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shiva minyan, short takes
I think I've finally, without really thinking about it, derived the appropriate response to the family either thanking me or praising me: "I'm glad I could help". I mean, you don't want to say "happy to help", given the circumstances, but it feels like I need to say something.
There is a dynamic of cues, some subtle and some overt, when leading a service, to clue people in about when to read together, stand/sit, and so on. Must remember: nothing subtle applies to mourners. They're pre-occupied; do not make them expend cycles on the mechanics of prayer. The ones who pray regularly will know anyway; the ones who don't need the direction.
Must remember to ask my rabbi #1: does our congregation have any conventions about what to do after the service? Leave immediately, accept the offers of food, hang around for 5-10 minutes and then slip out? Not sure. I tend to do the last unless I actually know the family.
<geek> Must remember to ask my rabbi #2: why is there a chatzi kaddish between hashkiveinu and t'filah? I'm so used to skipping over it -- because we almost never get a minyan for weekday evening and it's not there (in Gates of Prayer, anyway) in the Shabbat evening service -- that it took me by surprise tonight in the special siddur for a house of mourning (which I've rarely used). On the one hand, as long as there are interruptions between ga'al yisrael and t'filah anyway (hashkiveinu, v'shamru on Shabbat) what's the harm?, but on the other hand, we don't generally use that as an excuse to compound problems. Hmm. My rabbi and I studied that passage in B'rachot not long ago (well, maybe we'll yet return to the thread) and the sages raised hashkiveinu but said nothing of kaddish. Later addition? </geek>
Short takes:
I don't really care about my hair turning silver -- I actually think it can look striking under the right circumstances -- but is it too much to ask my body for symmetry? Why is the right side of my head so much more melanin-challenged than the left side? One of life's little mysteries, I guess.
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Then after moving heaven and earth this morning for there to be a minyan, the woman came in (yes, even though it's still shiva) and said thank you again, but did you know that you did it all a little too fast. It kind of annoyed me because a) I did the best I could and don't need the criticism, even constructive -- it's not like I'm going to be in the habit of doing it; b) as you said -- it's awkward, the ones who know do it and the ones who don't just sit there looking embarrassed -- so yeah, I did it fast. It's just not the moment for a spiritual experience. Every shiva minyan I've been to they mumbled through it at 90 mph. Ah well. Let it go...
My geeking question is: does the leader not say tiskabeil in the kaddish, or is it just someone who's a mourner?
About the maariv chatzi kaddish: you're right. And I looked it up one time and the answer was basically "just because." (There's also a long 3rd bracha there after haskiveinu in the traditional amidah that sort of doesn't say anything, which is even more of a break.) But then again hashkiveinu itself is a break between ge'ulah and tfilah.
...SO I suspect, without being sure, that the answer is something like, maariv is of questionable halachic status anyway in that it's unclear whether we need to say an amidah at all. I mean, the requirement to join ge'ulah and tfilah only makes sense if you have to do the tfilah. So various accretions crept in after the shema parts that are obviously mandatory, and then the chatzi kaddish came in as it usually does to signify that we've finished one subsection. I seem to recall reading something about this not long ago and I am curious about the answer.
mostly geeking
And then there's the part about you starting to study Tractate B'rachot. :-)
I led a shiva minyan for the first time yesterday.
Really? Your first time? Wow, I guess I just assumed that you'd done bunches of these in your stint as worship chair at an older congregation.
(This stuff is not my strong suit -- a good reason not to be a rabbi.)
I so wish I had a better handle on comforting the mourner (and visiting the sick, for that matter). If I know the person then we have a common basis already, but what about when I don't? I'm hoping we get a little more into this next summer during the Sh'liach K'hilah program; the couple of relevant sessionas last summer weren't very helpful.
Speed: yeah, it's always hard to judge these things. My analogs were: (1) how much Hebrew? (2) chant or read? (3) speed. I ended up doing more in English than I'd originally planned after they didn't join me in the beginning of the t'filah (with the standard melodies people know from Shabbat services (weekday nusach wasn't even on the docket; we rarely do it)).
Ah well. Let it go...
Yup, that's all you can do. If you were going to be back the next night to lead again it would make sense for her to ask you to slow down, but for a one-shot? Every case is different, so don't let it get to you.
My geeking question is: does the leader not say tiskabeil in the kaddish, or is it just someone who's a mourner?
Do you mean the titkabeil in kaddish shalem? Unless I'm misunderstanding you, that paragraph is not in the mourners' kaddish. (By the way, I would happily follow you down the tangent of "what do the assorted variations in the different kaddishes mean?" if you feel inclined. D'rabbanan and shalem each have a unique paragraph, and then there's mourners', and then there's chatzi kaddish which is a proper subset of the others. There's no "uber-kaddish" from which all others are derived, and I'm a little puzzled about the differences.)
...SO I suspect, without being sure, that the answer is something like, maariv is of questionable halachic status anyway in that it's unclear whether we need to say an amidah at all.
That much is in B'rachot, and is given as the justification for hashkiveinu and v'shamru. Thus far I haven't seen word one about chatzi kaddish, which makes me wonder if it's a post-talmudic addition to the liturgy.
I mean, the requirement to join ge'ulah and tfilah only makes sense if you have to do the tfilah.
While that's what tradition says, technically that's not true. After all, the argument could have been that if you say t'filah then you must join ge'ulah to it. But that's not how it turned out.