Shabbat short takes

The morning minyan switched to the new format this week. It worked well; we just hit the start of the torah service when the rabbi had to leave, and the member who volunteered for this week did a good job with it. We need to do some tweaking of physical setup (in particular, making a fast transition between study and service), but we knew we were going to have some bumps along the way there.

Minor logistical thing: we used to have snacks during torah study; now that we've flipped things, we declared that snacks would be after the service. But the rabbi didn't get any, because he left. (I was actually walking around the back of the room with a pile of cookies for him, but he ducked out before I got there.) The later service doesn't end until something like 12:45, which is a long time for him to go without food. We need to fix this.

Friday night was a larger-than-normal crowd. There were some people I wanted to talk to but didn't get to. On the positive side, I spoke to several newcomers and helped make them feel welcome, which is important.

I've received several compliments on the committee meeting I ran on Wednesday. Apparently I give good meeting. :-) Actually, I'm just organized and perfectly willing to step into a conversation that's drifting and bring it back to the agenda. I didn't think this was all that unusual, but in thinking about other meetings I've been to, maybe it's not as common as I had thought.

The flowers my rabbi sent were a beautiful addition to the Shabbat table. Some of the blooms opened up today, and others will probably open up tomorrow. They're very pretty.

Friday's mail brought a birthday present from Dani's mother, a goregous silver havdalah set. I inaguarated it tonight. (I had previously been using a hodge-podge of tools on hand; I didn't have a set.) (Havdalah is the ceremony marking the end of Shabbat. It involves wine, a candle, and a spice-box.)

Today I worked on my upcoming torah portion (in a few weeks). It's short, and after resolving one ambiguity that required consultation with someone actually fluent in Hebrew (today's torah reader, in fact), I now have the portion from the right-hand side of the book (with vowels and trope). I should be able to move to the left-hand side within a week. Plenty of time, as it turned out. (I've been conservative in my estimates of learning speed.)

short takes

Some researchers at Columbia are conducting "six degrees of separation" research using email. It looks like an interesting project, and they're doing all the right things privacy-wise, so I signed up to be a guinea pig. My first target is an air-traffic controller in Melbourne. I believe I have moved the chain closer, assuming the recipient of my forward decides to participate. I'm kind of weak on Australians. :-) More info here.

At Pennsic amergina gave me a copy of the Ashkenazi Haggadah, a renaissance haggadah manuscript (complete with obligatory wine stains). It's nifty! Particularly nifty is that I've been able to study parts of the evolution of this particular text without resorting to the English translation much. Yeah, it's a fixed domain and all that; I know to look for certain phrases and so on. It's still neat. I will also go through the English for a more careful look.

The latest Consumer's Reports has an article on identity theft that includes a phone number for opting out of pre-approved credit-card offers. I called and it turns out to be a wrong number. Assuming I didn't misdial (the person on the other end didn't actually know their number!), that's going to be a pain for the hotel on the other end of that toll-free number. (I'll try again tomorrow to make sure I didn't mis-dial, but I didn't want to call right back and get the same operator.)

Someone at my synagogue is organizing match-ups between people seeking places to have holiday meals and people with extra spaces. I think this is a wonderful idea, and need to figure out which meals I can volunteer to host extra people for. In general I would like to be inviting random people for Shabbat and Yom Tov meals fairly often, particularly those who won't have people to share the days with otherwise, but I'm shy. So this is great -- I can say "up to N people for this meal" and someone else will make introductions. (For these particular holidays, there's also the extra twist of early vs. late services. If I'm going to the early service, matching me up with people going to the late one would pose a challenge.)

And on a more somber note... A good friend is in a lot of pain after a miscarriage a few days ago. I won't publicly name her, but healing thoughts sent her way would be most welcome.