Shavuot morning: not what I expected
May. 15th, 2013 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioFor the festivals my congregation does combined services with another congregation and today was their turn to host. I didn't want to walk that far (especially since the combined services are still, um, struggling to find their stride), so I had planned to go to either Young People's (been there before) or Beth Shalom (haven't been there before for a morning service, so new experience). But on Tuesday I learned that the wife of my "mentor" in the weekday morning minyan had died, and I hadn't found out in time to go to the funeral, and a festival ends shiva (the mourning period during which the minyan goes to the mourner's house for extra support), so I decided at the last minute to go to their service today so I could at least express my condolences to him in person.
I wasn't sure how many people to expect there, but I wasn't expecting to hear, upon walking in (half an hour late, it turned out; I didn't know the start time), "now we can do Hallel". Yup, I was the tenth person there. (We got more over the course of the morning, maybe twenty total.) This is comparable to the weekday-morning turnout.
A few minutes later the rabbi told me he was giving me an aliya (one of the several torah blessings). A few minutes after that he came back and said "can you lead musaf?" I said I don't know musaf -- specifically, the middle part of the amidah that's specific to that service. (Reform doesn't do musaf.) He said no problem; we don't do a chazan's repetition, where the service leader chants the entire multi-page amidah by himself, preferably with nice melodies that I probably don't know. Instead, as with other instances of the amidah I've seen there, we would do everything together through the kedusha and then continue individually. That text is common, so I said sure, I can do that.
Boy am I glad I looked. A few minutes later I approached him and said "this text for kedusha -- it is not the text I'm used to and I don't know how to make it scan to any melody I know". (Well, I once sang one part of a choral setting of it, but...) He said no problem; we'll help you out. Feeling somewhat uncertain about the whole proposition, but noting that the whole service seemed to be lay-led by a variety of people, I figured that if he was ok with it, so was I.
So in the end I led part of the service, from the chatzi kaddish at the end of the torah service through musaf, Ein Keloheinu, and aleinu, with the torah reader propping me up during that kedusha, and it was fine. I hadn't expected to do more than sit in the congregation. Neat.
This was, it turns out, the first time I've been to a Conservative festival service. (I've been to Conservative Rosh Hashana, once, but that's different. Also, it was a long time ago.) I've been to Orthodox festival services, where all this content is standard too, but somehow they've never asked me to lead, so it hasn't come up. :-)
I wasn't sure how many people to expect there, but I wasn't expecting to hear, upon walking in (half an hour late, it turned out; I didn't know the start time), "now we can do Hallel". Yup, I was the tenth person there. (We got more over the course of the morning, maybe twenty total.) This is comparable to the weekday-morning turnout.
A few minutes later the rabbi told me he was giving me an aliya (one of the several torah blessings). A few minutes after that he came back and said "can you lead musaf?" I said I don't know musaf -- specifically, the middle part of the amidah that's specific to that service. (Reform doesn't do musaf.) He said no problem; we don't do a chazan's repetition, where the service leader chants the entire multi-page amidah by himself, preferably with nice melodies that I probably don't know. Instead, as with other instances of the amidah I've seen there, we would do everything together through the kedusha and then continue individually. That text is common, so I said sure, I can do that.
Boy am I glad I looked. A few minutes later I approached him and said "this text for kedusha -- it is not the text I'm used to and I don't know how to make it scan to any melody I know". (Well, I once sang one part of a choral setting of it, but...) He said no problem; we'll help you out. Feeling somewhat uncertain about the whole proposition, but noting that the whole service seemed to be lay-led by a variety of people, I figured that if he was ok with it, so was I.
So in the end I led part of the service, from the chatzi kaddish at the end of the torah service through musaf, Ein Keloheinu, and aleinu, with the torah reader propping me up during that kedusha, and it was fine. I hadn't expected to do more than sit in the congregation. Neat.
This was, it turns out, the first time I've been to a Conservative festival service. (I've been to Conservative Rosh Hashana, once, but that's different. Also, it was a long time ago.) I've been to Orthodox festival services, where all this content is standard too, but somehow they've never asked me to lead, so it hasn't come up. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-17 10:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-17 11:12 pm (UTC)