Rosh Hashana

Monday night friends from the congregation invited us for dinner, so we joined them and then everyone but Dani went to shul. This meant going to the late service, which has the more formal (and more "classical Reform") music; I prefer the music of the early service but wanted to accept the invitation. I'm glad we did accept; it was a very nice dinner and Dani got to know some of my shul friends a little better (and vice-versa).

I didn't connect so much with last night's service, but I really did this morning. At several points I felt I was truly in the presence of the divine king, and I spent a lot of time thinking about things in the past year that I ought've done differently.

My torah reading went really well, and I got many compliments -- including two people telling me that they'd gotten chills listening to me. Those are good chills; I was reading the climax of the binding of Yitzchak and trying to do it expressively. I guess I succeeded. :-) I backed off a bit when I got up there and found a mike right there in my face, only an inch or two from my mouth; I was worried about overblowing it when the angel shouts to Avraham. But still, it worked.

( sermon )

lefkowitzga came for lunch and we got to spend a couple hours chatting. That was very nice; we haven't been able to just sit down and talk in a while.

( we ate... )

I've heard a little informal talk in the congregation about possibly going to a two-day Rosh Hashana at some to-be-defined future time. If that suggestion makes its way to the worship committee it should make for some interesting discussion. There are several points of view to consider:

( Read more... )