Wednesday ("hump day")
Jul. 15th, 2004 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellio I'm finding that when I do finally settle down to sleep, the
brain is still going and it's hard to turn it off. And then I'm waking up
early with more of the same; I've only been awakened by the alarm once so
far, not for lack of trying. I'm running on about 5-6 hours per night
here, which is not my norm. I'm not sleepy during the day, but I
have to make sure I get a good night's sleep Saturday somehow,
because I'm driving home on Sunday. Well, at least Harry Potter and the
CD that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
murmur311 gave me (thanks!) will keep me company. :-)
(I packed a bunch of other CDs in case the audio book didn't work, but it
did so I probably won't touch them.)
Today was a good day. Our service is in pretty good shape except for two things: we haven't yet done a full walk-through (that'll be tomorrow), and the cantorial student didn't have the tape of weekday nusach for me today. He'll have it tomorrow and this is a forgiving group, so that should be fine. But there's not a lot of time to learn it.
We've done a detailed talk-through of the service, with (as our advisor strongly suggested) post-it notes in the siddur for practically everything, including page cues and the "stand up now" gesture. This is right for a group not used to working together and using an unfamiliar siddur; I'd like to think that when we all go home to our familiar congregations wtih familiar liturgy, this wouldn't be such an issue. But maybe you have to lead a few dozen services before you're that comfortable; I forget. (And certainly when I was leading at Tree of Life I made my own doctored-up copy of the siddur, because neither the siddur nor the congregation was familiar. If I ever get around to learning the weekday shacharit service I won't need to do that, though.)
This morning's service worked very well, especially musically. This time during the chatzi kaddish, instead of trying to learn the weekday nusach from listening/reading, I just sat back and took it in. It gave me a private moment within the service, and that was pretty nice. We tend in general to be somewhat down on non-participatory music, but it has a place. I guess this is another place where being an "anthropologist" and being a worshipper can be at odds; if I were just a regular worshipper and not someone getting ready to lead services (here and at home), I probably wouldn't have been too tempted to learn that particular nusach.
Services are held in HUC's chapel, which probably can seat around 100 people normally. (It's chairs, not pews, and they can be moved.) This morning's leaders did something really clever: they put the supplemental song sheet on the seats up front where they wanted people to sit. People naturally went to the seats with paper on them, and I didn't notice anyone pick up the paper and then move farther back. Neat idea.
They did the "open up our eyes" song before Sh'ma. So much for being the first to use that. :-) (Mind, with a Friday-morning service, that was probably pretty unlikely.) On the plus side, more people will know it by the time we use it.
The schedule said "b'nei mitzvah (youth and adult)", but we never got to adults. We didn't really even finish youth.
This class had a lot of good advice on building effective educational programs that start years before the bar mitzvah and involve the entire family. A critical failure (IMO), though, was the idealism. The rabbi suggested requiring certain things, like higher degrees of family participation and home observance, which is a great thing to encourage but I suspect falls flat when the finance committee says "we need $X in dues income and you're driving these people away". I asked how you balance those competing goals, of welcoming families while increasing requirements (especially in an established congregation), but I didn't really get an answer.
So I've got all sorts of ideas for education of kids and parents who want to be further educated, but no real clues about how to get there.
Mind, there were some smaller-scale suggestions too, like spending 5 minutes a week every week in every grade on the parsha, with age-appropriate material so they get it in a cycle but keep learning new things. I suspect that even the most sparse Sunday-school program can spare five minutes a week. There were other suggestions that I think would work well, like discussion groups or informal classes for the parents concurrent with Sunday school (to encourage them to come into the building instead of dropping the kids off).
She also advocated a weekly one-on-one meeting (20 minutes) between each student in the bar-mitzvah year and the rabbi, where they also talk about the kid's life (school, friends, etc), to cast the rabbi as a safe, trusted advisor. Sounds great in principle, but we have 45 b'nei mitzvah this year. Do the math. Not going to happen.
Of all the classes on the schedule, this is the one that I was least interested in. The need to conduct a bris or baby naming is unlikely to come up for me, and I don't "do" babies -- that is, I would if my rabbi really really needed me to, but this just does not touch any of the emotions it's supposed to in me, and I would never volunteer. And the topic doesn't speak to me from an intellectual or theoretical perspective.
That said, the rabbi was very good and she made it interesting. She did outline how these kinds of services usually go (there's a lot of flexibility, particularly in baby namings), but most of the discussion was on issues with the family. A fair bit of time went to the "circumcission: home, hospital, or evail mutilation?" controversy that comes up from time to time, and ways to talk to families not inclined toward "home".
A nice idea: the brit (ok, I just can't write "bris" without twitching a little, ok?) completes the act of creation; God and man collaborate in creating a new human. (Interesting that we "complete" this creation by removing something.)
We also talked some about ways to authentically bring adopted children into the covenant and the question of conversion in those cases. I had not previously heard the idea (expressed by a classmate, not the rabbi) that Jews should not adopt Jewish children lest you inadvertantly create situations of incest -- that you should adopt non-Jewish children and convert them. This does not ring true to me, particularly because I know someone in the Orthodox community who runs an adoption network specifically to prevent Jewish kids from being "adopted out". (I stayed at her house once for Shabbat, and she had a special phone line for those calls that she would answer at any time. Apparently time was considered to be of the essence; if a Jewish kid showed up in the orphanage (or wherever kids show up) then finding a prospective parent within hours really mattered. I haven't talked with her about the details.)
This was mainly a class about planning an education curriculum. It was a good class; it and the b'nei mitzvah class would have benefitted from tighter integration.
For any class, you must have a goal: why are you teaching this specific class? It's easy to come up with activities (particularly to keep kids busy), but that's not the same as having a goal. This isn't about rubrics; she was talking higher-level goals.
Apparently a lot of Sunday/Hebrew schools do not give the teachers much to work with. They get things like "3rd grade: teach Genesis, holidays, Israel" and are expected to turn that into a year's worth of classes, without much in the way of training. I don't know the details of my congregation's school, but I know we're better organized than that.
Do not neglect informal education opportunities, she said -- encouraging camps and holding Shabbat retreats are some of the best things we can do to immerse people in Judaism. It's one thing to go to class every Sunday from 9-11AM; it's completely different to wake up to Jewish music, bentch after every meal, talk about Jewish things throughout the day, and otherwise live it with other people doing the same thing. Yup -- we're seeing that with this program too; aside from our Shabbatons I've never bentched in a group after every single meal for a week, for example. (And I successfully led it a couple days ago.)
Educating the parents is important too; parents create a lot of our problems (not intentionally). This is the part that particularly would have benefitted from integration with the other class.
"If you feed them they will come" (on the subject of getting parents to stick around during Sunday school).
For adult education (not just parents), it's important to find out what they want to learn and teach that. Don't try to figure out what they really need; ask them. They're busy people and won't show up if the topic doesn't speak to them. (You also need a comfortable environment and engaging leaders/teachers.)
The trope class continues to go very well. I am actually learning the names of the symbols! I haven't called mapach the less-than sign all day. :-)
This paragraph contains trope geeking. I also finally get what's going on with the very similar darga and mercha in the t'vir clause. In retrospect it was obvious; why didn't I notice before? That's why we have instructors.
The following pattern really works for learning to chant a passage:
- Read the Hebrew aloud (just text).
- Chant the trope using the names of the symbols.
- Chant the passage using the Hebrew words.
We learned a rule that is not in the book and that I had not heard before -- but knowing it, some things Trope Trainer does make more sense. (Or at least I think so; that's from memory.) Specifically: never chant an ascending interval on an unaccented syllable. Never. The ear hears the upward motion as an accent, which can change the meaning of the word. If you need to insert some extra notes (on the final pitch) to make it work you do so, but you complete the upward motion on the accented syllable. (I think the instructor has decided I'm the most advanced student in the class, because he gave me the first sneaky case of this. I got it wrong but caught myself before he was able to say anything.)
One more bit of geekery: the "amein" that the reader typically sings in response to the aliya blessing is the t'vir ta'am. Why? Because the blessing is in a minor key and cantillation isn't, and just chanting that before you start the reading helps you switch gears. (So I guess it could have been any meaty ta'am, but that's the one they chose.) This makes sense, though the last time I chanted torah I had to kill that "amein" (in favor of just saying it) because I just could not figure out the transition from that melody to the first word of the portion. (I forget what it was -- Chukat sheni, if anyone cares to investigate -- but it wasn't a starting point I was used to.)
Ok, I'm done with the trope geeking. Come back. :-)
I am really enjoying this class. We might not manage to cover all the symbols in the time remaining, but even the subset we've done so far has moved me well beyond where I was. I think I also have a better idea about how to continue on my own. I must make sure the teacher knows how much I appreciate this.
(He has perfect pitch, by the way. Poor fellow.)
Da lifnei mi atah omeid. Know before whom you stand.
The leader (cantorial soloist or otherwise) stands before the congregation, before God, before the decision-makers of the shul, before random visitors, before himself. Lots of needs to balance, but you're there for them. This is not your time to pray, the instructor says. (Which raises the question of what you do when this is your full-time gig and not an occasional service, but that will not be the case for any of us so I wasn't going to take up class time bringing it up.)
We talked a lot about factors to consider in choosing music. I may list them later, but it's getting late so I won't do it now. The instructor stressed that the cantor shouldn't be a jukebox; music is an integral part of the service and you need to plan them together.
We talked about the "four Ms of music" (an idea developed by Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller). Liturgical music (she says) falls into the following categories: majestic, meditation, meeting (that is, community-building), and memory (triggering of same). We talked about the strengths and weaknesses of each. (You balance them, obviously.)
We also talked about how to introduce new music. The instructor's observation: at the point when you're bored with it, they're finally getting it. Do it some more. :-)
Tonight's service was the first one that really didn't work for me. This doesn't mean the leaders did anything wrong; it just wasn't my style. It was somewhat creative, at the expense of core liturgy, and the creative readings just didn't speak to me. I saw what they were trying to do, but it just didn't resonate. I'll have to figure out if there's anything useful and constructive I can say in the service review at breakfast. (Every day at breakfast we spend time discussing the most recent two services, that morning and the previous night's. The leaders begin by telling us what they were trying to do and how they thought it went, and then the faculty comment, and then the students do. But it all has to fit in about 15 minutes per service, which is hard.)
Misc
During a rare 30-minute break I walked over to the HUC library in search of the Achad Ha-am collection I mentioned the day before yesterday. Alas, the book is currently out (one of my classmates?). I got a (temporary) library card. Later I saw a comment from one of you that looks like it's a link; thanks very much! So maybe I don't need to worry about the book. (Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to really explore the library -- let alone the rare-books room!)
Thanks everyone for the comments on these entries; I'm glad people are enjoying them. I'm downloading them and reading them offline, which is why you haven't seen any responses. I'll post responses when I'm home.
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Date: 2004-07-15 05:29 am (UTC)