High Holidays with Rabbi Avis Miller & Chazzan Larry Paul
Tifereth Israel is excited to have Rabbi Avis Miller and Chazzan Larry Paul with us this year. This special team has been leading High Holiday services to a packed congregation from their first debut at Adas Israel Congregation in 1983 through 2019 at Sixth and I Synagogue. You can read their story below.
Services will be concurrent with TI's Main Service . Register here.
Following Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Miller shared three readings:
After 30 years, they are still going strong
. . . It all began in 1983 at Adas Israel Congregation. Miller was still in rabbinical school when she was asked to lead High Holiday services. Told she could pick her own cantor, she began asking around for suggestions. A friend recommended Paul, who she knew from a calligraphy class they were both taking at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington.
When asked, Paul said he replied, “Well I’ve never done that before, let’s try it.” He recalled “probably losing 20 pounds” before that first service. It’s one thing to know the prayers and songs, it’s a whole other matter to coordinate starting and stopping at the right time and dealing with the choir, Paul said."
“We are a people of oral tradition, stories and songs, and so Avis handles the storytelling, and I handle the songs,” Paul said. Rather than recite readings in the prayer book, which people can do on their own, Miller said she tells “stories. They could be chasidic, relevant jokes or something interesting she saw in The New York Times.
