cellio | Friday night

When it rains, it pours. Friday mid-day I got a call from the rabbi at ToL asking if I was available to lead services that night (someone got sick, I think); I had to decline because I was -- for only the third time ever -- helping to lead Friday services at my own synagogue. Oops. :-) (I'll be at ToL in two weeks, so I didn't really miss out. I hope he was able to find someone.)

The service went ok. There were some imbalances in the distribution of parts, and the borrowed cantor (from another synagogue, and it was only her second time with us) ended up leading parts that I thought were going to be led by members of our committee. Oh well; it came off ok. I wish they had gone the extra step of letting our own members with the relevant skills fill the cantorial spots, but I guess that's touchy with some people. My part went fine, though I was confident that it would.

At the oneg the aforementioned cantor, without any provocation, complimented me on my Hebrew and then told me she was glad I was there with her during a couple of the sung parts. I'm not sure what the latter was about; she's a professional singer, so it's not that she needed my voice for support or anything. Maybe she just meant that she liked having the person singing next to her being on key. Or maybe she was just glad to have someone from the congregation (who knows the subtle musical clues) up there. Whatever; I can take a compliment without having to deconstruct it. :-)

I learned something interesting during this conversation: as part of the process for applying for admission to cantorial school, you have to correctly chant an unfamiliar Torah passage. I'm not sure how much time you get to prepare. Wow; I figured that would be a skill you'd have to demonstrate, oh, around the end of your first year, not before they even let you in the door.

(I'm not about to go to cantorial school, though I would like to learn trope. I have a book; I haven't gotten very far yet. I want to chant torah again, even if I learn the next one by rote and not because I fully understand the notation. I pinged my rabbi about this again last week; we'll see if it results in an assignment.)

I got to see Patti, one of our members who is now away at rabbinical school in Philly. They're on winter break, so she came back to Pittsburgh. I wish we'd had more time to talk. It's not clear how long she'll be in town; she's going to wing it, depending on weather.

Friday night

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