A few days ago I received email from a local gentile who's interested in converting to Judaism. (She found me via a mailing list.) She's been reading for a while but hadn't been to services and was nervous about doing that (this sounds familiar), so I invited her to join me for services and dinner.

She's a very nice person. Sounds like a seeker -- she's been thinking about this for years and isn't doing it because of a dating situation or the like. The more she learns the more it resonates for her. She got a lot out of the service, and I think she'll be back. I pointed her at other congregations in the area, too. Sounds like she really likes what she's seen of my rabbi, though; I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up with us.

Dinner was pleasant, and she and Dani also get along well. I'd like to invite her for a holiday -- maybe Sukkot, as she probably isn't ready to build her own sukkah yet. She's been to a few Pesach seders with friends, as it turns out. And if she decides to give our Shabbat morning service a try (she sounded interested, but not this week), I can also invite her back for lunch.

Yesterday there was no bar mitzvah, so we got to have a torah service and the rabbi didn't have to leave partway through study. After the service and study, some of us stuck around to discuss the new format, particularly implementation details. The plan is to do torah study first, so we can guarantee half an hour of the rabbi's time, and then do the service. The rabbi will leave partway through the service (if there's a later service for a bar mitzvah), right around the time the torah service would start. So we need minyan members to be able to complete the service, including reading torah. We have enough volunteers to get this off the ground, and I'm hoping we'll be able to get more, including supporting those who want to learn but aren't ready to just jump in.

We decided to switch in two weeks; we have someone who can learn a short torah portion in that amount of time. (We're not going to do the entire portion.) By virtue of having the foresight to bring a list of dates and torah portions, with room to add names next to them, I seem to have ended up as the person who keeps track of these things. :-) We're doing some delegation, though; the person reading torah in a given week is responsible for leading that part of the service (not just doing the reading itself) or recruiting someone, and also for assigning honors (aliya, hagbah...). That way I don't have to keep track of a bunch of different people for each week and worry about what happens on weeks when I'm not there. I call it distributed problem-solving; one of them called it "making my life easy". These are not contradictory. :-)

I also talked with the new cantorial intern tonight. She seems really nice and easy to work with. She asked me to fill her in on how services work when there aren't any rabbis, and I did so. I told her she should pick whatever music she wants; I'm not going to try to dictate to her. We'll have a little huddle 20 minutes before the service to make sure everyone understands cues and it'll all be good. (I warned her that while I'm not new to the congregation like she is, I am new to being worship chair and she should let me know if she sees any problems.)

The rabbis will actually be gone for two Shabbats (that one and the next). The plan had been for the worship committee to lead one and the cantorial intern to lead the other. She told me tonight that she's a little uneasy about that, being new to the congregation and never having led a full service. I told her we have people who can lead a service cold (including myself) if need be and she should think about it and let me know what parts she wants to offload. We can decide this at close to the last minute, after she's had a chance to settle in a bit more. (I've already lined up a torah reader and am working on someone to give the d'var torah, so she doesn't have to do those.)

The torah portion is coming along well. I have one verse left to work out; I got to it (after working on this for a while) tonight, saw that it started with a trope symbol I don't know how to sing, and decided that this was as good a time as any to pause. I'll come at that fresh on Shabbat, when I plan to spend a lot of time working on this. But hey, I read the previous two verses without having to consult the trope book, so I'm definitely internalizing the more common symbols. I can currently chant about half of the portion from the unpointed text, and all but one verse of the rest from the pointed text (sometimes with hesitation). It's often flowing well. I think I'm in good shape for a service that's two weeks away. My rabbi will want to hear me chant it when I see him next week, and my goal is to have it nailed by then.

This morning's mini-class (after minyan) was on tevila, aka immersion in a mikvah (ritual bath). ( Read more... )

I got an auto-response from my representative yesterday saying, basically, thanks for the email and expect a paper letter in several weeks. He voted for it, so I'll probably get some patronizing piece of drivel about how in these tough times we all need to unite and do God's will or some such. Sadly, an elected Democrat from Pittsburgh need not fear reprisal at the polls. (How did your rep vote?)

Speaking of government, I should really get around to ordering a copy of my birth certificate. Maybe even getting a passport, just so I'll have it. I can probably make off with my parents' copy of the former to help with the Pesach trip to Canada in a few weeks. I've never had my ID challenged at the border, but times are different now and I'm travelling with a non-citizen who was born in the middle east.

Speaking of Pesach (sort of), frozen gefilte fish is much better than the stuff that comes in jars. I'm never going back.

Speaking of religion (ok, the transitions are getting weak): For those who were interested in the "conversion reruns" journal, see shira_reruns. It'll get off to a slow start (I didn't write as much at the beginning), with the pace picking up in June.

Apropos of nothing (hey, I can tell when transitions are a lost cause), I had a very pleasnt lunch with a friend and past co-worker yesterday. It's way too easy to lose track of people when you no longer see them on a daily basis. He also found this journal, which intrigues me because it's not googlable. Not that I mind, of course; I was just surprised.

I've advanced another hole on my belt, and many of my pants now require a belt. Woo hoo. But Pesach is going to be bad for this, isn't it? I guess I should work on keeping matzah consumption down; being dense, it's probably even worse than pita for calorie/benefit tradeoffs.

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