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Shabbat dinner
It was fun. I previously knew only two of the ~25 people who were there, which just emphasized the point to me that we have a mostly-disconnected group of members. There were both couples and individuals.
They asked us to light candles and make kiddush and motzi at our tables, rather than one person leading for the entire group. I'm not sure that worked; we ended up bumping into the singing from each others' tables sometimes. The rest of my table elected me "most likely to know the words and carry a tune" or some such when I wasn't looking, so I ended up doing candles and kiddush before insisting that someone else participate and do motzi. (Someone obliged.) Later the organizer told me that next time maybe she'll ask me to lead for everyone; she likes my voice. Ok, if she wants to give me kiddush that's fine, but she should pick two other people for the two other blessings. (Besides, I cease to be elligible for this group in a year, so she shouldn't get used to me. :-) )
The dinner was very pleasant, though we didn't sing songs the way I thought we would. I don't know how one organizes that. (I've never been able to make it happen when I invite people over for Shabbat, either. I feel self-conscious saying "ok, let's sing now".)
Services were good. The rabbi had, uncharacteristically, announced the topic of his sermon in advance, because people had been asking him when he was going to talk about Iraq and he wanted to let people know that this week would be it. He said lots of good things with which I agree; I'm not going to try to summarize. It was very well-written; maybe he'll publish it.
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Hope all is well. :)
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I've also had positive experiences at Tree of Life, New Light, Dor Chadash (meets at JEI), Poale Tzedek, and (though it's been a while) Rodef Shalom. Any of these should be fine for just dropping in on. (PZ is Orthodox, Rodef and Sinai are Reform, Tree and New Light are Conservative, and Dor Chadash is Reconstructionist.)
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Tree of Life is also pretty accessible -- mix of Hebrew and English, lots of congregational reading, easy to know where you are, etc. I'll be leading Shabbat evening services there on Nov 1, BTW.
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If I can make it to Shabbat services, Nov 1, I will try. I kinda miss going to services.
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There is a free class on basic Hebrew that comes around a few times a year. It'll teach you pronunciation; it doesn't attempt to do comprehension (which requires much more work, of course). Go to http://www.njop.org, find the page for "Hebrew reading crash course", and search the locations. They update the list about once a week, so keep checking back until you find something nearby.
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