Shabbat report
Feb. 17th, 2002 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioRabbi Berkun had larnygitis (I bet I've misspelled that but I'm not sufficiently motivated to look it up), so it's just as well he had a guest cantorial type. He could barely talk; singing would have been a Bad Idea. I offered to take over most of the English reading that he normally does, but he had already scared up someone for that job. He still tried to give a sermon, but he cut it short.
The "sermon" was really more of a report from a conference he attended last week. It was a joint conference of Conservative entities with acronyms; I'm sorry, but I don't know who they all were. The rabbinical body, the cantors' association, something tied to education, a couple more... Anyway, some of the speakers, the rabbi said, had talked about ways of increasing individual observance levels, and Rabbi Berkun rattled off suggestions like lighting Shabbat candles, at least dropping pork and shellfish from the diet if not keeping fully kosher, and so on -- really basic stuff, in other words. I was surprised; the Conservative movement is a halachic one and -- officially -- considers all of these things obligatory, but either this speaker was out in left field or they are having big problems with this among the rank and file. These were suggestions I've often heard from Reform rabbis, but in that movement individual autonomy is encouraged, not shunned. I wonder what it all means.
This Friday was one of the nights that the intergenerational choir at Temple Sinai was singing -- oops. I didn't know about that at the time I scheduled Tree of Life or I would have tried for a different night. But I'm not sure how to discretely get a choir schedule, and I still feel like I'm "moonlighting" and thus don't really want to spread around my real reason for asking.
Saturday morning Rabbi Freedman led the informal minyan, which is unusual. He did ok for the most part (he doesn't usually come so he doesn't know the drill), though he lost control during his drash. (He allowed it to turn into a general conversation that went longer than we really had time for given that he had to go upstairs and do a bar mitzvah after this.) Oops. We still got some Torah study in, and after he left we just continued on our own.
Ok, I have a question about the various "personal offerings" (as opposed to specified communal ones) that were brought. (Maybe Rabbi Gibson will be able to help out next week.) One of these is often translated as the "peace-offering", though Plaut (and the Hebrew speakers in the room) assert that something like "offering of well-being" is closer to the mark. What I don't know is when, and how often, one typically brought these. And was this a case of "things are going well; time to give thanks", or one of "things are going badly; time to ask for help"? (Most people there seemed to think it's the former.) Was this something you did once or twice a year, or any time you wanted to have a festive meal, or what? (The offering could be anything from a bull on down to small birds... not sure if meal-offerings were part of this.)
The talmud talks at some length about making sure that procedures for handling "peace-offerings" and sin-offerings are the same, because we don't want to embarrass the person who brought the latter. The presumption, then, is that peace-offerings are at least as common as sin-offerings, because you're trying to set up the presumption that of course Shlomo over there is bringing a peace-offering, but that only begs the question. (We haven't gotten to sin-offerings yet.) Were people running to the Levites with offerings several times a week, or was this a special thing you did once or twice a year, or what? (I'm confident that the answer is between those extremes, but I don't have any better information.)
Saturday night I went to shiva for a fellow congregant. I didn't actually know the person who died, but I know his wife and she's on the board so I thought I should go. I still don't really understand the protocols. I'm also not sure why Rabbi Gibson has the idea in his head that I've offered to run shiva minyanim; I'm willing if asked, but no, this really isn't something that's calling to me, at least until I learn how to comfort the mourner better. (He asked me if I could run it one night later this week, but the night he wanted was bad and he said not to worry about it -- he has other people he can ask. That's reassuring.)
Shiva protocols
Date: 2002-02-18 02:15 am (UTC)I can also tell you what not to do:
One thing that might surprise you is it is okay to laugh and to tell humorous stories about the deceased -- or in general. At Dad's funeral the rabbi, who'd been a patient of my father's, told stories of sitting in Dad's chair as a kid and recalled some of Dad's eccentricities as a dentist.
Going to the shiva was nice on your part because it's the widow, who you do know, who is still alive and who needs the comforting.
Re: Shiva protocols
Date: 2002-02-18 05:53 am (UTC)I knew to bring food, but I've never been clear on how much to bring for the guests vs. for the family. This time I couldn't do much because the shiva was half an hour after Shabbat, but in general I've tried to bring something for both purposes (e.g. a plate of cookies and a quiche, or the like -- something they can eat the next day for lunch, or whatever).
They had someone who seemed to be in charge of food, which is handy. That way all I had to do was say "this is dairy" and I knew the right thing would happen.
Re: Shiva protocols
Date: 2002-02-18 11:12 am (UTC)Re: Shiva protocols
Date: 2002-02-18 11:25 am (UTC)Actually, I get the impression that most of the time there's an organizer around here too, but it's not the same person every time (usually it's a friend of the family), and you probably don't know who the organizer is until you show up for the first night. So food for the rest of the week can get somewhat sorted out there, but I don't know if there's any advance planning for the first day. Last time (a couple months ago), on the first night I volunteered to bring dinner later in the week, and the next night was told the night had been overbooked so I shouldn't. I also saw the contents of the fridge there when I was helping put some sutff away, so I suspect yours isn't the only community that has an abundance problem. :-)
Re: Shiva protocols
Date: 2002-02-18 04:33 pm (UTC)Indeed. For example, sadly, today a member of the community died. An E-mail went out at 1:05 pm, which read, in part,
At 1:30 a second E-mail went out with the funeral times and another request for people to do shmirah. At 4:37, Plony re-sent the 1:30 E-mail with the coordinator's E-mail address. At 4:44 another E-mail went out saying that shmirah was covered. (The woman who died had been ill for a while, thus the "already been preparing meals" comment. One of her daughters had a bat mitzva just a couple of weeks ago, actually.) The people who send out these E-mails, btw, are volunteers. I'm glad that people are organized, because it's a good thing for the community.
Of course, E-mail is a huge help -- in the old days, I guess you'd have had to do a phone-tree type of thing, which would be a lot more work to coordinate. So don't let my cell phone rantings make you think I'm a technophobe or anything. (Well, I am using LJ, that is a bit of a hint I'm not a technophobe... :-)