cellio | Shabbat

Shabbat was pleasantly low-key. Friday night our cantorial soloist and pianist were both out, and the associate rabbi is in Israel with a swarm of congregants (41 people! largest trip we've had so far), so it was just my rabbi (with his guitar) in the bimah.

The torah-study group reached the end of a book today. We don't do parsha hashuva; we (well, they) started at the first word of B'reishit (Genesis) 17 years ago, and today we finished Bamidbar (Numbers). So, as is traditional, we held a party. Everyone brought something and, hey, it wasn't all desserts. :-) I brought spinach quiche, which works fine at room temperature; I actually took them over to the synagogue Friday morning so I wouldn't have to shlep them today. They were completely gone at the end, so I guess people liked them. :-)

We should find excuses to have pot-lucks more often; we shouldn't have to wait for the end of D'varim. It was nice to be able to sit and talk with people for longer than the usual after-service chatting.

I spent some time talking with one of our regulars (also not raised in a Jewish home). She said very flattering things about me. We talked about studying talmud; she's currently taking a class she really likes, taught by Rabbi Schiff, who I've heard wonderful things about. The class assumes you've been through the Melton program; Melton is some sort of national two-year program that lots of people have good things to say about (including the person I was talking with, who took it about a decade ago). One of the rabbis at HUC this summer suggested I take it, but I missed it for this year so that'll be next fall at the earliest. From the description of Rabbi Schiff's talmud class, though, it sounds like I'd do just fine; the private study with my rabbi has given me some useful skills. So if that class comes around again, I might take it.

The person who coordinates torah readers for the morning service asked me if I could do Beshalach (in six weeks). I'm signed up to do Mishpatim (two weeks later), so I said I could do one or the other. (Actually, the fourth aliya of Mishpatim is short, but why push it?) But I want to check something first; the fourth aliya of Beshalach is Shirat HaYam, the song at the sea, and it has special trope. If we're only going to do it once every seven years (the way we divide up the portions), we should darn well do it with the special trope! But is my rabbi planning to do it himself? I'd be happy to learn it but happier to be able to hear him do it. So I asked the coordinator to check the rabbi's availability that week before I start to learn it.

I spent some time this afternoon working on biblical Hebrew. I'm working through The First Hebrew Primer, an excellent book for adults. There does not appear to be a second primer by these authors; does that mean when I finish this book I'll be able to read? Somehow I don't think it's that simple, so I wonder what the next step is. (File away to ask my rabbi when I get closer.)