"What is the Purpose of a Synagogue?": Championing Compassion, Curiosity & Awe with Rabbi Angela Buchdal

Since arriving at Central Synagogue almost two decades ago, Rabbi Angela Buchdal has transformed it into a sui generis experience of communal prayer: backed by a professional band and musical director, her own professionally trained singing voice, and a crew of clerical colleagues with similarly formidable vocal skills, not only is Central’s building packed, their livestream boasts an endless scroll of remote participants from around the country and across the world.

This has all happened at a time when in general, Jews are exiting Jewish institutions and rejecting traditional forms of worship. Plummeting synagogue membership is an ongoing topic of concerned conversation in the fora of organized Jewish leadership, and as Rabbi Buchdal points out, the same trends hold true across Christian denominations.

So I wanted to know how she did it!

The short answer is, she a) went against the grain by leaning into – and deeply investing in – the worship service itself; b) demanded the service adhere to the highest standards of aesthetic excellence and spiritual authenticity, thereby c) consistently creating a tangibly elevated spiritual experience for/with participants.

“People have certain standards for what they expect. As a synagogue that's in New York, our people are going to Lincoln Center, and they're going to Broadway shows, and they're seeing the highest level of artistry and craft and beauty. I'm competing for my people's time against them. And when they come, I want the level of their worship experience to invoke the same kind of beauty and aesthetic excellence that they are used to hearing. It shouldn't be that their secular life is at this level, and their religious life is down here. Shouldn't we be investing as much or more in our worship as anything else. God is worth it, and our tradition is worth it, and I think we can create that model. This is why our belief in the worthiness of it is where the real work is -- it's about self-dignity.

“So collected the best musicians--and not just the best musicians, it's a team of regulars who knows the music inside and out. They never play the same thing exactly the same each week, they are doing a midrash [personal interpretation] on the prayer every time. And they are responding to the energy in the room in the same way that I am. So I would say that my job as a cantor is to be an energy-worker: it's like, how do you feel the energy of this community, and how do you channel it in some way? You have to be in the moment and present.”

Ultimately, for Rabbi Buchdal, the prayer is meant to serve as a vehicle for experiences of awe that can in turn lead to transcendence: which in turn, hold the potential to transform our lives for the better. Certain ingredients must be consistently present in order to catalyze this alchemy of inner and outer perception, the inner and outer self.

“I think the most important thing is that we are all authentically praying. And that includes my musicians by the way. I feel so sad when I hear rabbis say, 'My synagogue would not be the place I pray if I had the option. It's not a worshipful experience for me.' I'm thinking to myself, Well then what hope do we ever have?? For me, I look forward to Shabbat every week; it changes my entire mood.

“That's what it's supposed to do: the ritual itself is transcendent, and pulls you out of your everyday. And that is what we're trying to create: it's really an experience of awe.”