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not exactly a shiva minyan
My congregation has an evening service on Thursdays. (Long story.) Usually one of the rabbis leads it; if neither is available, usually I get a phone call. Tonight there was no rabbi and no phone call (something must have come up), so at five minutes past the start time the consensus was that I should lead it.
That by itself would not be worthy of a post.
Two of my friends in my congregation are sisters, and their father died while I was out of town. I missed shiva, but they came tonight. We talked a little before the service; they said their dad had had as perfect a death as you can, at the age of 93, surrounded by family, and not in pain. They're feeling the loss, of course, but they said he was at peace and that helped.
It's customary for the leader of this service to give a two-minute d'var torah, generally on the weekly portion. See previous comment about having had no notice. Normally I can wing it; if nothing else, every Thursday morning I find some bit of midrash to tell to the morning minyan, so I can usually use that as a starting point if I need to. And I'm starting to develop a small repertoire of "d'var-lets" that I can spin up without falling on my face.
But it felt wrong. At least half the people there tonight were mourners, including the sisters, and I didn't want to just talk about Moshe preaching to the people or retelling the revelation at Sinai. So I improvised massively: I started by talking about what I studied last week at Hebrew College, used that as a basis for talking about Moshe's achievements through faith and despite adversity (and that they started late in life), and that this kind of leadership is inspirational, and then I talked about how we can all emulate Moshe to some level if we want to and it's inspiring to see parents or grandparents serving as models for us by doing so. It didn't come out as well as I would have liked, though the two sisters both thanked me and said this sounded just like their father, so that's good.
Comforting words do not come naturally to me, so after the fact I feel like I was playing with fire. Hmm. I guess it's good I didn't have time to think about it.
That by itself would not be worthy of a post.
Two of my friends in my congregation are sisters, and their father died while I was out of town. I missed shiva, but they came tonight. We talked a little before the service; they said their dad had had as perfect a death as you can, at the age of 93, surrounded by family, and not in pain. They're feeling the loss, of course, but they said he was at peace and that helped.
It's customary for the leader of this service to give a two-minute d'var torah, generally on the weekly portion. See previous comment about having had no notice. Normally I can wing it; if nothing else, every Thursday morning I find some bit of midrash to tell to the morning minyan, so I can usually use that as a starting point if I need to. And I'm starting to develop a small repertoire of "d'var-lets" that I can spin up without falling on my face.
But it felt wrong. At least half the people there tonight were mourners, including the sisters, and I didn't want to just talk about Moshe preaching to the people or retelling the revelation at Sinai. So I improvised massively: I started by talking about what I studied last week at Hebrew College, used that as a basis for talking about Moshe's achievements through faith and despite adversity (and that they started late in life), and that this kind of leadership is inspirational, and then I talked about how we can all emulate Moshe to some level if we want to and it's inspiring to see parents or grandparents serving as models for us by doing so. It didn't come out as well as I would have liked, though the two sisters both thanked me and said this sounded just like their father, so that's good.
Comforting words do not come naturally to me, so after the fact I feel like I was playing with fire. Hmm. I guess it's good I didn't have time to think about it.
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-- Dagonell