Thursday

[cellio]

Today was a mixed day. Most of the classes were quite good; one was not (and I want my hour and a half back). My group's text study is tomorrow morning and there has definitely been tension within the group as different styles and goals have clashed, but I hope things will be better tomorrow and that if there are any lingering issues we'll be able to talk about them.

Eulogy

I have an outline for my d'var torah and that definitely needs more attention. I've made a first pass on the assigned eulogy; I need to check a couple details with the classmate I interviewed for it, but I think I'm in pretty good shape there. There's one aspect that surprised me in the time it took: eulogies usually quote (or allude to) biblical text, but if you've never done this before you don't have good instincts for where the fertile ground is. Or at least I don't. The Tanach is big, you know? I'm going to suggest to my classmates that we share the texts we actually used (later by email, not now); maybe we can build up a small library of starting points. Or maybe it'll turn out that every case is different and this isn't helpful; I don't know. Not that I expect to ever write a eulogy, mind.

My approach was to first skim Psalms and then go through the seven haftarot of consolation (these are special passages read between Tisha b'Av and the high holy days). Every haftarah is supposed to end with an uplifting message, but I didn't check the other 50 or so.

I asked one of the student rabbis for advice, particularly about prophets, and he pretty much said Isaiah's the guy. (That's also where those haftarot of consolation come from.) Not that there aren't other hopeful, conforting passages, but they're spread out. I chatted with a classmate who asked "did you try Job?" Why no, I said, Job would be just about the last place I would have thought to look for comforting words. But surprise, I did find something small there. I also found something in Kohelet I could use, and made a note of something in Isaiah that I ended up not being able to work in. (It was never my intention to use three or more quotes, but I wanted to have options.)

I'll share a sanitized version of the assignment later. I have to deliver it Shabbat afternoon (yeah yeah, that would never happen, but it's a class and not real), so sometime after that.

Classes and nusach

I continue to geek out on biblical Hebrew. ASCII continues to be a poor medium for discussing it.

This morning we had a good class on the festival liturgy. One of the handouts is the current draft of the festival liturgy from Mishkan T'filah; I'm glad to see that they've restored a lot of stuff that Gates of Prayer (blue) chopped out. I haven't made a detailed study of it yet.

It occurred to me during this class that festivals might present a leadership opportunity for me, particularly the morning services when festivals fall on weekdays. Those services in my synagogue tend to be small but are more formal than my usual Shabbat morning minyan. It would be an interesting experience, and there would probably be many fewer stakeholders who'd have a problem with a lay person involved in it because it's something that only happens five times a year. (As compared to Friday night, I mean. It's well-established that lay people can help with our Shabbat morning minyan.)

Good tidbit of advice: the closing benediction is important; use it to encapsulate the experience they've just had (in this case, tie it to the theme of the festival). The benediction is the afikoman. :-)

Tonight there was a very good class on music entitled "know before whom you stand". We talked about the effects that music has on worshippers, with a lot of demonstration by example. The student cantor used terminology that last year's student cantor also used; last year I think I thought it was just that person's view, but I gather that they teach this way. The thesis is that all synagogue music falls into one of the following categories:

• Mi-Sinai: ok, none of our music actually came from Sinai, but this is the stuff that's been around forever and that you darn well better not mess with. Examples: Kol Nidre, the Great Aleinu.
• Not mi-Sinai but essential: this is music that has stood the test of time and that congregations expect to hear. Example: Maoz Tzur.
• Not time-tested but essential. Example: one version of Oseh Shalom from 1972. (This is the one with three melodic strains and the second and third are often punctuated with clapping. I don't actually know the composer.)
• New music: a misnomer, as it includes both music too new to evaluate and older music that didn't make it. An example of the latter is "All the World"; I'm gratified to hear that (I'd guessed "not mi-Sinai but essential") because to me it's like fingernails on a chalkboard, but older congregants seem to find it important.

She demonstrated the special nusachot for special occasions. I had asked earlier in the day if she would be pointing us to sheet music and/or recordings of those and she said "come to my class". There's a short bibliography, so I'll have to investigate.

As an aside, I think I've got weekday chatzi kaddish pretty much nailed, but I did last year too and it rotted when I got home for lack of use. I'm guessing that trying it at Tree of Life would not go over well even if I only used it for one of the three instances in the morning service. We rarely get a minyan for my own congregation's weekday evening service, and chatzi kaddish requires a minyan, so while I think my rabbi would be open to it I don't know how much that helps.

I don't have the weekday nusach for t'filah yet, mostly because people aren't using it. I may have caused that; my group went first of the student-led services and I suggested that we read it instead of chanting it in our service. Everyone else so far has followed suit (or just invited an individual t'filah without a congregational reading, which is actually correct for the evening service).

Meta

The feel of this year's program is somewhat different from last year. I don't know how much of that is me, how much is this particular group of people, and how much is the program itself. I was talking with a classmate tonight who's also feeling it.

I've sometimes described Level 1 as "open brain, insert knowledge, shake until blended". It was overwhelming but exhilerating. I didn't get much sleep but I rode that wave for a week and it was grand. Yes, of course there were problems, but the overall feeling was still "wow". This year is positive -- don't get me wrong! -- but the balance of content is different and I'm having more trouble catching that wave.

They gave us an hour and a half a day (well, less any transit time) to work on assignments; one of the problems last year was not having enough time to work on the services, so that was good. But they gave us a second group assignment and two individual assignments that occupied that work time and then some, so it feels like I'm learning less. Yes, if we punt on one or both of the individual assignments the world will not end, and they encouraged us to do so if we need to, but I'm here to learn as much as I can.

Yes, the work time is being spent learning practical skills (as side-effects of the assignments), but I think I'm learning them more slowly than if I were being guided by a teacher, so the density of learning is lower this year -- same amount of time, less overall learning. I don't know what they could reasonably do about that, mind. Maybe, just as the service groups have assigned advisors, the text-study groups should have had advisors too. That might have eliminated some of the disconnects in my group. Yes, we're all adults and we can ask for help when we need it, but having someone there who spots the landmine before we saunter up to it and say "ooh, what's this shiny thing?" might be helpful.

I should stress again that I've taken a lot of good classes this week. I do not at all regret coming; I just hoped for a slightly different experience than I'm getting.

Mind, some of it is certainly me. More specifically, this week has done a lot to convince me that I would never hack it in rabbinic school, at least at HUC, and while I wasn't planning to try to go to rabbinic school any time soon, it hurts to see that thought dashed. I wanted the decision against it to be my decision, dammit. This is, obviously, not an issue that the organizers of the program could or should address. My baggage, my problem. And I didn't realize it would even be a factor, so I didn't pack the right things in that baggage.

Comments

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

Everyone told me about the crushing workload I was facing in law school. I discovered that the people who were most crushed by the workload, were the worst at managing their time. People who worked twice as hard (or at least twice as long) as me didn't get better grades. I imagine you might find something similar in rabbinic school. I think it's all a matter of perception.

[cellio]

Hmm, that's a good point. Thanks!