Sunday

Today (Sunday, as I write this) was the first day of the Sh'liach K'hilah program. This year is going to be somewhat different from last year, we learned: they explained that last year was classroom learning (those might not have been the words they used) and this year would be workshops and application. Not entirely; there are certainly classes designed to impart knowledge to us in a more structured form. But, to give a flavor of what they mean, we have the following assignments:

• In groups of three, lead a shacharit or ma'ariv service (this happened last year too)
• In groups of three, conduct a half-hour text study (on a topic of our choosing)
• Write and present for critique a d'var torah (5-7 minutes)
• Write and present a eulogy, interviewing a classmate for the source material (we are to choose non-recent deaths)

The schedule includes an hour and a half per day (through Friday) of "work time" to give us a fighting chance of doing this with everything else that'll be going on. That's reassuring. :-)

( more about today )

all knowledge is contained on LiveJournal

Request to brain trust:

I'm looking for information on the "eitz chayim" passage in the torah-reading liturgy, starting with its textual source (dang, didn't bring a concordance). I'm interested in its liturgical history. Was it an earlier or later addition? It's universal in Ashkenazi nusach; what about others? Any other interesting tidbits?

Yes, I hope to get to the campus library tomorrow, but who am I to turn down any parallel processing that might be forthcoming?

Thanks.

Monday (part 1)

I got a low-battery warning partway through composing this in a classroom, so I'm going to fire this off now and write more from the comfort of an electrical outlet (sans net connection). Heh -- I thought a laptop would be good for more than an hour or so. I guess tomorrow I'll carry the power cord.

( Read more... )