Yom Kippur (quickies)

[cellio]

Spiritually very good. Feel scrubbed clean. Physically so-so. Back started aching around hour 22; never had that before. Should have taken a walk during Yizkor; sitting for those 50 minutes made it worse. Only reason I sit through Yizkor is to not miss Ne'ilah.

Good class during afternoon beit midrash (what we do to pass the time between services). Some new perspectives on Yaakov. More later.

Learned a torah portion (one aliya) in one hour. Surprised. Short, but still... No, not for today.

Not sure when grammar departed. :-)

Comments

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

I thought of you today at one point when I had a question & it occurred to me that you might have some info: a couple of times today the chazan chose a tune and the rabbi joined in loudly (enough that I had trouble hearing the chazan), and then the two of them weren't fitting the words to the music in exactly the same way which led to problems at the end of verses. What do you do when you're leading and someone else "takes over"?

[cellio]

It depends on the circumstances and who's doing it. Sometimes I crank my volume and see if the other person gets the hint. (Usually.) In our Shabbat morning minyan, where we sit in a circle, I can sometimes make eye contact with the person who's doing it and that can be enough. We've got a few people who sometimes try to take over (I'm not saying anything about intent, merely effect), and usually a reminder glance is enough.

But if it's a person I perceive to be in authority -- never mind the supposed authority of the sh'liach tzibbur; the congregation's rabbi still ranks -- I'll probably defer. The only cases where this has come up are in the weekday morning minyan where the new rabbi, unlike his predecessors, is on the bimah. Sometimes he starts doing something I didn't expect, nad when he does I just let him do it. But because that's a regular situation, I have the opportunity to have conversations with him between services. A couple of times I've asked if he'd rather lead [insert some part of the service here] and he's (1) said no and (2) not done that again (there). He's falling back on habits, not trying to take over, and pointing it out (cast as a question) is enough. Obviously that wouldn't help in the middle of a service, though.