cellio | weekend

Shabbat morning I ended up leading the torah service at the last minute, which is never a problem. I also read the haftarah (in English), which is usually not part of that particular assignment. I got compliments on how expressively I read, which is pretty funny for a cold reading. I mean, yeah, I knew the story, but I hadn't actually prepared anything. I didn't know I'd be reading it in advance. Fortunately, it was narrative with plenty of dialogue, not prophecy; I have trouble doing good things with poetic language even with preparation. It's just not in my soul, I guess.

Noted in passing: Plaut, the chumash we use, doesn't use the standard haftarah for this week. Weird! Unfortunately, we discovered this during the service; fortunately, a congregant who always brings her Eitz Chayim to follow along in was willing to give it up for this. But I'm a little boggled by the change. Do the editors have a problem with the idea of wiping out Amalek? Sorry, it's in our text; you can't pretend it's not. And what they substituted is a chapter from Esther, of all things -- haftarot come from Nevi'im, prophets, not the megilot. I'd love to know the reason for this, but at a quick glance I saw no explanation with the reading. (Maybe there's an editorial note elsewhere.)

Saturday night as we were trying (and failing) to go to Chaya for dinner, we walked past a new restaurant called Susheli. It looked open and not busy, so we walked in. They said they weren't actually open yet; they'd be open in half an hour but if we didn't already have reservations we'd have to wait. So, some other time -- but does that timing strike anyone else as odd? It did to me, so I looked at the hours posted on the door -- closed Friday for dinner, open Saturday an hour after sundown (demonstrably not true, by the way, but that would be quite ambitious if my guess is right). Could it be? I looked at the menu posted in the window; it included entries like "shrimp (mock)". No immediately-obvious certification, but Dani was getting impatient so I figured I'd check later. So I'm not yet certain, but it's possible that there's now a kosher Japanese restaurant in Squirrel Hill! Whee! (I failed to look for a mezuzah.) Currently, the only place where I can order a sushi platter, as opposed to individual pieces, is Chaya, because they understand kosher versus non-kosher species. But part of the appeal of sushi is letting the chef choose appropriate combinations based on what's fresh, his own creativity, and whatever else. I miss that at restaurants other than Chaya.

I wondered about the name. "Sheli" means "for me" in Hebrew, so if "su" meant something (that implied good food) that would have been neat. But according to Dani, "su" doesn't mean anything, so I guess it's "sushi for me" but only sort of. Assuming that they're trying to do something clever with Hebrew, of course.

After dinner we went to a party at Chez Melton (lorimelton and ralphmelton). We had a good time. There weren't as many people I already knew as at past parties; the Claritech crowd was largely absent (us and two others). It was good to see Kevin again; since the end of the D&D game I almost never see him.

We ended up in a large game of Apples To Apples, which is a good party game. Each player has a handful of cards with nouns on them; in turn, each player draws and plays an adjective card, and other players each pass in a noun that goes with it. The person who drew the adjective chooses the noun he likes best, and the person who played it gets a point. Iterate until a score threshold is reached. It's a fun game that usually moves pretty quickly. This was the first I'd played with the expansion sets, though, and I think they are a net loss. There were a lot of rounds where I felt I didn't have anything plausible and tossed junk, and it was clear this was happening to others too. I suspect that the original game was well-thought-out and then in the expansions they just threw more words into the mix. Part of what makes the game fun is seeing all the clever or funny submissions that show up; when half the submissions are, essentially, discards, it's not as much fun. But even so, a fun game (and we should pick up a copy to have on hand when we host gaming days).

This morning our power went out again, with no obvious reason, but we found that it was out for several blocks, so it wasn't just us. This time it was out for almost two hours. Dani recently deprecated a UPS (not big enough for the computer/monitor he's currently using), so I appropriated it for the VCRs. I've had to reset the VCR clocks three or four times this week; this was the first outage long enough to also take out the programming. (Apparently the model is that the VCR will just get the time from the cable service, so it doesn't need to dedicate battery power to that. But I don't have the right kind of cable service for that.) I wouldn't buy a UPS for the VCRs, because that seems extravagant, but with it just sitting there, neglected... :-)

Most of my bulbs have sent up green bits, it seems, but no crocuses in bloom yet. It seems late for them and early for everything else.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Neither Connie nor I are gamers, really, but Apples to Apples is a lot of fun! We haven't played in a couple of years, though.

My best guess, assuming it is a kosher place, is that it's sushi + sheli = sushisheli = susheli. My problem is that I keep reading it as sus sheli (my horse), which isn't nearly as appetizing.

My best guess

That's what I'm assuming, too.

I keep reading it as sus sheli (my horse)

Eww... yeah, that would definitely be a bad name for a restaurant, especially a kosher one!

Erhm...the idea of horse sushi came to my mind. I'm really wishing it hadn't. :-p

I'm glad you enjoyed the party! :-)

I hope you got to bed at a reasonable-enough hour for your school commitments today. :-)

Suggested by

jss1113, albeit not on LJ:

<jss> Maybe they mean it in Yiddish, a misspelling of "Sushele," or "little sushi"?

That could be. I would have expected it to end in an "e" in that case, but maybe they goofed.

(Am I correct in remembering that you own Plaut? If so, would you be willing to see if he offers any general explanation for substituting haftarot? Thanks!)

I have the Plaut, yes; while nothing is said about this particular haftarah, substitution of "more appropriate for Reform" haftorot is mentioned elsewhere and not especially uncommon.

I was thinking based on Josh's comment that they were perhaps trying to suggest both the Yiddish and the "my sushi" ideas simultaneously. It's not like wordplay is uncommon in Hebrew or Yiddish :)

Plaut: thanks.

Susheli: good point. Let's just hope that it doesn't mean "little sushi, big prices". :-) (I was so absorbed with the actual menu items that I didn't look at the prices.)

I was in a bookstore last week and saw that Plaut 2.0 has come out. At first glance it looks like a huge improvement in usability (IMHO). I didn't think to check to see if the Haftorot are still "reform substitutions" or the traditional ones.

Plaut 2.0 is a huge improvement in usability; we bought a couple dozen for the torah-study group. Divisions follow the parshiyot, haftarot are with the parshiyot, aliyot are marked, the Hebrew text is bigger (I can read without a magnifying glass now, yay!), and the pages aren't quite so paper-thin. I understand that the English translation was updated, though I haven't paid too much attention. I also haven't paid much attention to the essays.

We first grabbed a Plaut 2.0 on Shabbat, turned to the haftarah, saw the regular one for T'tzaveh and no indication of where to find the special Zachor reading, and reverted to 1.0 at that point because we knew where to find it in there and time was short. So 1.0 had the wacky reading, but I don't actually know for sure that 2.0 does.

That said, though, I just looked and saw that the week's edition of Torat Chayim (URJ's weekly email commentary) also gives the haftarah as Esther rather than Samuel. I assume, but don't know, that Torat Chayim follows Plaut.

I think I will raise this question on I-Worship (URJ list).

The online version definitely follows Plaut (gives page numbers for both editions).

(popping in; hope you don't mind the random comment)

I'm guessing Plaut has issues with the notion of wiping out Amalek; I'm seeing an increasing amount of discomfort with that these days.

I'm of two minds. On the one hand, the more I learn, the less I like it when people just scrap things; it's in the tradition, as you say, and we can't pretend it's not. OTOH, I also happen to find the notion of wiping out Amalek to be deeply problematic at best (anyone remember the Baruch Goldstein massacre on Purim a few years back?) so I'm inclined to radically reinterpret that text if we read it at all.

Anyway, will be curious to know what you hear on I-Worship. btw, to whom is that list open, and is it a fun list?

(popping in; hope you don't mind the random comment)

(Not at all. These sorts of encounters are part of what make LJ nifty. Welcome.)

I agree that wiping out Amalek is problematic. We have two options, really: try to ignore it or try to understand it in a context that we can relate to. If we try to ignore it, though, where does it stop? Do we not read that part of Ki Tetze when it comes around in the regular cycle? Do we drop the last chapter of Esther when reading the megillah? Do we read around other parts of Tanakh that we find uncomfortable? If we do that, then not only are we not grappling with our tradition the way the name "Israel" calls for, but we are hamstringing future generations when they find themselves in discourse with those of other persuasions (both Jewish and non-) unable to talk credibly about our religion.

I want us to read Amalek, and the end of Esther, and all of the rest of it. And in the very next breath, I want us to talk about why we don't just act on that mindlessly like Baruch Goldstein did. We need to look at the text, the commentaries, and the evil that can arise if we aren't careful, and teach restraint, thoughtfulness, and reading in context.

(You might be interested in my previous entry, by the way.)

Anyway, will be curious to know what you hear on I-Worship. btw, to whom is that list open, and is it a fun list?

It's for the leadership, broadly defined, of worship-related issues in the Reform movement. I was allowed on because I'm a member of my congregation's worship committee. So I think if you've got any semi-official position anywhere in the movement you can join, but I don't think it's open to the public.

It is often an interesting list. I just raised the haftarah question; other current topics are the version of kaddish in the Union Prayerbook and its history, the Shabbat Across America program, and if I don't have my lists confused, some stuff about fun ideas for Purim celebrations.

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