minor LJ annoyance

In response to an LJ support request, I was directed to the suggestions community. Once there, I followed all the instructions, including reviewing the community memories and recent entries to make sure my suggestion wasn't a duplicate. Then I submitted a suggestion to the moderated community, filling out their detailed form completely.

Six days later, I received a rejection whose entire content was "This was already rejected by staff when it was proposed before." No hints about what the issues were or where I might have divined the fact that this was a repeat suggestion. (And, well, I do think it was a reasonable suggestion, or I wouldn't have submitted it.)

This does not motivate me to try in the future. I wonder if that was the goal.

short takes

I have a theory about meetings at my company. For any meeting that does not involve food or take place in a room with too few chairs, assume the offset from the scheduled meeting time is is 2 minutes plus 1 minute per attendee (in the late direction, of course). This actually seems to track with my previous few companies, too.

Cheat out, an essay that siderea wrote about one particular SCA group, has a lot of application in other groups, SCA and non-.

This explanation of "shabbos goy" made me giggle in places but is basically right (link via almeda).

A while ago I wrote about the contrast in attitudes between two (I thought) 80-something women in my congregation. Last Shabbat I learned two surprising things: the one with the great outlook on life, who seems young (despite having lost her husband of 65 years not long ago), just turned 93 -- and the cranky shrew for whom nothing is ever good enough, who seems "old", is only in her mid-70s. What a difference attitude makes!

music in worship

A couple of the classes during the Sh'liach K'hilah program were taught by a cantorial student (who is very good, by the way, both as a musician and as a teacher). I mentioned some of this briefly before, but now I'm going into a little more depth.

Early in one of the classes he asked us to brainstorm about things to consider when choosing music for a service. Here's the list we came up with:( Read more... )

He handed out an essay entitled some notes on the future of of Jewish sacred music (yay Google!) by Cantor Benjie-Ellen Schiller. (Aside: we had her as a visiting cantor one Shabbat several years ago, and she's great to work with.) Despite its vague title the essay is good. Excerpt:

Sacred music nurtures meaningful, honest prayer, whether or not the music we ultimately choose satisfies our artistic selves. The real test is whether our sacred music satisfies our spiritual selves, as individuals and as a community. To me, a successful service offers a healthy combination of all three moods of prayer to express an array of three paths toward knowing God.

(Gee, you think there's some debate within the cantorial community? :-) )

Cantor Schiller describes four types of music (three in this essay, one added later):

• majestic, expressing awe
• meditation, expressing intimacy
• "meeting" -- coming together as a community (like when we all sing familiar melodies together)
• memory, instantly taking you to another place and time

As you might expect, it's all about balance and appropriateness, matching up the music with the goals of the service -- or rather, that part of the service, because most services will contain most or all of these types of music. We expect Kedusha, the proclamation of God's holiness, to be majestic, so don't use a wimpy low-key melody there. We expect the beginning of the Amidah to be meditative, so that's not the time to be grandiose. We expect everyone to join in on Adon Olam at the end of the service, so choose an accessible tune.

Leigh (the instructor) gave us his "10 commandments of congregational singing", which I enjoyed. (These are for the congregation, not the cantor.) I haven't asked for permission to distribute the document, but here are some highlights:

• Thou shalt sing fearlessly, ignoring the possible wondering glances of thy neighbors. They would like to sing with you if they had the nerve and they will sing with joy if you continue.
• Thou shalt sing reverently, for music is prayer.
• Thou shalt not resist new melodies, for it is written in the book of Psalms, "Sing unto God a new song".

All food for thought as I prepare to lead music this Friday. A lot of the music decisions were made several weeks ago, but my goal was to keep it simple and familiar, and I did have some of these instincts already, so we'll be fine.