Three years ago The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah Senior Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff had an idea to do something new and different for the summer, patterned after a popular service he had seen in Israel. That idea became Shabbat in the Park, held three times a summer at Leawood’s Gezer Park. The second in this year’s series will be held on Friday, July 17, at the public park located at 133rd Street and Mission Road.
Bisseleh Nosh begins at 5:30 pm. The one-hour service starts at 6 p.m. {mprestriction ids="1,3"}The entire community is welcome and encouraged to bring their own blankets and chairs for the service.
“It’s a pretty amazing thing for us. What started out as an experiment two years ago has turned out to be this fabulous thing for the community,” Rabbi Nemitoff said.
“The first year we probably had about 800 people show up in the course of three services. Last year we think more than 1,100 people showed up. We’re hoping to get the same if not more this year,” he continued.
It appears his predictions came true for the first service, held June 19. B’nai Jehudah estimates 425 people attended the service featuring guest musician Beth Hamon.
Rabbi Nemitoff said the model for Shabbat in the Park now is that the congregation brings in a guest artist to be the core piece of the music, “but we use the music that we’ve been playing with over the course of the year.”
“This year we have three fabulous guest artists.”
Mah Tovu, featuring Rabbi Ken Chasen, Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback and Adam Zweiback, will be the guests this month. Rabbi Chasen grew up at B’nai Jehudah where he became a Bar Mitzvah on Nov. 11, 1978, and he was confirmed in the class of 1981. He is currently the senior rabbi of Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles. Before choosing the rabbinate, Rabbi Chasen embarked upon a career in music composition for television and film in Los Angeles, editing and composing musical scores on numerous film and network television projects.
The last time Rabbi Chasen participated in a service at B’nai Jehudah was at the congregation’s 130th anniversary celebration. (It is now in its 145th year.) He is especially looking forward to being a part of Shabbat in the Park.
“I know how inspiring outdoor prayer can be. My congregation in Los Angeles prays in our Outdoor Chapel every Friday night throughout the summer. It will be such a pleasure to help create such a spiritually uplifting experience in the community where I grew up,” Rabbi Chasen said.
“I can’t wait to reconnect with so many longtime friends. My brother and his family also recently moved back to the Kansas City area, so they will be joining us for what I know is going to be a very memorable Shabbat for us all,” he added.
Rabbi Zweiback is the senior rabbi at Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles and has family in the area.
“I’ve been wanting to get Rabbi Chasen to come back home for a while,” said Rabbi Nemitoff. “Yoshi’s aunt, Devra Lerner, lives in town. He and his brother Adam grew up in Omaha.”
Noah Aronson, who has played a pivotal role in the musical changes the congregation has put in place over the last couple of years, will be the guest artist on Aug. 21.
“Noah was actually with us for the precursor Shabbat in the Park where we did Shabbat at our former retreat center. We did that five years ago and that was the first time we ever met him and he’s been working with us musically ever since. He has now scored for us our entire Rosh Hashanah morning service. Virtually the entire service is musical. He has helped us and done a fabulous job,” Rabbi Nemitoff said.
It takes a lot of time and effort to coordinate these three services every year. It’s also not an inexpensive endeavor.
“It usually costs us in the neighborhood of about $10,000 to do the three services. We are very, very grateful to our Sisterhood for underwriting the cost last year and this year,” Rabbi Nemitoff said.
Rabbi Nemitoff is not surprised that Kansas Citians like to kick back and relax at Shabbat in the Park’s energy-filled Shabbat service.
“It changed the dynamics. We have people asking us all year long when we’re going to do Shabbat in the Park and it’s not just people from B’nai Jehudah. What we’re discovering is we’re getting 300 to 400 people who come to services and a nice group of them are coming from other congregations or are non-affiliated and they just like the informal, musical atmosphere of the service,” Rabbi Nemitoff said.
Rabbi Nemitoff believes there are several reason why folks are drawn to this service. The first is the sense of community it provides. The second piece is because it’s one of the few services where families “can feel absolutely comfortable coming and not really care what their kids do, whether they make noise, whether they run around …”
“We’re at a park. It’s very, very easy to be there and the kids, I think, get a sense of the service while at the same time they are doing their own thing. There is a playground right next to us and we usually have 20 kids playing on the playground during or before the service. So I think it’s that sense of comfort and family that people appreciate.”
Rabbi Nemitoff said the congregation discovered during its Tefilah Team project a few years ago that music is a very meaningful part to prayer for many people.
“People respond to music in a visceral, powerful way and when you create a prayer experience that is filled with music I think people respond to it,” he said.
He said the Kabbalat Shabbat (Welcoming Shabbat) experience is filled with rhythmic music, intended to lift the spirits of congregants and bring joy to the evening.
“We do not use prayer books, just a single sheet of paper for those who wish to follow along with the flow of our prayers. Our service is 90 percent musical and we hope that folks will join in and sing with us every moment of our tefillah.”
The senior rabbi said he thinks B’nai Jehudah members are also enjoying “hearing the mashups that we do.”
“We did Jason Mraz’s song ‘I’m Yours’ to ‘Ahavat Olam’ this past year. We introduced it at Shabbat at the Park. Last year we introduced ‘Lecha Dodi’ doing it to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ and they were wildly accepted. I think people liked that notion of finding pieces of what I would call their secular life to mash up with their religious life, with their faith spiritualized. You put all those things together and it becomes a very special thing.”
He said the park itself brings the spirit of the Holy Land “right here to Johnson County.”
“In the park are a sculpture of Jacob’s Ladder, a copy of the oldest agricultural calendar known, the Gezer Calendar, and a Havdalah Garden. Celebrating Shabbat in this setting brings a bit of Israel — it’s history and spirituality — to our experience.”
“I think people also love being outside. I think there is something special about nature. … At the moment the best that we’ve got is Gezer Park and it’s that sense of being outdoors, being out in the world as you are thanking God, whatever you understand God to be, for the world that we live in.”
It is summer, but so far weather wise, B’nai Jehudah has had good luck on those summer evenings.
“We’ve been fortunate as they say … knock on wood, kenahorah-poo-poo-poo … the worst rain that we’ve had, we had a few sprinkles last summer for one of the services. We’ve had 105-degree temperatures and we’ve had wind, but we’ve never been rained out. We’re very, very lucky.”{/mprestriction}
