meeting with my rabbi

I studied with my rabbi today. When I got there he said that if it's ok with me he wants to study a different section of talmud than where we are right now. Fine with me, I said. After we laid the foundation, he raised an issue of practical application. We've done that before, but this time we argued about it more. It's a real unsettled issue in our community, he said, and he had me arguing both sides -- "ok, then if you say X, the logical response to that would be Y, and the logical response to that would be Z, and...". I don't think I came up with anything he hadn't already come up with, but he was definitely working me harder than usual, and I appreciate it.

He also asked me to do a shiva minyan tonight, and asked if I'd like to chant torah for the high holy days. (Woot!)

I feel like I've moved up to a new level. Nifty! It's not that any one of those would have been all that unusual on its own (well, maybe high-holy-day torah reading...), but the combination of them all in one 45-minute meeting was novel.

(Yes, he agreed that learning high-holy-day trope in this timeframe would be impractical, and I should use the trope I already know.)

HHD torah reading

I'll be chanting torah for Rosh Hashana this year. Nifty! The portion is the Akeidah (the binding of Isaac); I get the climax. Which I will read in front of 900 people, give or take. Fortunately -- near as I can tell -- that sort of thing doesn't make me nervous any more.

It's just as well I didn't get Yom Kippur after all. I'd been hoping for that to allow more time to learn the portion (Rosh Hashana is in a bit under three weeks), but I'd forgotten that I'm reading on the Shabbat two days after Yom Kippur. Yes, I think Rosh Hashana will be better spacing. :-) (On the other hand, Ha'azinu, that Shabbat portion, has got to be the easiest portion out there, so it wouldn't have been a show-stopper.)

The book of B'reishit (Genesis) overall seems to be easier to learn than much of the rest of the Torah. I should remember that when choosing portions in the future, when looking at corner cases (i.e. end of D'varim versus beginning of B'reishit, and end of B'reishit versus beginning of Sh'mot.) Sometimes a week or two makes a real difference.