liturgical uncertainty

Non-Jewish readers probably don't care.

( explanation of relevant part of liturgy )

Ok, all that said...

This morning I was leading the service and when we got to kaddish d'rabbanan there was no minyan, so I skipped it and we went on. Most of the way through the following section a tenth person arrived, and a mourner called out "go back to the kaddish". I declined to do so because we were already past it and other kaddishim would be coming up. (I don't think you're supposed to go back in the service, in general.) Someone else suggested a compromise: instead of saying chatzi kaddish at the end of that section, say kaddish d'rabbanan instead. So we did that.

I wonder about two things. One is whether that was an appropriate thing to do; consensus of the group is that it was, but there was no rabbi or scholar present. The other is about the motivation of the person doing the asking. He knows, because he's been there every day, that there would be a mourners' kaddish at the end. Why did he consider the kaddish d'rabbanan important? It wasn't his only chance; is there some tradition that says that it's especially meritorious to say kaddish more than once in a single service? (He left immediately after the service ended, so I didn't get a chance to talk with him.)

I haven't seen this situation before, so when it first came up I turned to Dave (the usual leader) and he shrugged. It turns out he hadn't seen it come up before either and he didn't know the local custom.

( footnotes )

Edited to add: this morning service was at the Conservative shul I attend regularly, not my own (Reform) shul.

random bits (TV, fish, work)

That was cute. The TV show Jack and Bobby is (mostly) set in present-day US. Wednesday's episode was set on election night 2004 and included a scene referring to the outcome. Obviously they had two versions of that scene prepared; I assume they were smart enough to have three. I wonder how much lead time they needed. It's network TV, not syndication, so I'm guessing they had until about 30 seconds before that scene aired to choose.

Grouper is quickly becoming my favorite fish to cook with. (But where do they get these names? :-) ) When baking fish there's a fairly small window in which the fish is cooked all the way through but not over-cooked. This window seems to be wider with this particular fish. I don't know why, but I'm not complaining. (It's also a fairly sturdy fish without strong flavor, meaning you can do just about anything to it.)

Tomorrow my company is having its annual retreat, so I won't be online. Usually they have these on some mid-week day; this year it's a Friday and after the time change, so I'll have to leave early due to Shabbat. Fortunately, it's in a location that's not hard to drive to and from. (There's one site we've used in the past for which my reaction would be to not go unless I could ride with someone willing to leave early.)

(Shabbat before 5:00, all of a sudden, feels weird. I'll get used to it, of course; I always do.)

Our company plans to grow pretty substantially over the coming year, so I assume a major theme of the retreat will be growth and change. We've got a lot of good people, so I think we'll mostly come through this growth fine, but there are landmines we have to watch out for, mostly (based on past experience) in the areas of communication, general management, and (avoiding) disenfranchising people.