Nusach is sanctified,” says Cantor Joseph Malovany, “just as the reading of the Torah is sanctified.”

That is why the cantor — who will speak at Teaneck’s Cong. Keter Torah on Dec. 26 — is offering workshops stressing the importance of conducting prayers in the “ancient and holy” manner.

Malovany, longtime cantor of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in New York City and distinguished professor of liturgical music at the Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music of Yeshiva University, told The Jewish Standard that in many of the synagogues he has visited, “there has been a relaxing of the rules,” particularly where laymen are drafted to lead services in the absence of a professional chazzan.

Cantor Joseph Malovany

He likened the situation to that described in Shoftim, Judges.

“It says, ‘In those days, there was no king in Israel and every man did as he pleased.’ That’s what’s happening today,” he said, “even in Orthodox shuls where there is no professional. It makes me very upset.”

The cantor said he deems his commitment to proper prayer services “a calling, because I grew up on it.” Raised in Tel Aviv, he was already learning to play the piano at 6 and conducting services at 8½.

Malovany said it is extremely important for those who pray to become aware of nusach, the musical motifs that determine how one is to chant a given prayer.

“We cannot do whatever we want,” he said. “We are a religious people who adhere to tradition. How dare people take advantage and do what they want when they are at the amud [lectern at which a chazzan leads prayers].

“People do not pay attention to pronunciation and punctuation,” he added. “When they chant, they stop whenever they want to take a breath. It makes the prayer irrelevant.” And while failing to convey the meaning of the prayer, “it also breaks Jewish tradition.”

His mission, he said, is not just to reach students with this message but to give seminars to laymen as well. In Teaneck, he will “try to make people aware of the problem,” offering some suggestions on resolving the issue.

Howard Gruenspecht, Keter Torah’s executive director, said he hopes those who attend “will be able to gain a better understanding and appreciation for the words we say in our daily prayers.” The workshop will interactive, he said, allowing congregants — many of whom “have experienced the beauty of hearing [Malovany] lead a service and the thrill of seeing him perform in a concert — to learn from the cantor directly in a lecture-type setting.”

Malovany stressed the importance of respecting the text when reciting Jewish prayer.

“The text is important,” he said, pointing out that vocal coaches stress text when teaching opera singers. “And our text is far more important than opera. It’s a holy text.”

Malovany said he has a “revolutionary idea” — one he feels would be particularly appropriate for the Teaneck community.

“Teaneck has outstanding synagogues,” he said, calling the town “a fabulous community.”

Perhaps, he suggested, several local Orthodox synagogues “might get together and appoint a chazzan who would reside in Teaneck and every Shabbat rotate among the synagogues.” Not only would that give congregants the benefit of hearing a professional cantor, but “the chazzan could also identify people with talent and knowledge and work with them so when he is not there, they will daven correctly.”

Suggesting that prayer has two components, the intellectual and the spiritual, Malovany said knowledge of liturgy enhances a prayer experience. He is a big proponent of congregational singing, he said, pointing out that in his synagogue, “people sing all the time. When one participates and listens to a chazzan chanting with feeling, he goes home with spiritual fulfillment.”

But there is also an intellectual element, he noted, explaining that iyun tefillah, the study of prayer, is a commandment without limitations.

“We are obligated to study the text, understand it, and figure out where it comes from and why is it recited at that particular moment,” he said. “It’s like studying the Talmud. A chazzan who chants is really a teacher. By his interpretation, he conveys a religious message. He conveys something that inspires the worshipper to study and better understand the text.”

The cantor also stressed the importance of kavanah, concentration, during prayer.

“I’m very much against people holding the Talmud during services,” he said. While he applauded the importance of Talmud study, he emphasized that “it should not be during davening. You should pray with kavanah or the prayer is irrelevant. How can you study when you’re supposed to pray? The prayer is being ignored.”

Malovany, who served as a cantor in the Israeli army and later did stints in Johannesburg and London, has been at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue since 1973 and at YU for some 25 years. He also travels around the world to teach and give concerts and is particularly proud of his work as dean of the Joint Distribution Committee’s Moscow Academy of Jewish Music, an institution he helped found in 1989.

“I’ve never taken a penny for that,” he said. “I give my heart to them. It’s a labor of love.”

In previous years, he said, he visited the school two or three times a year. Last year, he gave a concert at the Bolshoi Theater with the Moscow Philharmonic.

“I became part of the awakening of the Jewish community in the former Soviet Union,” said Malovany, whose concerts have been attended by presidents and prime ministers. He received a knighthood from the president of Poland, had a Lithuanian coin issued in his honor, and was named honorary chief cantor of Vilnius. “The issue of liturgical music has become an important component in the religious and cultural life of Jewish communities in eastern Europe,” he added.

For more information about Malovany’s Teaneck workshop, call Cong. Keter Torah, (201) 907-0180.

Some 150 public-school teenagers from around the country will forgo ski trips and New Year’s parties during their winter vacations next week to study Torah with NCSY and spend New Year’s Eve at a shabbaton in Teaneck.

Tuesday marks the first day of the Yarchei Kallah, an annual study program geared toward NCSY teenagers from non-Orthodox backgrounds. Students will hear speakers from around the world, including scholar-in-residence Rabbi Menachem Nissel of Jerusalem, at the Hilton Hotel in Stamford, Conn., during the five-day program. In the past, NCSY leaders have made Shabbat in the hotel for the students, but this year they wanted to provide a different experience. On Friday, Dec. 31, the students will arrive in Teaneck for a Shabbaton at Cong. Keter Torah, where many of the students will have their first “authentic Shabbat experience,” according to organizers.

“This year, instead of creating our own atmosphere for Shabbat, we wanted to expose the kids to a Shabbat-observant community,” said Rabbi Yaakov Glasser, director of NCSY New Jersey.

Part of the experience will be challenging perceptions of what an Orthodox community is like. Teaneck is a prime example of a community that is full of “highly educated and sophisticated modern people who embrace a Torah way of life,” Glasser said.

“The Teaneck community really has the capacity over this weekend to completely shift the impressions and the experiences of these kids as they relate to Torah Judaism,” he said.

About 2,000 students participate in NCSY across New Jersey, but only 50 percent are from Orthodox backgrounds. Programs focus on concepts such as chesed and tzedakah, rather than heavy study that would require a day-school background.

“The non-religious kids meet Jewish teenagers who are from a religious background who are cool, who are normal, who are sophisticated,” Glasser said. “It demystifies for them what it means to be a religious Jew.”

Orthodox students and families who participate will benefit as well, Glasser said, by seeing the reactions of teenagers for whom religious observance is not routine. Orthodox teenagers can sometimes become complacent about their religious observance, he said, and when the non-Orthodox students see that religion and modernity can co-exist, the Orthodox students are reinvigorated by the enthusiasm around them.

“When we walk into Keter Torah on Friday night for kabbalat Shabbat and there is singing and dancing and enthusiastic embrace of the Shabbat experience, that is going to be an experience created by nonreligious students for religious people,” he said. “When they see that enthusiasm and that passion and that commitment, that is something that is going to make a mark on their own religious experience.”

Rabbi Shalom Baum, religious leader of Keter Torah, looks forward to welcoming the students and giving them a taste of the Orthodox community. He will lead a discussion on Friday night about WikiLeaks and Jewish views on privacy.

“We sometimes take our rituals and our everyday lives for granted,” Baum said. “Hopefully, the participants of the NCSY program will meet teenagers who are very engaged with society and the realities of contemporary life, but also with fidelity to Torah values.”

The Shabbaton is not about pushing Orthodoxy, Baum emphasized, but creating social opportunities for the students beyond their normal circles. It is also an opportunity for his congregants to meet people from the broader Jewish community, he said. The rabbi sees the program as part of his synagogue’s mission of outreach.

“I don’t see it as a missionizing attempt,” Baum said. “It shouldn’t be an attempt to ‘show them the way.’ The basic approach is the inherent value of socializing with as broad a population of Jews as possible.”

In addition to Baum, Friday night will include a “Jew Year’s Eve” oneg.

“We’re going to create a New Year’s for a group of kids used to celebrating with parties, and we’re going to do it from a Jewish experience,” Glasser said.

Rabbi Eliyahu Blum addresses yeshiva students in Nahariya.

“The miracle that happened in 1948” will be the focus of a personal message from Israel to highlight a community-wide Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Independence Day) celebration at Cong. Keter Torah in Teaneck on the evening of May 9.

Rabbi Eliyahu Blum, head of the Nahar Deiah Hesder Yeshiva in Nahariya, told The Jewish Standard that he plans to impress upon the assemblage “how thankful we should be, and how important this day is for all of us — for Jews in Israel and for the people of our nation all over world.”

Zvi Sebrow, co-chairman of the annual event for the past 10 years, said he always chooses an apolitical speaker from Israel who can “impart Torah and information” for about 15 minutes between the afternoon prayer service (7:25 p.m.) and the reading of the names of terror victims from the past year. In recent years, these speakers have included the security coordinator of Hebron and the deputy Israeli United Nations delegate. (Carmi Abramowitz is co-chair.)

Area day school children are an integral part of the proceedings. Students will form a processional with Israeli flags as they come onstage to read the names. Later, flags will again be featured, this time in a festive presentation for Independence Day by children from two Paramus schools, Yavneh Academy and Ben Porat Yosef, under the direction of two Israeli National Service women working at Yavneh.

During Blum’s talk, simultaneous programming will be held elsewhere in the synagogue for kids from preschool to fifth grade. Based on past years, Sebrow expects up to 200 children and between 700 and 1,000 participants altogether.

In an interview in Israel before leaving for New Jersey, the 49-year-old Blum said he served as an Israeli emissary (shaliach) in Cleveland for several years and saw that Israel’s Independence Day provides a powerful bridge between Israeli and diaspora communities.

“Though it’s a big sacrifice to leave Israel on Yom Ha’Atzmaut, I believe what can be said and done on this day is extraordinary,” he said.

Blum has a special relationship to North Jersey, as Israeli-side vice chairman of the Partnership 2000 project linking the city of Nahariya with the UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey. “I visit New Jersey several times a year because of Partnership 2000 and I want to deepen this connection,” he said.

He is scheduled to speak at area schools and also at Keter Torah on the weekend preceding Yom Ha’Atzmaut. His keynote talk will not focus on aliyah, the concept of “moving up” to live in Israel. “That is not the goal,” he said. “If people feel connected to Israel, one of the future steps would be aliyah, but I feel it is important to identify with people where they are now, not where they might be in the future. People need to be accepted the way they are.”

Back in Nahariya, the 100 young men in Nahar Deiah will celebrate the 63rd year of Israeli independence together with the greater community, which is largely secular.

This yeshiva is one of some 60 Israeli hesder yeshivot, where religious post-high school students spend five years in a Torah learning-environment, including approximately 18 months of duty in the Israel Defense Forces. Blum, who joined Nahar Deiah nine years ago, said the 15-year-old yeshiva stresses community service, such as hospital volunteering and delivering food to needy families, and has strengthened Jewish life in the seaside city of about 5,200 residents.

“It’s a process that is happening all over the Galilee,” he said. “Our mission is really to be part of the city and bring the Torah and a Jewish way of life as close as we can to the people in the street. We want to feel the rhythm of the life here and become part of it.”

He also is eager to share the excitement of Israel’s 63rd anniversary with Jews outside of Israel.

“Yom Ha’Atzmaut is one of the highlights that can bring us all to the same table with the same ideas,” he said. “I really feel it’s important for us in Israel to understand the meaning of Jewish peoplehood, and we cannot do this without understanding the feelings of the communities all over the world and especially in North America.

“Jews in [the diaspora] need to understand the mood and feelings here — not only what they read in newspapers but the spiritual process behind the scenes — and how they can be part of that process.”