progress in leining

[cellio]

I've gotten a lot better at chanting torah in the two years that my congregation has had a program of lay readers. That's not surprising, of course; practice leads to improvement. But I've just realized that my notion of what's "hard" and what's "easy" has changed.

Two years ago I read the first aliya of Ha'azinu, which I thought had to be the easiest portion out there. It was short, but much more importantly, Ha'azinu is a poem, and ends of verses always (so far) match up with ends of lines or half-lines. (It's a two-column format.) For a beginning reader still learning the feel of which tropes go together and how things flow, that's incredibly important, because "end of verse" has its own trope and getting those right can orient you for much of the rest.

Last year, on ten minutes' notice, I read that same part of Ha'azinu, and it came back really quickly -- reinforcing my notion of the portion's ease.

This year? I'm learning the third aliya of this same portion, and... ack. Yes, the formatting is quite helpful; that's nice. But the vocabuluary! Ack! It's chock full of flowery speech and words I don't otherwise know (and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some weird verb forms or something too), and that seems hard. I had not realized how much I now depend on rudimentary comprehension. Two years ago comprehension was a pipe dream and I was just reading words; now comprehension is possible and I'm noticing how comprehensible the Akeidah (which I'm reading Tuesday) is and how comprehensible Ha'azinu is not.

Someone else can have this portion next year; I'm going to try to load up on more Genesis. :-)

Comments

Mind Noise

[(Anonymous)]

Sometimes I have the problem of not being able to go to bed on account of an over-active mind. I find it helps to train my mind on something (the sound of the fan buzzing in my room as of late) so that all other chatter becomes ground to the object of my attention. After long enough I can 'concentrate' on going to bed. Maybe try a similar type of meditative practice for reading? Train yourself to focus only on expressing the words. Feel them coming out of your belly with each passing vocalization. Get yourself more in the rhythm and less in the clouds trying to understand the object of your attention.

Hehe well I hope that helps,

- Inkhorn
http://intellectualization.blogspot.com