Monica

Thursday night Dani and I drove to Silver Spring to spend Purim and Shabbat with friends. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad Dani decided to go with me. (And not just because that meant he drove through the foggy mountains at night. :-) )

( Read more... )

Someone called a meeting for next Thursday morning. Initially I thought "hmm, I could get here in time for that if I skip the minyan's breakfast after services". Then I looked more closely at the calendar and realized that, it being the day before Purim, it's a public fast day -- so no breakfast after services. Ok, one problem solved.

Another problem created: I need to make sure I'm familiar enough with the insertions into the liturgy for public fast days to be able to lead them next week. Either that or get David to lead that part. (I know we insert Avinu Malkeinu after the Amidah; I can't remember if there are other changes. Fortunately, I own a copy of the siddur we use, so there shouldn't be any surprises.)

I happened to glance at next month on the calendar and noticed that the fast of the first-born (before Pesach) also falls on a Thursday, my day to lead services. This one poses more uncertainty -- it's a public fast day but only for some people. Breakfast will be held, taking advantage of a rather dubious rules hack, but I don't know what liturgical changes are implied for a day on which some people must fast and others not. Fortunately, I have a month to find out. :-)

There are five minor fasts in the calendar. Three have to do with the destruction of the temple and one falls before Purim (commemorating Esther's call for a fast before she tried to save her people). These apply to everyone, but they don't resonate for me at all. I can't say exactly why, at least in the case of Purim. Maybe it's this nagging question of why this attempt to wipe out the Jewish people in a particular area warrants special treatment when it's not a singleton -- just the first that the rabbis noted. I don't know; I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it.

But the fifth of these minor fasts is the fast of the first-born on the day before Pesach (or earlier if that would cause it to interfere with Shabbat, like this year). This fast exists because of the tenth plague, the one that killed the first-born malees. Jewish first-born were spared but this is later given as a reason that first-born men belong to the temple for service to God. (There is a redmption mechanism, called pidyan ha-ben -- which is good because otherwise those people would be stuck today.) And of all the minor fasts, this one resonates for me. Isn't that odd? I'm a first-born woman whose ancestors were never endangered by this plague, though obviously had I been there I would have been.

I'm a woman, so traditional Judaism would say I'm not obligated. But a consequence of being egalitarian is that I don't get out of it that easily; if I believe men are obligated, then I am obligated too.

I don't know if we are obligated, but I should give this one more thought. I've tended to non-observance in the past, or going along with that rules hack I mentioned, but I'm beginning to think that the correct thing for me is to (1) keep the fast and (2) not use the rules hack. I've got a month to figure that out, too.

Ok, I'm not an easy drunk. I blame last night on a caffeine deficiency.

My seudah (festive meal) went well this afternoon. We had a good mix of people, and everyone seemed to be having fun (including Dani). I served brisket, wings in buffalo sauce, cod baked in orange juice with oregano, spaghetti squash, fruit salad, bread, and hamentashen. One of the guests brought curried vegetables, which were tasty. (I should ask her for the recipe.) Another guest brought vast quantities of bread (when she asked what she could bring I asked for a loaf of bread; she brought three). The candy, nuts, and pretzels that were also out were a hit, too. (I set the meal up as a buffet; I can't get that many people in the dining room, so we sat around the living room. I like the casualness of this approach.)

We had vast quantities of alcohol present, of course. (Some people brought contributions, too.) People seemed to go mostly for cordials and non-alcoholic drinks (fruit juices and pop); I don't think the brandy and wine were touched. I bought wine that's kosher for Pesach, though, anticipating this possibility. :-)

One of the couples who didn't show up called fairly late; they had been looking in vain for a house number that didn't exist, having forgotten my house number, and eventually went home because one of them (who's a diabetic) was having a sugar crash and needed food Right Now. I'm sorry we missed them; I think Dani would have enjoyed meeting them. I tried to lure them back out with the promise of very good directions, but they decided that they were already home and they should stay there. Oh well.

Erik was being very friendly, moving from lap to lap. I made sure that people knew that I wouldn't be offended if they dumped him, but it seems that many of my non-cat-owning friends are cat people. That's handy. :-)

I had fun.

Wow, it's 72 degrees in Pittsburgh today!

I love it: http://www.godhatesshrimp.com. "Shrimp, crab, lobster, clams, mussels, all these are an abomination before the Lord, just as gays are an abomination. Why stop at protesting gay marriage? Bring all of God's law unto the heathens and the sodomites." Thank you bodnej.

On a more somber note, Chernobyl, 18 years later -- a photo tour. Link courtesy of bhakti.

Livejournal is currently running a poll on whether to allow people to hide individual people on the "friend of" list on the user-info page. (Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is about; the fact that someone reads my journal says nothing about my relationship to him. And you can hide the entire list if you like.) I just noticed that one suggestion that has been made many times in the past, most recently in the context of this poll, has been implemented, though. Go look at your info page; it no longer says "friend of", but the more accurate "read/trusted by". Interesting. They have not yet made the corresponding change, replacing "friends" with "reads/trusts". And I don't know where thing stand with splitting those ideas into two separate lists, which was talked about a couple months ago. (I imagine the UI, and switch-over, will be a bit of a challenge.)

I still owe some interviews (on both sides of the desk, so to speak); I'll get to them after Shabbat and Purim. I haven't forgotten about you.

We're having about a dozen people over for Purim lunch on Sunday. It should be fun. I went to the liquor store a few nights ago to stock up. (I don't actually anticipate that anyone is really going to get completely rip-roaring drunk; I don't think I'll run out of anything. But I want to offer variety, so I now have an assortment of wine, hard liquor, and what one friend calls "girly drinks", aka cordials.) Oh, and we're having some food too. :-) (I'm making brisket, wings, fish, and assorted side dishes.)

That was fantastic!

This year, for the first time, my congregation added a "kinder, gentler Megilla reading" on Purim morning. The idea was that this one would be for adults, particularly adults who lack the patience for hundreds of out-of-control children who lack "off" buttons. (Blotting out Haman's name with noise is fine -- and required. But IMO you've got to be done with the noise before you get to the next "Mordechai".) It also adds a reading during the day; I gather that many Reform congregations just do the evening one.

We had a delightful reading, in English so everyone could follow, with commentary (improvised, for the most part), puppets, and other bits of silliness. Our rabbis claim that the silliness was unscripted, and the one who was reading first said he didn't even know the other had brought puppets until he noticed something going on in his peripheral vision. :-) And we read the whole megilla, not an abridged form like some congregations do. (I think they do that largely to placate kids who bore easily.)

I really hope they keep this reading next year!

I learned this morning that our congregation owns a megilla that is almost 200 years old. (The date written on it is 1804.) It's Hebrew/Aremaic, of course, and probably pasul (not kosher for ritual use) because of all the patches that have been made to it, but it's nifty. They passed it around so we could get closer looks.

And as an aside, I had never heard of etrog liquer before. Yum!

A few years ago, I commented to my friend Yaakov (aka Harold) that I don't enjoy Purim. My congregation is very child-focused, to the point where I felt alienated, so I just don't go to the Megillah reading there any more. And anyway, the core of the celebration is supposed to be the seudah (feast) in the afternoon, and I don't seem to know people who do that and would invite me. So Yaakov told me that I'm obviously hanging out with the wrong people, and I need to spend Purim with him.

( We fixed that. )

Gail (Ts'vee'a) agreed to go with me to Yaakov's (in DC) for Purim (I especially need a driver), so I get to spend that holiday with people who know how to celebrate it. Woo hoo! (I had opined to Yaakov that I had trouble getting into Purim, and he opined that I wasn't spending it with the right people. So now he gets to show me how good it can be.)

It's on a Tuesday this year. We're going to swoop in late Monday (after work), attend the morning megillah reading there, party, sober up, and drive back Tuesday night.

Whee!