) spelling out that person's name in Hebrew . 13) Let individuals each chant or say one line of the prayer and then have the rest of the community repeat the line.