cellio | last few days

My synagogue has each grade-school class run one service a year. This has been frustrating for me for a variety of reasons, but this year they made a change. Fourth and fifth grades are now having their services at the monthly "family" Shabbat service, rather than the primary congregational service, and all classes are being split into two services. (Some classes have 50+ kids, and that was just too crazy.)

Last night was the first of these modified services, and it went very well. It was much less chaotic, the kids got to do more, and it was more of a service than a pageant for the parents. And the younger grades, which are more problematic, are doing their services in a more supportive (for them) and less annoying (for the rest of us) environment. It's a win all around, I think.

When there's a bar or bat mitzvah (which is almost every week), that person participates a bit in the Friday service (kiddush and v'shamru). The girl who was bat mitzvah this Shabbat is really good -- good Hebrew pronunciation, good singing voice, and, most importantly, good kavanah. She seemed to really connect with the words she was saying; she was leading, not just performing. At the oneg I told her how impressed I am and that I hope she'll continue to be involved -- confirmation, youth group, etc.

This morning's service went well. For the second week in a row I successfully wound the torah scroll to the right point before the service; I'll learn my way around yet. :-) (Usually the rabbi does it, but both times I was there first and I guess I'm sort of the quasi-gabbai or something now, so I took a crack at it.)

Three of our upcoming Torah readers specifically signed up for their own bar/bat-mitzvah portions. Two are students (so this was fairly recent). None of them have committed to doing more than the one portion, but I hope at least some of them decide to stick with it. Right now I've got five people (including myself) who are "regulars", and several people who are doing it once and then will decide. (I'm not counting the rabbi, who reads in weeks without b'nei mitzvah. I think there are four of those in the next six months.) I'd like to have about eight regulars.

On my way to services Friday I ran into someone on the street who said "hey, aren't you a cantor at [congregation]?" I said I had led services there occasionally but now they've hired a professional (who, I said, is good), and he said flattering things about my work. That was pleasant. (He doesn't belong there either and goes only occasionally, but seems to have hit several of my services purely by accident.)

I've been reading a book called The Kiruv Files, about Jewish outreach. More about that later, but one observation now: one of us, either I or the Orthodox rabbis who wrote it, has a fundamental misunderstanding of Reform Judaism. The book takes a few swipes at Reform, predicated on the assumption that "all halacha is optional for you guys" (so therefore you can change the rules to suit your whims). Um, no. That Reform does not accept the system of halacha handed down to us, wholesale, and that Reform insists on personal autonomy, does not mean that we get to ignore it all. Many Jews do, of course (and not all of them call themselves Reform), but serious Reform Jews can and do accept some halachot as binding -- just as binding as traditional Jews do. This is why I do not work on Shabbat, why I keep kosher, why I pray in certain ways, and why I do or don't do bunches of other stuff. The problem, to the outsider, is that a different Reform Jew will have a different set of binding halachot.

Thursday night's board meeting included the quarterly financial review (budget vs actuals). The reports are getting clearer, in part due to requests from me. :-) And I see that a couple of our newer board members are very concientious (and nit-picky) in reviewing these things, which makes me happy. I'm in my last year; someone else has to be as anal-retentive for me, for continuity. :-) (I'm also on the nominating committee for the next round of board members, which should be interesting. That was announced Thursday.)

Tuesday lyev and I had a small dance workshop (no one else could make it) in which we reconstructed Belfiore (15th-century Italian) from first principles. It turns out that there is one ambiguity that I hadn't remembered from the last time I looked at this (with Rosina): do the three dancers start side-by-side, like in Petit Vriens, or in a single-file line? We had assumed the former, but one of the figures is difficult that way and there are references in the text to dancers "above" and "below" others (where we are not talking about vertical displacement with respect to the floor). We only had two dancers so couldn't try a complete implementation, but I can see the single-file line working. Eventually we'll be able to give it a shot, or lyev will get the Thursday dancers to try it. And I should check our notes from Joy and Jealousy now; I didn't want to do that before because it's actually been long enough that I've forgotten and this way I could come to it without (obvious) preconceptions.

Tonight we went to a restaurant that was so dimly lit that I actually had to take the menu to the front (lobby) area so I could read it. Argh! I'm not surprised by dim light from fancy and/or pretentious restaurants, where I guess the assumption is that you don't need to see your food and candles are romantic, but -- Outback? C'mon! I guess I should be on the lookout for a flashlight small enough to carry in a pocket; I think they make such things targetted for shining a light on your door locks at night; I would imagine that's designed to be fairly small.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd always assumed (well, no, it was the way I reconstructed it) that both Belfiore and Petit Vriens are done in a single-file line. So in that respect my recon of both dances differs from Rosina's. I think I hit the same problem as you in reconstructing Belfiore and so made the reduction-ad-absurdum deduction that it must be a la figlia, and so the same with Petit Vriens.

Continental divide.

I also make my riprese at the end of Petit Vriens longer than Rosina does, and the volta tunda faster, so it looks more like skip and spin than set and turn.

I don't currently have sources to hand, so excuse the fuzziness, but some of the nudge toward the side-by-side interpretation comes from the parts of the dance where (it appears) dancers are supposed to acknowledge each other. A partial turn to face the person next to you is faster than a full turn to face the person behind you (and also easier to return from). Of course, it could be that we've misunderstood the music and there's more time than we think, but those reverances in Petit Vriens seem to go by pretty quickly.

I'm not disagreeing with you; I'm exploring the idea. It's finally been long enough that I can come at the dances in Joy and Jealousy without prejudice, which is neat. I haven't yet looked up our notes on Belfiore to remind myself why we opted for side-by-side. (Well, I say "we" but Rosina is the dance specialist and I am the music spcecialist. We bounced things off of each other and kibbitzed quite a bit, so it was a joint effort, but I don't want to appear to be taking credit for Rosina's work here. I just helped and asked occasional pesky questions. :-) )

A partial turn to face the person next to you is faster than a full turn to face the person behind you

Domenico has a number of dances where a meza-volta is done in zero time. e.g. Caterva, Patienza. It appears to be more common in bassadanze than in balli but it does happen fairly regularly. The sequence mezavolta - ripresa - mezavolta - ripresa happens in a few places.

There is a fair amount of time here -- enough to do a mezavolta and a meza-riverenza anyway.

last few days

Belfiore

Re: Belfiore

Re: Belfiore