Committed Students Lead High Holiday Services at BJC

My journey to lead services started last year when Jake and I realized Daniel Novick, the person who had lead services in recent years, would be in Israel preparing to become a Rabbi. At first, I was not seriously considering leading services at Hillel, since I knew that I would be busy working at my internship over the summer and looking for a job once I got back to school. However, after talking with Jake and Whitney Perlen towards the end of the school year, I decided that I wanted to help lead high holiday services so that we keep the leadership within the UVa student community.

This past summer, Jake gave me a set of CDs with an example of the chanting for the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services. I used these to study all of the prayers I needed to learn for services. I made playlists for each of the services that I had to learn and would listen to the playlists on repeat to familiarize myself with the services.

In the final weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I ramped up my practicing schedule and worked with Whitney and Jake to make sure we had every service covered. On the days of the services, Whitney and I traded off leading, and everything went very well. We had a few hiccups in the first couple of services, but by Yom Kippur everything went very smoothly.

Leading services was an experience that I will take with me forever and never forget. From this point on, I will be able to lead the Kol Nidre service and other parts of high holiday services! I hope to use this knowledge in the future and pass it on to others.

Ben Edgar
Wa-Jew Class of 2015