Shabbat morning

The person who was supposed to read torah this week got sick, so earlier this week the chair of the worship committee asked me if I could do at least some of it. I said sure. The fifth aliya begins with some difficult vocabulary (well, I thought it was difficult); after I concluded that I wouldn't be able to learn the whole thing in a few oherwise-busy days anyway, I chose a part out of the middle that looked easier.

Also for the sake of time, I decided to read rather than chant. But I was having trouble getting it to flow right and getting all the phrase boundaries in the right place. Friday night, on a whim, I looked at the trope. An hour later (!) I had it, and I chanted it this morning. Wish I'd thought of that a couple days ago; I might have learned more of the aliya. Oh well.

The d'var torah was kind of ad-hoc (those cycles had gone to preparing the torah portion). No written-out copy and no notes; I just spoke. (Yes, I did practice.) I knew it would be shorter, so I figured that would be ok. I thought my delivery was decent but could have been a lot better.

Here is roughly what I said (some phrasing improved in the writing): ( Read more... )