Friday's sermon

I gave the d'var torah on Friday. My rabbi specifically asked me to talk about Tisha b'Av and to promote the service we're having for that holiday next week. (This is our first itme doing this.) It's kind of a challenging subject.

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last night's service

Last night's service went really well. One other person and I split the service, and we had the cantorial intern and a separate torah reader. It's nice to be inclusive and give parts to more people, but there's something to be said for the person in charge (that is, me) being able to see and easily talk with everyone else involved. The congregation never knew about some of the cues and tweaks we were making, because we could do so discreetly. :-)

I got a lot of compliments, both on the service in general and on the d'var torah (sermon). I actually didn't think the d'var torah was all that great; there were a couple transitions that were kind of rough. It was a lot better than Tuesday's draft, though. And I think I struck the right balance; several people at the oneg told me that they are planning to come to the Tisha b'Av service next week, which will be a new experience for this congregation. I'm sorry I won't be able to be there.

The torah reader learned the portion (firat aliya of D'varim) in under two weeks, with trope. I am impressed.

The cantor complimented me on my singing, which was nice. (Also on my torah chanting last week.) I think she's getting more comfortable with the congregation, too. (She just started a few weeks ago.) I really like her; she's friendly, very easy to work with, and clueful.

Service division: I did kabbalat shabbat and kriat shema, the other person did t'filah and kriat torah, and I did the concluding prayers. This meant that I ended up with the kaddish list (names of people whose yahrzeits, or anniversaies of death, occured this week). So before the service I read the names out loud, which surprised some people. It seemed obvious to me: some people may come to services only to hear a relative's name on that list, and I at least want them to hear it without stumbling. And there were some weird spellings on the list, so I'm glad I did this. (There was also a dedication of a memorial plaque, which is a relatively infrequent occurence, so I asked the administrator to confirm that the family knew they weren't getting a rabbi this week. Again, it seems considerate to do so. They knew and were ok with that.)

After the service the administrator had lots of nice things to say, both about the job we did and about how it was a pleasure to work with me on this etc. I guess I'm one of the more organized folks among recent lay leaders. :-) I told her I enjoy doing this and would be delighted to help lead services in the future; we'll see if that goes anywhere. (She also said something about rabbinic school and I said "not now", which didn't really surprise her.)

Zen Garden

Dani and I went to Zen Garden, the new vegetarian restaurant in Squirrel Hill, after Shabbat tonight. I've been wanting to check it out for a few weeks now.

It was good if unconventional. Most of the items on the menu seemed to involve fake meat (I noticed chicken, beef, ham, duck, lamb, and shellfish variations). Most of the dishes were "oriental-oid", though there were other things too. I'm surprised that they didn't raid the Indian cusine for dishes, a lot of which are traditionally vegetarian and wouldn't have required modification.

We started with an assortment of dumplings. Dani then had the "zen salad", which was a nice mix of veggies and fruit (including fresh mango) with a tasty dressing. I got the "sizzling special" (I don't actually remmeber what the noun was, but it was "sizzling" something and under the "chef's specials"). This was an assortment of conventional stir-fry veggies with crispy wheat gluten in an orange-szechuan sauce. It was tasty but not as zingy as the little "hot food" icon next to the menu entry implied.

I have never before encountered wheat gluten as a thing unto itself, and I don't really know what it was that I ate. (I haven't checked Cookwise yet.) It had the consistency of fried tofu, sort of, and was pretty good (though I think that was aided substantially by the sauce, as is tofu). I know that wheat contains gluten by default and that there are recipes for gluten-free bread for those who can't tolerate it, but I guess I had mentally classified "gluten" into the "chemical" bucket, along with things like sodium and caffeine and vitamin D -- things you might add or subtract from food, but not food in its own right. You learn something new every day. :-)

Naturally, I haven't a clue how to explain this meal to my nutrition-tracking software. On the possibly-faulty theory that the wheat gluten is probably meant to be a protein source, I treated it as tofu. (I asked, and they do not have any sort of nutrition information that they can give to customers.)

Oh, and dessert. I had tofu cake. I am not making this up. It resembled cheesecake, and came topped with blueberries. It worked.

I would happily go back there again. There are a lot of things on the menu that sound intriguing.

I think they are technically vegetarian and not vegan, unless the cheesecake on the dessert menu was a fake. (I didn't ask.) I didn't notice obvious animal products in most of the items on the menu, though -- the cheesecake may have been the only indicator of non-vegan status.