In a recent article in the JC’s education section, Joanne Greenaway, the chief executive of the London School of Jewish Studies, noted the demand on Jewish studies teachers to be creative in classes because “young people today have shorter attention spans”.

I am not sure it is just younger people who are affected. Perhaps our electronic environment has made us all more restless and impatient creatures who find it harder to concentrate for long stretches.

Joanne Greenaway

Joanne Greenaway

At any rate, since the emergence of lockdown there seems to be more talk about the need to reduce the length of that centrepiece of the religious week, the traditional Shabbat morning service.

I’ve heard that one or two communities are struggling to attract the same level of attendance they enjoyed pre-pandemic, at least for the main minyan. Maybe during lockdown some traditional shul members even turned to streaming Progressive services under lockdown and preferred what they saw.

The watchword now seems to be, keeper it shorter if you can.

What is the optimal time for a Shabbat morning service? A recent strategy paper produced for the United Synagogue’s largest congregation, Borehamwood and Elstree, suggested a maximum of two and a quarter hours.

It’s doable — particularly if you restrict the rabbi’s sermon to five or so minutes. The derashah is the one part of the proceedings that is not a formal part of the liturgy and yet for some congregants — depending, of course, on their rabbi — it can be the highlight.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (Credit Templeton Prize-2c Blake Ezra)

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (Photo: Blake Ezra)

Another time-saving option is not to repeat the Musaph Amidah. I know in one place at least Anim Zmirot, the Hymn of Glory, has been sacrificed post-lockdown.

But if a service is confined to little more than a couple of hours, you’d need to have an exceptional level of Hebrew — by middle-of-the-road Anglo-Jewish standards — to follow the words from start to finish and understand what is being said.

It’s true, of course, that many weekly traditional shul-goers do not roll up until well after the start. If the service is compared to a five-act play, then many do not make an appearance until the third act.

The devotees may be in their place for the first bracha, while the bulk of the congregation filters in over the next hour or so. So if the full service takes three hours, what does it matter, since you do not have to sit through the whole thing and can choose when to come?

And yet, I think, there is greater willingness to question whether the conventional way of doing things is the best. Is there much point in rushing through prayers merely to complete the fixed liturgy?

In an essay in his posthumously published collection I Believe, Rabbi Sacks observed that “one gain” in praying in lockdown isolation was the ability to go at one’s own pace rather than having to keep up with the shaliach tzibbur (congregational prayer leader).

“It is hard to slow the pace so as to be able to meditate at length on any of the prayers themselves — their meaning, music, rhythm and structure,” he observed.
Lockdown meant “we could listen more to the poetry and passion of the prayers themselves”, he wrote.

There are parts of the public service that need to be collectively recited and collective singing can be an uplifting experience. But if one wants to encourage a spiritual connection to the prayers, then Rabbi Sacks’s prescription would seem a sine qua non.

And to achieve that within a public setting might need a more flexible, selective format — for example, choosing from among the repertoire of psalms in any one week rather than gabbling through the whole lot.

Another, more radical idea would be to replace the annual Torah reading cycle by a triennial one (a practice which once was followed in ancient Israel).

To limit the service to two and a bit hours generally requires high-speed leyning of the portion— which makes it difficult to follow the Hebrew while glancing at the translation, with barely enough time to digest the commentary during the gaps between aliyot.

In the early part of the 20th century, at least one United Synagogue congregation, the New West End, favoured seat of the Anglo-Jewry gentry, did consider the triennial option.

According to the emeritus rabbi of the Great Synagogue in Sydney, Rabbi Raymond Apple, a former minister of Hampstead Synagogue, “the motivation was the feeling that Sabbath services were too long, and that members lost interest and began to fidget and talk once the Torah reading began” (oztorah.com).

Similar thoughts were entertained at Hampstead. But it was not a departure that was likely to muster support from the Chief Rabbi.

A shorter service would allow for more creative options in addition to it: a seminar or workshop to explore part of the Torah reading or liturgy, meditative prayer practice or even a book club. A few congregations may already be experimenting with similar things in breakout sessions — a trend which we may well see grow.