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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.

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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.

MagLite makes a really small (uses 1 AAA battery) flashlight made to go on your keychain. http://www.maglite.com/product.asp?psc=1AAACELL&pt=R will take you to the specific page from the manufacturer. I've seen 'em for sale at a couple of places - your local Lowe's/Home Depot would probably be a good place to start; you might get lucky and find one at WalMart, tho' the selection there is usually limited. I think I've spotted them at Office Depot, as well.

Good luck!
_M_

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).

Surely this is something you think about quite a bit, though. You certainly are the first Reform person I have ever, and I do mean ever, who does those things. My understanding was that Reform is a non-halachic system in the sense that you should only do a ritual or act if you personally feel motivated to do it. Universal, rational imperatives are binding; rituals and prohibitions are optional. Wouldn't that be accurate?

I don't have any concrete suggestions for Monica like these, but I know that there have been great advances in flashlight technology, what with the bright LEDs that have been developed in the past few years. (LEDs aren't just red anymore!). Since they have low electric requirements, and don't burn out the same way lightbulbs do, they're ideal for keychain things... so I think it's worth looking into!

The book takes a few swipes at Reform,

I think that the problem is that there are people who really are secular and not really affiliated with any movement. However, they self-identify as "Reform" for whatever reason, even though they don't know about the philosophy and history of the Reform movement. Of course, if the people who wrote the book actually bothered to talk to Rabbis at HUC (the reform Seminary, with campuses conveniently located in New York, Cincinnati, and Jerusalem) (also LA? I'm not sure) they could've been disabused of their mistakes.

Thanks!

While Reform says that not all (traditional) halacha is binding on everyone, individual Reform Jews can still be so bound. This generally comes after making a study of the subject, but sometimes just comes from a desire to uphold a community standard. Reform does, by the way, say that the ethical commandments are binding on everyone.

This looks goofy from the outside, though, because aside from the ethical commandments there are no universal rules. Some keep Shabbat fully; some take the day off from work but watch TV and cook; some mark it with candles at one end and havdalah at the other but don't abstain from melacha; and so on. Some keep full kosher; some keep a kosher home and eat dairy out; some limit themselves to kosher species but don't worry about shechita; some don't eat pork and shellfish. Thay all believe they are keeping Shabbat (or kashrut) to some level, and if asked will tell you that it's not the same as what their traditional friends do. They will also (mostly) tell you that they are obligated to the observance they do; it's not that they do kashrut this week but not next and so on. The important distinction, though, is their reasons for doing them. Even if I became fully frum, if I did it from a basis of autonomy (rather than just saying "that's what the Shulchan Aruch (etc) says"), then I would not be Orthodox, theologically. I couldn't be. Theology isn't visible, though, only (some) practice.

That's a very good point!

Right, so from what you are saying, "halacha" is optional. I.e. those aspects that make Jewish law "halacha" -- the rituals and prohibitions -- as opposed to ethical imperatives, are only binding if you decide to make them binding.

In essence it is simply what most people who aspire to live by halacha do every day -- do the things they find meaningful, don't bother with those that are impossible or outlandish. Nothing goofy about that. I think the difference would be that a halachic movement would say you strive to do even those things you don't find meaningful, as opposed to Reform, which would say that that is pointless ritualism.

But why then would you bristle at a description of Reform that says "halacha is optional"? Is that not what you're saying? The desciption would at least better than the common if erroneous assumption that Reform is just a non-observant form of orthodoxy. I'm just not sure I understand why you disapproved of that judgment.

But why then would you bristle at a description of Reform that says "halacha is optional"?

Accepting halacha (or a subset of it) is optional, but once accepted its observance is not optional.

Consider someone who has made a lifestyle choice to be vegetarian, vs. someone who just decided to order the Buddhist's Delight tonight. Is ordering meat optional to both of them? Technically I suppose it is, in that the vegetarian could decide to give that up, but in the typical case the vegetarian does not consider meat to be an option, any more than I consider pork or a cheeseburger to be an option in my own diet.

I guess "optional" to me implies "no commitments", and I don't think that applies to either the vegetarian or the Reform Jew who has decided to follow some halacha.

But you're definitely right that there is a different attitude toward halacha as a whole. The Orthodox Jew who drives to shul has, at least officially, accepted the idea that that's wrong and he should do better. The Reform Jew who drives might feel that way but is more likely to have decided that there's nothing wrong with driving on Shabbat.

For some reason, reading this, I was suddenly overtaken by a burning need for meat knishes with heart-stopping gravy.

I look forward to hearing your results with Bel Fiore!

I think the Outback is lit that way to give a "we're all sitting around a campfire" feeling. *sigh* Key chain LEDs are great, but if you leave them on all night by accident, they die. (Blush.)

e

We had meat kreplach in the soup Friday night, but that's not the same thing. And I don't know how to make heart-stopping gravy. :-)

Ooh, I hadn't considered the campfire effect. Mind, I can't remember the last time I needed to consult a menu while sitting around a campfire -- so if they're prepared to describe my food options verbally, I'll grant them the dim lighting. It's a package deal, though.

I'll post when I have info on Belfiore.

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.

The prototypical keychain LED flashlight is the Photon Micro-Light. I have an LED flashlight on my keychain that I picked up at Office Depot (or the other office supply store with Office in the name; I can never keep them straight) for under $4. My husband has a similar one that I picked up at Wal-Mart. And I just picked up an LED booklight from Sam's Club for under $3 (on sale).

I would recommend that you shop for one that either requires something beyond a simple pushbutton to turn on, or can be locked in the off position. My light, which is a simple push button, has gotten much dimmer, and I suspect that it's turning on and lighting up the inside of my pocket, thus expending battery power.

Mind, I can't remember the last time I needed to consult a menu while sitting around a campfire -- so if they're prepared to describe my food options verbally, I'll grant them the dim lighting.

The Outback, restaurant which promotes itself as having Aussie friendliness? Where the wait staff sit down in the booth with you to explain the specials?

I wouldn't put it past them. :)

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.

Yup, that's the one (though our waiter knelt on the floor beside the table rather than joining us in the booth). You're right; if they're trying to do the "friendly" motif I should ask them to read me the menu next time since I can't. (Actually, now that I've had a chance to peruse the menu, I know that there are exactly two entrees I can eat, so if I can just remember that fact I don't need to read the menu again. All I have to do is ask what the fish of the day is and then decide whether I want that or salmon.)

Thanks for the pointers!

The other "Office" store is Office Max, by the way. (Apropos of nothing, one of my frustrations with the ongoing re-arrangement of Pittsburgh's commercial space is that there is no longer an Office $noun in a nearby location that I'm comfortable driving to at night. Making photocopies has gotten harder.)

Thanks for the tip about the button. I wouldn't have thought of that, and it would be really annoying to discover the hard way that I've been lighting my pocket instead of the things I wanted to light. :-)

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.

You remind me of another knowledgeable and committed Reform Jew that I know; may I pass your journal URL to her?

I used to see tiny disposable keychain flashlights at grocery store checkout lines all the time. I still have a pink one that hasn't burned out yet. (I will admit that I no longer find the idea of a disposable flashlight ecologically acceptable.) The one currently on my keychain is about the size and shape of a AAA battery, and is imprinted with an ad for whoever it was that gave them out as freebies. (Effective advertising, eh?)

Keep notes on your Torah readers - even if they don't volunteer again, you can ask them to read the same parsha again next year, since they already learned it once. After that, it's easier to sucker them into more one-off readings.

Do your readers have to do the whole parsha? At my father's shul, they have a whole slew of volunteer readers, but the minimum commitment is two aliyot. Or maybe have a Shabbat where each aliyah is read by a different first-time ba'al koreh.

You remind me of another knowledgeable and committed Reform Jew that I know; may I pass your journal URL to her?

Sure! The journal's (mostly) public, after all, and I enjoy meeting new people (particularly ones who fit that description). By the way, if the person needs a code to create an LJ account, let me know. I've got bunches of spares.

Y'know, now that you mention it, I used to see those disposable flashlights at the checkout too. Haven't seen them in years, though, and like you, I'd rather have something non-disposable. I'm willing to change a battery from time to time.

Keep notes on your Torah readers

Good point. I do keep notes, and I should start to track how much notice the person got, too (so I know who I can call when an emergency comes up, beyond the two people I already know I can do that to).

Our minyan does not read the entire parsha; we read one aliya. You know how some Conservative congregations do the three-year cycle? We're doing a seven-year cycle. :-) So it's not a large chunk to prepare, but it can still be intimidating for people who are doing this for the first or second time (depending on whether they did it when they were 13). And most of our readers, including me, have never been taught trope -- they learned the bar/bat-mitzvah portion by rote (if they did it at all), and were never taught to read trope. (In case you're wondering, I taught/am teaching myself from a book. I have now done three portions without resorting to tape recordings.) I am trying to make a trope class happen, but the logistics stuff is slowing that down.

I know that our Torah readings must sound pretty trivial to most people, as most read the entire parsha every week, but change is slow and this minyan mostly did not read torah at all until a few months ago, so I think we're doing pretty well. (We're the early service; there's a late service when there's a bar/bat mitzvah (most weeks), and when that happens there's not enough time for the rabbi to read torah in our minyan. We are now learning to solve that problem for ourselves. Yes, we have been pushing back on the timing of that later service, too.)

I have one of these LED flashlights on my keychain. It's tiny enough to not be a nuisance, and bright enough for purposes like she describes.

I actually bought it as an Emergency Backup Flashlight for Pennsic, so that I'd have one when needed. It doesn't focus quite as well as a Mini MagLite (which I keep in my pouch), but is quite nice in a pinch...

Anyway, I commend it. Any decent camping-goods store should have one. (LL Bean, where I got mine, had something like a dozen competing models...)

Accepting halacha (or a subset of it) is optional, but once accepted its observance is not optional.

I'm trying to put this together in my head (having been raised in a wholly secular environment, so I don't actually know a lot).

Is the difference really about the source of interpretation? From what you're saying, it sounds like the Orthodox viewpoint is that there are a standardized interpretation that everyone must follow, whereas the Reform viewpoint is that you interpret the laws yourself, but are then ethically bound to follow that interpretation...

I know that our Torah readings must sound pretty trivial to most people, as most read the entire parsha every week, but change is slow and this minyan mostly did not read torah at all until a few months ago, so I think we're doing pretty well.

And not only the readers are learning, but the whole congregation is learning. Sounds like a worthy endeavor.

When I grew up, girls did not read Torah, at all. The Bat Mitzva offered to me was to read the Haftarah on Friday night, without the blessings. I declined. I learned trope (the little thingies above and below the letters in a Torah scroll, that provide the musical notation) in 6th grade (I went to Solomon Schechter Day School in Philadelphia), but never used them. Now I've got them going through my brain as a music virus...

T'lisha k'tana-a-a-h, azla GAYresh, ger-sha-yee-ee-ee-ee-eem...

I've had aliyot a few times; the first was at a USY convention, I think. The gabbait noted in passing that it was my first aliyah ever (ta-amod, Aliza Rachel bat HaRav Shmuel M'nachem v'Brynah, l'pa'am harishona) and that was that. I guess that was my Bat Mitzva. :-) I've led services, done Yom Tov kiddush, been tenth for the minyan on Yom Kippur, led a seder... but I've never read Torah.

I think the closest Torah scroll to here is 4.5 hours travel away, so it won't be happening any time soon, either. I'm not observant, but I do miss many of the things I grew up with.

Orthodox view: Torah is God's word from Sinai and has passed through a perfect chain of transmission and expansion. God didn't write the laws about driving on Shabbat, for example, but God did provide the rules of exegesis that allowed later rabbis to correctly deduce those laws. Therefore, all of halacha is binding on you, because God said so, including giving later scholars authority to interpret. (Mind, there are different traditions within orthodoxy; some of this is due to legitimate community differences and some to, err, politics. Same as in any organization, that.)

Reform view: no official position on what happened at Sinai, with most believing that regardless, men wrote the Torah and transmission has been imperfect, with unnecessary acretions over time. However, we have some sort of relationship with God, and we are required to study and figure out what God wants from us. If, after study, you conclude that keeping a certain observance is mandatory, then it is for you. (That is the part that I might have an incorrect understanding of, but I think I'm right on this -- where "right" means "tracks with my rabbi (primary) and other rabbis I've heard talk about it".) Note that there might be other reasons for keeping a commndment, such as the practical consideration that you want your more-observant friends to eat in your home. Nothing wrong with that.

My personal view: God spoke to Moshe and Yisrael at Sinai pretty much as described. Men -- first of Moshe's generation and others later -- wrote it down. Men didn't make it up wholesale and there is a divine basis that we have to pay attention to, but we can't assume perfection. In addition, God gaves us the tools for ongoing interpretation, which I understand is the basis of Conservative Judaism. (If

sanpaku is still reading and I've erred in this, I hope he'll correct me.)

(I wrote more about this here.)

Now I've got them going through my brain as a music virus...

Heh. One of the other readers offered to teach me haftarah trope a couple weeks ago (ironically, he does not know torah trope), and I told him to keep away until I finish internalizing torah trope. The last thing I want is cognitive overload; the symbols are the same but the music is different. :-)

(And then there are the differences within the space of torah trope. Apparently the system I've learned, from a book published by UAHC, is a little different from what some of my Conservative friends know. I had noticed minor differences from one particular C synagogue but attributed them to the reader. Anyway, there are also bunches of different regional flavors; I understand that the Trope Trainer software package supports about two dozen trope systems.)

I guess that was my Bat Mitzva. :-)

Well, its commemoration, anyway. That it was sometime after your 12th birthday doesn't get you off the hook for the intervening years. :-)

Our congregation has an "adult b'nei mitzvah" program for people who didn't have the opportunity as a kid. It was, at the time, sort of a prerequisite for my reading torah more generally, so I did it and that was the first time I read torah. Our synagogue's trope tutor is also the regular reader at the (different) congregation where I go on (some) weekdays, and he has it stuck in my head that Sh'lach Lecha is my "bat mitzvah portion" because it was the one for that service, even though my birthday is nowhere near that parsha. This came up when I asked for the chance to read for my birthday the following year and he didn't understand that I meant Behar. It was kind of funny. (Now that I've told that story, I no longer remember why I was doing so. So oh well; you've just received your first Monica ramble. :-) )

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Belfiore

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Re: Belfiore

Re: Belfiore

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