Chayei Sarah

( Friday night's d'var torah )

Shabbat service

Friday night's service went really well. I got lots of compliments, including from both rabbis. Whee! Constructive criticism (which I explicitly requested; how else will I get better?) will come later.

I did pretty much all of the service up to the torah service, except that the cantorial soloist led some stuff. I did some parts that she normally does; she was very gracious about it (and offered, in most of those cases).

I was confident, comfortable, and apparently smiling a lot. I'm told my articulation was very good, and that the 90-something-year-old who often has difficulty understanding people understood me just fine. I feel that I didn't look at the congregation while speaking (reading) as much as I wanted to, though I tried some things to make this not completely suck. (No one wants to look at a service leader who has his face buried in the book.) While reading a passage aloud you can read a few words ahead to the end of the sentence and then look up while reciting those from short-term memory; I did that a lot. Of course, that worked as well as it did because the prayerbook is familiar. I had more trouble doing this during my d'var torah even though I wrote those words.

( t'filah experiment )

( d'var torah )

One thing I definitely need to work on: rehearse the ad-libs. Yeah, contradiction in terms -- what I mean is the bits like inviting the bat-mitzvah student to lead the one prayer she did, making references to the handouts, inviting silent prayer... all the stuff that doesn't exist as words in the prayerbook. I practiced the book; I needed more practice with the other bits.

Speaking of the bat-mitzvah student, she was amazing. She was poised and knew her stuff, and she has an excellent voice. If I hadn't had lunch constraints, I would have gone to the bat-mitzvah service this morning (after my regular service) at least through the torah reading and her d'var torah.

( program inserts )