Jewish minutiae

A few days ago goljerp raised the question of why we don't say the Rosh Chodesh (new month) prayers on Rosh Hashana. Rosh Hashana is, after all, a new month as well as the beginning of the new year.

I asked Rabbi Berkun this morning, and his answer is that Rosh Hashana, being a much bigger deal, replaces Rosh Chodesh. (He says, by the way, that we do not do the Rosh Chodesh additions to bentching, the prayer after a meal, so there's no inconsistency between liturgy and home observance after all.) Someone else had an interesting comment: Rosh Hashana commemorates the creation of the world; therefore, there was no time before RH and RH isn't a "new" month but the first month. So the first Rosh Chodesh would be the beginning of the following month. I find this explanation somewhat elegant.

For those who might be wondering why we keep the Shabbat prayers in the service on a holiday when the preceeding would seem to suggest that this should be omitted, it's because Shabbat is more important than holidays. Yes, really. The only Shabbat concession we make for a holiday is that if Yom Kippur falls on Shabbat we do in fact fast on that day. Yom Kippur is described in Torah as the "Shabbat of Shabbats", though, so it's special.

say what you mean

This morning I asked one of our developers for a feature we had discussed a while back that never got implemented. He agreed that it would be a good thing, sighed about the size of his queue, and said "If I get one more request I'll implement it". I turned to our administrative assistant and asked her to ask the developer for this feature, which she proceeded to do. (Just to be clear on this, this is something she has no earthly use for. I fed her the words.)

Now the developer is complaining that that's not fair and it's not what he meant. I think it was a valuable lesson about specification, and he should suck it up, give me my feature, and be more specific in the future.

I suspect that's not what will happen, though. Oh well; I'll just have to be more creative.

5762 is almost over

Tomorrow night is Rosh Hashana and the beginning of the year 5763. Tonight's preparations include cooking, a little shopping, and laundry. Whee. I've stayed late at work a couple nights this week, so I think I can bail early tomorrow and not rush the rest of the cooking.

We're having lefkowitzga and her parents over for lunch on Saturday. That'll be nice; it's been a while since we've had a leisurely meal with Gail or any meal with her parents.

I finally found starfruit last night. (This should not be hard. This year it was.) There is a tradition of eating a "new" fruit on Rosh Hashana -- "new" meaning one you haven't eaten this season yet. The first year I did Rosh Hashana I found myself wondering what to use; it's not like I had been paying attention for that entire year. Then I saw a starfruit in the store and I'd never eaten one of those in my life, so I decided that was the right thing to get. And I've done the same thing every year since.

Last night I had to go to a short "rehearsal" for the HHD (high holy day) services. (I'm in the service on Yom Kippur morning.) This was mainly for blocking, but everyone was asked to read a bit to get used to the room (And everyone with a Hebrew part did the whole thing.) Afterwards a fellow congregant who is fluent in Hebrew praised my pronunciation. Warm fuzzies are nice. :-) (Sadly, some of the people with Hebrew parts have not-so-good pronunciation. I wonder how we can fix that for next year, given that taking notes during services on individual skills isn't going to happen.)

Tonight's service was small and intimate. Tomorrow night will be large, formal, and not at all intimate. I think my rabbi was savoring tonight just a bit. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are when a bunch of people come out of the woodwork, and it really changes the character of the service.