cellio | Entries tagged with leining

Sleep is for the weak and unworthy, right? Or something like that. :-)

I'm finding that when I do finally settle down to sleep, the brain is still going and it's hard to turn it off. And then I'm waking up early with more of the same; I've only been awakened by the alarm once so far, not for lack of trying. I'm running on about 5-6 hours per night here, which is not my norm. I'm not sleepy during the day, but I have to make sure I get a good night's sleep Saturday somehow, because I'm driving home on Sunday. Well, at least Harry Potter and the CD that murmur311 gave me (thanks!) will keep me company. :-) (I packed a bunch of other CDs in case the audio book didn't work, but it did so I probably won't touch them.)

Today was a good day. Our service is in pretty good shape except for two things: we haven't yet done a full walk-through (that'll be tomorrow), and the cantorial student didn't have the tape of weekday nusach for me today. He'll have it tomorrow and this is a forgiving group, so that should be fine. But there's not a lot of time to learn it.

We've done a detailed talk-through of the service, with (as our advisor strongly suggested) post-it notes in the siddur for practically everything, including page cues and the "stand up now" gesture. This is right for a group not used to working together and using an unfamiliar siddur; I'd like to think that when we all go home to our familiar congregations wtih familiar liturgy, this wouldn't be such an issue. But maybe you have to lead a few dozen services before you're that comfortable; I forget. (And certainly when I was leading at Tree of Life I made my own doctored-up copy of the siddur, because neither the siddur nor the congregation was familiar. If I ever get around to learning the weekday shacharit service I won't need to do that, though.)

( shacharit )

( class: b'nei mitzvah )

( class: birth and baby namings )

( class: Jewish education )

( chug )

( class: congregational singing )

( ma'ariv, misc )

Today was a full day. We actually had a real break (almost 30 minutes); during that time I tried to post Monday's entry but saw no evidence that it took. I guess I'll find out when I connect to attempt to post this. I'm sorry for sending large bursts of stuff out all at once.

The campus store and the library have very limited hours during the summer. I haven't yet been to the library (sigh -- who's got time? but I want to), but the store stayed open later today to accommodate us. I think it was worthwhile for them; lots of people skipped part of dinner to buy books and the like. I picked up the JPS Hebrew-English Tanach (I wanted to see it "in the flesh" first to see the size of the print, which is adequate), passed on Braude's Book of Legends this time (highly recommended, but I'll bet I can improve on the $75 price via the used market), and picked up a new talit. I have a talit and it has signifance to me, but there have been times when I wanted the option of a larger one, particularly when leading services. (The one I have, which belonged to Dani's grandfather, is the small "scarf" size.) It turns out that the large size is too big for me (drags the ground, which isn't an appropriate thing to do to tzitzit), but there is an intermediate size that gives me enough material to draw the talit up over my head for the sh'ma, which I can't do with the one from Dani's family. I'd also rather use a larger one when leading services. So now I have that option. I was going to use it for the first time at Friday's service, which I'm helping to lead, but I see wisdom in getting used to it first, so I'll be using it tomorrow.

The planning for that service got off to a rocky start due to logistics (not at all due to the people, who are wonderful), but we finally had a good solid hour and change to go over it tonight. Tomorrow we will meet with our staff advisor about our plans (each group has an advisor), and then tomorrow night we'll solidify things down to the level of who does what and sticking post-it notes in the siddur and stuff. I'm doing all the music leading; that wasn't my plan, but the other two really want to not do this and like me in that role. I introduced them to some new melodies tonight. Some of that was explicit experiment; I figured that if they could pick them up quickly (just by listening) then the others could too. And they did. So we'll be using a niggun that my rabbi taught us at the last Shabbaton, and a new meditation before the Sh'ma (and setting of the Sh'ma) that our cantorial soloist introduced some months back (by Jeff Klepper). Our group feels that in this setting, each service should have a lot that is familiar and some that is new, because (1) we're experimenting and learning and (2) this is a group of synagogue leaders who will then disperse, not an established congregation where you would be much more conservative about change. I'm looking forward to the service; I think we've done a good job of preparing. (I seem to be the unofficial leader of the group, but not for lack of trying to push decisions out to the other two.)

( people in need of a clue-by-four )

All that aside, onward to today's nifty classes.

( class: text study )

( lunch: leadership development )

( class: Jewish music )

( class: shiva/funeral )

( chug: trope )

( class: illness and the community )

( ma'ariv )

The learning in this program is great. There's a lot of it, though; they're working us fairly hard. The day officially starts at 8:15 for shacharit and ends around 9:15 at the end of ma'ariv, with no breaks longer than 15 minutes so far (and precious few of those) -- and then there's the occasional bit of homework, and the planning sessions for the services we'll lead, and individual consultations, to say nothing of decompression time. For me, writing these notes is an essential part of distilling everything I've learned into knowledge that will survive the week. So, onward.

I am sharing the Friday shacharit service with two other people (for reference, Steve and Diane). We had a huddle at lunch today, where we talked broadly about the style we'd like and decided which siddur to use. (HUC has several.) We ended up deciding to use the latest draft of Mishkan T'filah (yes, they're doing weekday too and not just Shabbat), which has the advantage of being equally unfamiliar to all of us. This should involve pushing some boundaries, after all. We're all a little concerned about learning the weekday nusach (melodies) in time; I ended up telling them that I think I can do it and they said "ok, you do that then". I hope I can deliver. (The weekday nusach we use at my congregation is different from what they use here. I should check with the cantorial staff member about that.)

We were going to meet tonight after ma'ariv to discuss the service in more detail, but the organizers declared a group run to Graeter's ice cream, and a little casual social time sure seemed like a good idea. It was after 10:30 when we got back, though, so I'll find Steve and Diane at breakfast.

The instructors so far have all been great. Some of the classes have had problems of pacing and going off-topic (some rabbis are just too polite to curb conversation, it appears), but the people are great and there's still plenty of good material.

(Someone remind me later that there's some stuff I want to say about program organization and credentials, but it's too late to get into tonight.)

( morning service )

( class: Tanach )

( class: how to lead worship )

( chug: trope )

( Plum Street Shul )

( class: how to write a d'var torah )

( evening service )

And now, it is late and "laptop neck" is setting in, that kink in the neck that comes from hunching over to be able to see the monitor, so I'm done for tonight.

I've done better torah readings, but this morning went ok. I was tripped up when I mis-remembered trope for one word, which had a cascading effect on the next few words. So I had to be prompted, but I got through it. Initially (a few years ago) I learned this portion by rote; now that I know how to read trope I did it "right" this time, uncovering some errors in my initial learning of it in the process. So I guess it's not surprising that something like this happened. I still got lots of apparently-genuine compliments.

There was a fascinating (to me) discussion at breakfast. There is a light breakfast after services every morning -- usually just bagels and bread, cream cheese, and drinks, unless someone sponsors a fancier breakfast. The process of getting the bread/bagels has been a pain for various reasons, and today someone (a regular, not a visitor) proposed a change: getting bagels from a new bakery that is better in quality, cheaper, more conveniently located -- and not under rabbinic supervision. This last point had not even occurred to the person bringing up the subject as something important; when others pointed it out he went on an anti-kashrut rant. ("What could be treif about a bagel?" "Well, this place sells sandwiches, right? So maybe they sliced your bagel with the same knife they just used to slice the ham?" "You're being too picky." And so on.)

Other people pressed that line of argument with him, but I brought up a more fundamental issue. This is a Conservative congregation. That means they, as a congregation, are bound to a certain interpretation of halacha. It doesn't matter if every member of the minyan eats treif at home; the congregational meal must be in accordance with that halacha, both for appearance and to support the needs of any visitor who actually keeps kosher. (I think, but am not sure, that failing to keep a kosher shul kitchen is one of the issues (along with performing an intermarriage, and I'm not sure what else) that can get a Conservative rabbi censured.) So if that halacha says a bakery must be under supervision, you have to follow that. Bottom line: you have to ask the rabbi and follow his ruling.

The person I was arguing with seemed to be of the belief that "kashrut is silly, so we don't need to worry about it". He failed to see the difference between decisions about personal practice and decisions about communal practice. At one point he brought up other Conservative deviations from the Orthodox interpretation of halacha, like allowing women to lead services, but I pointed out that this isn't the same thing at all: the Conservative movement has a process, which they followed, to determine that women can lead services. They didn't just get up one day and say "we don't like that restriction, so we're not doing it". That same process produces an understanding of kashrut, which must be followed in the shul.

The rabbi was not present, by the way. (I would of course have deferred to him if he were.) I didn't mean to be "speaker for the rabbi", and I said a few times that he needs to consult the rabbi about the kashrut rules for the shul. But when exactly did I, a Reform Jew, become a spokesman for Conservative Judaism in a Conservative shul? *boggle*

(I should clarify that I am not trying to malign or question this community as a whole. I assume that most people present agreed with me but just weren't putting it into words.)

I recently bought Trope Trainer (Kinnor Software Inc) to help me learn torah portions. I'm learning my first one with it now. It's great! ( allow me to be more specific... )

Hey, CMU's new robotic receptionist (complete with personality) has made national news. It (she?) sounds like a neat project. I like that they are giving the robot a personality of sorts; an article in the local paper talked about her recent date with a vacuum cleaner, for example.

Friday night after services three different people who had been at the board meeting asked if I'm a lawyer. :-) One commented that another board member and I had been really going at it over that bit of wording; I explained that we are both CS types. (That board member and I were both at Transarc/IBM at the same time, as it turns out, though we did not work together on the same project.) Now I didn't perceive any actual hostility in that exchange; I think he understands this type of arguing. But I wonder if others, besides the person who talked to me, got an incorrect impression.

Saturday morning I read torah (and did the associated stuff, leading part of the service and giving a short talk). Afterwards I received the by-now-usual praise from various people. I think I have convinced one of them that I have no special background and he can do this too if he wants to; he said he would think about it and let me know next week if I can assign him a week.

Several people, over the last couple of years, have told me that I inspire them, either with learning or with participation. I find this flattering, but I'd rather they show me, not tell me. Is there some way I can move from "making people feel good" to "actually inspiring people to do"?

I didn't read the entire aliya this week (which is acceptable under our current practice), because I didn't have enough time to learn the whole thing. (I stepped in to fill a gap in the schedule.) I had promised myself that next time I would read the entire aliya; parts are assigned through mid-April, so this is not a problem. Heh. In looking at the schedule, it looks like I'm reading Tazria-Metzora. I guess I'm being punished for taking the easy path this time by getting the leprosy portion next time. :-)

My copy of Trope Trainer (software) came on Friday. I haven't installed it yet, but I'm going to fire it up soon. Looks like a good package, recommended by my rabbi, and I caught a sale.

This came as a complete surprise to me, but my sister would like to attend a Star Trek convention with at least one of her teenage kids. (None of them have ever been to any con.) If anyone has suggestions for ones not too far from Pittsburgh that might appeal to newcomers and not be too expensive, I'll pass the suggestions along. Shore Leave in Baltimore could work, except if I recall correctly the hotel is something well over $100/night, which might be a problem.

It seems a little, I don't know, unnerving that the "eye for an eye" part of the Torah (in Mishpatim) rolls trippingly off the tongue, both musically and textually. It's so smooth and graceful... but hey, at least it's easy to learn. :-)

They gave me an aliya this morning at services. Before reciting the blessings, it is customary for a man to touch the Torah scroll with a corner of his tallit. For a woman, they have you use the sash that's used to tie the scroll shut. But this morning they had temporarily lost track of that sash when it was my turn, and while they were looking for it one of the guys told me to "just wear a tallit already, ok?". This is the first evidence I've seen in ~5 years of going there that it would be considered socially acceptable in that congregation for a woman to wear a tallit. Heh -- learn something new every day.

Tonight's D&D game was fun. We had several combats in rapid succession, and we know there will be more before the characters have time to rest, which lends excitement to the game in excess of the sum of the excitement levels of the individual fights. And we did some fun things in the fights; I was particularly happy when something (probably called a cloaker or the like) enveloped someone and my sorceror -- polymorphed as a troll and flying -- attempted to out-grapple it and pull it off. This rightly failed, as my character is not a warrior, but it was entirely appropriate for her to try. (Similarly, it was entirely appropriate for her to charge into combat with the undead whatever-they-weres and smack them with her undead-hating sword.) I like the fact that the level of paladin gives me flexibility in interesting ways without in any way competing with the party's half-dragon fighter.

( Shabbat )

( party )

The user interface on my watch could be better. I would not have guessed that the way to get it to stop chiming on the hour is to press and hold a certain button (nothing else involves holding buttons), nor would I have noticed that sometimes the colon between hours and minutes blinks and sometimes it doesn't. I had to hunt down the manual online to learn this, as the alternative was a day of inconvenient chirps.

Speaking of unfortunate user interfaces, the torah portion I'm learning for a few weeks from now comes in the middle of a long stretch without any paragraph breaks. I'm not looking forward to trying to find the beginning of it in the torah scroll. And just to add insult to injury, it starts off with a bit of a tongue-twister. But I'll get it, and it'll be good for me. Maybe next year I will remember that someone who has trouble with the sequence of phonemes in "Yitzchak" should avoid certain portions. :-)

Sunday night there were just four of us for dinner, and afterwards we broke out Dani's copy of Puerto Rico. (None of us had played before, though we'd all heard good reviews.) Interesting game, and by the end I was starting to understand some of the strategy. It's a Rio Grande game, so at its core it's an optimization problem.

Oh right; I must remember to cross out two letters in the enchilada recipe I used Sunday, in the phrase "ungreased casserole dish". Oops.

Today was long-awaited study with my rabbi (i.e. had to wait for the holidays to be over). Good session, about which I hope to write more later.

I'm glad I went to my own congregation Friday rather than taking the cantorial opportunity. ( Read more... )

This morning went differently than I had expected. ( Read more... )

I'm still working out the culinary subtleties of Shabbat lunch. ( Read more... )

I'm pleased with how Shabbat services went this week.

Friday night the worship committee led services. This involved a small herd of volunteers, with its attendant logistics hassles, but overall things went well. Notes for next time: (1) teach people how to use microphones effectively, (2) teach people about voice projection, and (3) make sure notations to stand up or sit down are written into leaders' copies of the service.

Our congregation reads one aliya's worth of the Torah portion on Friday nights. (This year we're doing the first aliya. After Simchat Torah we'll switch to the second, and then the third the following year, and so on for the seven-year cycle. Yes, there's a method to it. :-) ) This week's double portion was on the long side (28 verses total), so we had three readers. I got the long chunk, at 12 verses, though I wasn't trying to do that. The other two read; I chanted. I like chanting, and chanting rather than reading actually helps me with memorization and phrasing even if it takes longer to learn in the first place.

All of the torah readers did a great job. I had my part nailed, and I received many compliments -- including one person who told me I was giving the cantor a run for her money, another one who said I should just go to rabbinical school already, and a third who assumed I was a native speaker of Hebrew. Wow!

There were some logistics challenges, mostly due to the fact that not all of the participants are as familiar with the service as I am. The down-side of having an inclusive service where you call for volunteers is that you sometimes get people who aren't regulars and don't know, if not told, to tell people to rise for such-and-such prayer or whatever. Given the reality that many people who would like to participate are not going to start coming every week, I'd like to find some way to improve the overall level of knowledge among people likely to do this in the future (like members of my committee). Gotta figure out how to do that.

The rabbis will both be away next week too, so the cantorial intern and I had discussed just doing the service ourselves. (I didn't want to have a large logistics challenge two weeks in a row.) She said something about getting volunteers for next week within the hearing of many of last night's participants, though, so I have to change that plan slightly. One person (who is also quite knowledgable) asked to help, so my current plan is to have just the three of us do it and tell anyone else who contacts me that it's all taken care of. (Well, four of us; we have a guest Torah reader.)

I ended up leading this morning's service, because the person I had asked got stuck out of town and couldn't make it. All of last night's Torah readers are part of the morning minyan, so we repeated the Torah reading. (This is why I chose those particular people; I knew we'd need Torah readers twice, so why not get double use out of the learning effort?) This morning I tripped over the reading in a couple places, but there was nothing catastrophic. Aya helped lead parts of the service that I'm a little weak on, which was handy. I got lots of compliments this morning, too. There was one problem I'm not sure how to solve, though: the rabbi plays guitar for this service but I don't, so he's got an easy way to keep people together while singing, signal beginnings and ends of songs, and so on. I had some problems with this, but didn't want to start waving my hands like a choir director. Hmm.

All in all, I'm very happy with both services and I'm looking forward to doing more of next Friday's service. I have to write a sermon, which I'm not as excited about, but it'll be ok. (The rabbi asked me specifically to talk about Tisha b'Av. Hmm.)

I went early to services on Friday so I could sneak a peek at the sefer torah I'll be reading from next week. The rabbi asked me which scroll I wanted to use, the one with the clearest text (which is heavy) or the lightest one (which has less-clear, though acceptable, text). I told him that I don't have hagbah (the job of lifting the scroll overhead for the congregation to see), so I had a clear opinion on the subject that was subject to veto. :-) (Apparently the person doing hagbah can cope, though, so I get the good text.) I tripped in a few places reading from the scroll on Friday, but I'm now in pretty good shape from the practice copy (in the tikkun), so I think it'll be fine.

Last night we went to Kathy's PhD party. She successfully defended her thesis a couple months ago and officially gets the degree next month. She commented that she has spent more than a third of her life in grad school. That's kind of a scary way of looking at it. I don't think I would have the stamina. (Or the financial wherewithall, possibly.)

The party was a mix of SCA people, coworkers, and relatives. Often those kinds of gatherings fragment, with the SCA people talking about things that are utterly cryptic to the others. That didn't happen as much last night, and the relatives and coworkers didn't bolt early. That's good.

I'm thinking of having a birthday party this fall -- round number and it's an excuse for a party at our house, so what the heck. I hope we can achieve a similar dynamic, because I'd like to invite a mix of people.

Johan and I went up to Cooper's Lake last week to inspect the trailer and make sure the new jack will fit. (It will, but we need to go back with different tools to attach it.) On the way up, we made a stop by the Highland Park water filtration plant, which is really his project (lead engineer). It's quite impressive -- very pretty, and you'd never guess that there's a water-tratment plant inside if you weren't looking for it. It really blends into the park. A particularly fun part is the babbling brook; you see, they need to aerate some of the waste water before it can proceed to the river or wherever it gets dumped, and this is usually done by piping it over chunks of cement and stuff in a chamber. But this is a park, so he got authorization to make a pretty brook with rock beds and stuff. While we were standing on a bridge looking down on it, a couple of people out for a walk joined us and he was explaining to them how it worked. They were very complimentary, and they thanked him for keeping the park pretty. After we left, I asked him how it felt to have fans. :-) It really is an impressive project, and I gather that he's gotten engineering awards for it. While I love what I do for a living, there's got to be something neat about doing something that has an immediate, positive impact on the community in which you live.

Oh, and a link, courtesy of Johan: http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com .

I chanted the Torah portion for my rabbi today. It's in good shape (needs polish), and he pointed out a couple tricks to make some parts easier. What surprised me is that I was nervous while doing this -- enough that he noticed it in my breathing. I hope that problem disappears as I get the challenging bits nailed down more. I'd hate to sound nervous in front of the congregation.

(I was not nervous for the so-called "adult b'nei mitzvah" a few years ago. I was a little nervous the first time I chanted at Tree of Life but not the second. I don't think I was nervous when I chanted for the morning minyan the one time. And I was definitely nervous for the women's service a couple months ago, though the scroll calligraphy on that one was weird. So it's a mixed bag -- sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not, and it's not strongly tied to anything.)

In addition to this service (July 25, for any locals who care), I needed to find a couple people to help with the following week, because the rabbis will still be gone. I mentioned that I was having trouble finding someone to give the d'var torah (sermon, sort of), and he told me to do it myself and to talk about Tisha b'Av, which will be the following week. Ok, I can do that; I'd been trying to give the opportunity to someone else, but a lot of people seem to be intimidated by the idea. (Note for after the fall holidays: get someone to give a class or something in how to write a d'var torah.)

I was kind of surprised by the topic request, because while my rabbi personally observes Tisha b'Av and usually mentions it beforehand, the Reform movement in general doesn't observe this day and our congregation doesn't have special services for it. This year, he said, we're having services. It's a pity I'll be at Pennsic then; I'm kind of curious. Probably not curious enough to make the round trip, though.

Friday night my rabbi gave a wonderful sermon. At the oneg I told him he should put it on the web site so it could be shared more widely (he does this very occasionally), and he said he had done it all from notes, not a written copy. Drat!

My torah portion (for the Shabbat after next) is in pretty good shape. I was able to do the whole thing, with some hesitation but no non-recoverable errors, from the unpointed text tonight. Not cold, though; I practiced for a while before doing that. I'm meeting my rabbi for study on Wednesday and I'll chant it for him then (he asked to hear all of us).

A new vegetarian restaurant called Zen Garden opened yesterday a few blocks from home. Unfortunately, while they're usually open until 11 on Saturdays, last night they closed early due to some logistics stuff. (They got a lot more people than they expected, they said.) So we'll have to check it out some other time. Soon, I hope; I picked up a menu and it looks pretty good. And an all-vegetarian restaurant means I don't have to worry about cross-contamination in the kitchen; I can eat there and be confident of kashrut issues.

Tonight we watched two more episodes of Babylon 5. We've now covered up through "A Distant Star". There have been many episodes that I'm enjoying more on the re-watch (actually re-re-watch, and sometimes re-re-re-watch) than I did before. Some of it's time (been a few years); some of it's picking up subtleties that I missed before; some of it's probably the absence of commercial breaks.

My scanner is acting up. It might be time to bite the bullet and just acknowledge that scanner technology has improved significantly in the last, um, six or seven years. :-)

I talked with my rabbi tonight and he said I should just go ahead and assign the parts for the service in a couple weeks, rather than giving him a list of names like we've done in the past. That makes things easier, but I hadn't known whether he wanted anyone else doing it.

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... )

Tonight I went to Pinsker's in search of a "tikkun", the book that gives all the torah portions with trope and division into parts. (I don't know why this is called a tikkun.) This turned out to be more challenging than I had anticipated.

[Geeking follows.]

I've heard lots of things about "Kestenbaum" (I guess that's the editor), so I looked at that one first. It's large, has English translation, and costs $60. It's also physically very heavy. I don't need English translations, and the English introduction didn't say anything new to me (near as I could tell), so I kept looking.

There was one that was entirely Hebrew (including what looked like an introduction). It didn't make the boundaries between parshiyot obvious, and I had to do some digging to find the markings between aliyot within a parsha. Fine if you know the text well; not so good if you need those guideposts, like I do.

There was another all-Hebrew one that had very small print; I didn't examine it closely.

This left the one published by Ktav. (I think that means "book". Well, same root, anyway.) It has clear headers at the beginning of each parsha and each aliya, and it shows the weekday aliya breakdowns as well. I can't tell if it gives you what you need to handle double portions; I looked at Matot-Masei (the one we're doing for that service at the end of July) and there's something at the right point for the end of the first (combined) aliya, but I can't make it out and the book does not contain an introduction explaining notation.

This book had a familiar look to it, though. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this is what David has given me photocopies from on a couple occasions. It seems to be sound, and I know I've been able to work from it in the past. And it was $20, which is a far cry from Kestenbaum.

None, not even Kestenbaum, had Hebrew that was large enough that could read without mechanical assistance. That's disappointing, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I opted for the familiar-looking, inexpensive Ktav. And this Shabbat, I will begin learning Matot-Masei in earnest.

Wow. It appears that it takes even longer to get military mail out of Iraq than it takes to get it in. A friend is a marine who was stationed there for several months. (He came home two weeks ago.) I wrote to him several times while he was there. Today's mail brought a letter dated April 30; it was a reply to a letter I sent in March. Ironically, in the letter he pointed out that things were a little slow -- it had taken my letter four weeks to reach him. I wonder how many more letters from him are in the postal pipeline.

Saturday was the Academy, a local SCA event. I took some interesting classes, including one on medieval glass, one on medieval beliefs about medicinal herbs, and one on performing poetry. I also spent some time talking with friends from out of town. The choir performance went reasonably well, and the food was wonderful. All in all, a very good event.

Our efforts at hospitality the night before did not go so well. The basement flooded about an hour and a half before our guests were due; the guest room is in the basement. We faked other accommodations, but they were far from ideal. We had an enjoyable evening visiting regardless.

At one point one of their kids had set down a partially-full cup of milk and Erik (one of the cats) knocked it over. I cleaned it up, but not before Erik consumed a fair bit of the milk. I didn't think much of this at the time.

The next morning it was apparent that milk disagrees with Erik's digestion. Unfortunately, the kids found (and in one case stepped in) the evidence before I did. It was quite embarrassing. That, and Baldur coughed up a hairball that, again, a kid found before I did. This represented more feline surprises in a day than I'm used to in a week, but I'm not sure they really believed us that this was abnormal. I felt awkward.

Sunday dinner was pleasant. We spent some of the time D&D geeking; Ralph has left us with a cliff-hanger and we were talking about ways to deal with it. I think some of our ideas amused Ralph. :-)

There will be a Shabbat at the end of July when both rabbis will be away, so the worship committee is leading services that Friday night. (The morning minyan can take care of itself.) I took the opportunity to assign myself part of the Torah reading. :-) (Yes, Reform does Friday-night Torah readings.) I'm waiting for a photocopy from the tikkun (the book that shows all the cantillation marks for the text), but I'm thinking that I should just buy one for myself. I wonder if there are any non-obvious factors to consider in choosing one. I'll probably stop by Pinsker's on Thursday (the only night they're open past 6pm) before the board meeting and see what they have.

I had my performance review at work a few days ago. We're all still friends. :-)

Yesterday morning I chanted Torah at Tree of Life. It went really well! Next year I will learn the third aliyah so I can do the entire thing. One of the minyanaires was trying to get me to lead the service (Dave, the usual leader, was sick); I deflected it. I'd like to be able to do so, but my Hebrew isn't yet good enough to do a morning service in an acceptable amount of time. Eventually...

Last night's board meeting was the annual budget discussion. This meeting (every year) also gets the incoming trustees, who will be elected at next week's congregational meeting, so there were some extra people there. One of those newcomers came up to me after the meeting and said she really likes the way I analyze things and ask questions. I guess I haven't lost the touch. :-)

After the board meeting (and dinner) we watched this week's "West Wing". Wow. That was really well-done. We knew to expect a cliff-hanger, of course. The plot twist for which the episode was named did not actually surprise me (though it was poingiantly done); after the events of a couple weeks ago, didn't everyone look up that part of the constitution? Or was it only the geeky fans?

I've been getting spam lately with the subject line "seek of spam?". The source of the error seems obvious (non-native speaker with vowel confusion), but given that spammers mainly seek vectors, I found it amusing.

Saturday night we went to

ralphmelton and

lorimelton's for dinner and a viewing of the extended version of Fellowship of the Ring. Some of the cut scenes were appropriately cut; others were a real loss to the movie. I particularly liked the scene where the hobbits get a lesson about how filling lembas are (a sort of flatbread that only requires one bite a day for a full-sized elf).

The DVD has some extras, most of which we didn't watch. We did see a (long) trailer for the Two Towers. We also saw a rather, um, tasteless send-up of the Council of Elrond called "Lord of the Piercings". We had to google for the navigation instructions, as the person who suggested it couldn't remember the details.

I'll bet easter eggs were a lot more challenging a decade ago than they are now. :-)

Sunday night we went to an SCA potluck dinner. The theme this time was "birds, including things birds eat". We rejected chicken as too obvious, and decided not to do things with eggs (quiche, devilled eggs, etc) for a similar reason. We worried about duplication. I finally opted for baked salmon (some birds eat fish), which went over well. And, as it turned out, while the hostess made roasted chicken, there were no devilled eggs.

The creativity award has to go to the person who constructed a bird out of soft cheeses (with some structural elements), with wing and tail feathers carved out of peppers, sitting in a nest of (probably) shredded cabbage.

After recording Saturday's torah portion for posterity (or whatever suffices for same in non-digital media), I set to work on the portion I'm chanting Thursday. It came back more easily than I thought it would -- once I consented to flushing parts of the previous one from active memory. It's weird how that works. I can remember zillions of songs, even ones that are similar, but two similar torah portions are currently beyond me. I guess that will get better in time. I've got to find more opportunities to grow in this area. (For next year I will learn the final chunk of the weekday reading for this portion, but I'd like to do something before then, especially since I'm now starting to be able to parse the trope directly, without looking every symbol up in the book. I still have to look up the less-common ones, but that too will get better in time.)

At the Saturday service a random member of my congregation congratulated me on becoming chair of the worship committee. Ok, I assume that means they've told the outgoing chair by now...

Friday night I ended up going to the Lubavich Center for services. ( an inner dialogue in one act, because I'm feeling punchy )

Oh well. It would have presumably gone much better if I'd had a (female) "native guide", but I don't know any. Saturday morning is probably a much better bet than Friday night, and I'll try that someday, but I had the Friday night available so I figured it was worth a try. I've got a Saturday-morning minyan that I'm very attached to.

Maybe I had unrealistic expectations; I don't know. You hear a lot about the joy in chassidism, and I guess I expected something similar to the "singing minyan" in Passaic NJ, which was sort of Carlebach-esque in feel (though I didn't know about Shlomo Carlebach's music until later). At that service there was singing and even a little dancing IIRC, and the community really felt inclusive. I somehow thought that Chassidism was that plus more. (And, of course, I don't know if Friday's service was representative of the larger community.)

This morning's service went very well. It also had much more ruach (spirit) and community than I expected (and about as much singing as I expected -- which is to say, a fair bit).

I got there early so I could get a look at the sefer torah (scroll) I'd be reading from. Good thing I did; the calligraphy was very hard to read, with more of the "widened" letters than I've seen elsewhere. (The text is justified, and rather than mucking with white space the way printers do, certain lettrs are permitted to be written wider than usual to fill in the space. Sometimes they're very wide. It can be distracting.)

I was the first of five torah readers. I was nervous, but it went well. I made one "invisible" trope error and am pleased that I didn't stumble when I realized it had happened; I just fudged things and went on, and I don't think anyone but the checker noticed. And she didn't stop me for it, which is good. I made no pronunciation errors, and I think the checker would have corrected me if I had (based on what I saw with another reader). I think my pronunciation was spot-on, actually, and my trope was pretty good. (Certainly musically sound; whether I had any glitches within that scope, I can't say.)

I learned three lessons, two of which I've learned before and had forgotten. So I will write them down this time:

Practice chanting while leaning over a table, not while standing up straight. Breathing and vocal support are very different in that posture. (I was out of breath in places where I shouldn't have been, and hadn't been in practice.)
Don't get too attached to the calligraphy in the tikkun (practice book); the scroll might be different (already discussed).
Both of your hands will be occupied, so don't plan on using hidden gestures to aid in memorization. (I had two sections that were the same text and different trope, and I practiced with gestures under the table to help me memorize which was which. But I had to use one hand to hold a roller on the scroll and the other was holding the yad (pointer), leaving no hands free. And that's the trope I got wrong.)

I got a lot of compliments, and I think I did a good job. I need to chant it into a tape recorder (archive, in case I ever get this portion again), and then I'll be ready to focus on Behar (which will mean overwriting some of what I learned for this one). I didn't archive Behar last year or Shlach Lecha (my "adult bat mitzvah [sic]" portion) a few years ago, and time has taken its toll. Behar is still there but rusty; Shlach Lecha is gone. Oops.

This morning David (the Torah reader at ToL) asked me how the portion is going about 10 seconds before I was going to approach him about it. I said I was having cognitive dissonance learning two portions at the same time (too many cases of "same words, different trope"), but we both realize that my chanting this one is completely optional. Probably what we will do is I will chant the first two aliyot, which I learned last year and can restore easily, and I won't try the third (the new part, and longer than the other two put together) until next year.

I'm a little disappointed in myself for not anticipating (and somehow working around) the problem, but I do think I'm doing the right thing. And I'm not making anyone else's life more complicated; David had to prepare the portion anyway because it gets read four times [1] and I'm only doing one of them.

Emor (the portion I'm chanting part of this Shabbat) is doing just fine, however. If I can just remember the correct syllable to accent on one word where I'm sometimes getting it wrong, everything will be just fine. And the "checkers" (who follow along in a text to make sure the reader doesn't make any mistakes) probably won't stop me for that, or trope quirks, so it'll be fine. (They would stop me if I actually used an incorrect word.)

[1] This Saturday at mincha, Monday morning, and Thursday morning all get the abbreviated portion that I'm talking about. Then on Shabbat the entire portion is read.

This Saturday is the Shabbat service where I'll be chanting Torah. I have the first piece. (There are, I think, five readers total.) This should be nifty. I went over the portion with my co-worker again today and things seem to be in order. (I also went over it with Aya, a fellow congregant, at the shabbaton.) I think my plan to chant Behar at Tree of Life the following week might fail, though; the portions are too similar, and I'm getting cognitive dissonance. (When I first set out to do this I thought the portions were two weeks apart, not one.) Oh well; if not this year, then next.

The shabbaton featured some very good conversations that I find myself unable to summarize. We spent some time in the morning studying Pirke Avot (particularly talking about discipline in study and observance), and some time in the afternoon talking about how we relate to God and why we're uncomfortable talking about God. Friday night included a lot of music and storytelling.

A while ago I noticed a big difference in approaches to ritual between the liberal and traditional Jews I know. The shabbaton provided another example with havdalah, the ceremony marking the end of Shabbat. I've done this with traditional friends who've done it quickly and matter-of-factly, not because they were rushed but because that's just the way you do things. At the shabbaton, havdalah extended for a good 15 minutes (maybe more), with music. We were relaxed about it. It is the difference between fulfilling a specific obligation, because you have to, and infusing a ritual with meaning (or at least making it fun). You can see something similar with prayer sometimes; we say fewer words than they do, but we don't rush it as much as some of them do. (Far be it from me to generalize to all traditional Jews. I'm talking about trends I've seen, nothing more.) When you've got so much text that it'll take you 40 minutes to get through (daily) morning prayers touching every word, you don't have much incentive to linger.

I sometimes wish that the Reform movement would put a little more of the traditional content back, but I don't want to end up in a tradition of speed-davening at the expense of paying attention to what the words actually mean. There must be a balance point.

I just chanted the torah portion from the sparse text (the way it appears in the torah scroll, without vowels, punctuation, or trope marks) for the first time. Cold. (I last chanted from the full version yesterday.) I think it was about 95% correct. Not at all bad for the first time out.

I am pleased that I learned most of the trope by looking up the musical notation in the book, not by listening to a tape. I've internalized many more of the symbols (and their contexts) than I thought I would by doing it this way. Yay!

I'm chanting Torah for a women's service next month. Short chunk; 8 verses of parsha Emor. And I'm trying to learn the trope (cantillation melody) the right way, from the notation, rather than just parroting a tape recording. (I have a tape, in case this approach fails.)

The big difference between reading trope notation and reading regular music notation is that trope symbols are much more context-senstive. It's more like learning to pronounce an irregular language than like learning to read music.

( geekery behind the cut, because you have other friends )

I didn't have the translation handy when I was doing this, but it seems I don't need it for broad strokes. I know enough words that, at least for this passage, I know what it's talking about without consulting a translation.

Book, passage, and tape are definitely going with me to Toronto for Pesach. Multi-day visits with relatives involve a lot of boring "between time", which I find kind of frustrating. Yes, I always take reading material, but that gets old. But this is something I need to work on and can do on my own, so it's perfect. I hope to be well into practicing from the real text (which doesn't have vowels or trope marks) by the end of Pesach.

And besides, that way if they don't let us back into the country or something because we visited SARS-land, at least I'm not completely hosed on this. :-)

When it rains, it pours. Friday mid-day I got a call from the rabbi at ToL asking if I was available to lead services that night (someone got sick, I think); I had to decline because I was -- for only the third time ever -- helping to lead Friday services at my own synagogue. Oops. :-) (I'll be at ToL in two weeks, so I didn't really miss out. I hope he was able to find someone.)

The service went ok. There were some imbalances in the distribution of parts, and the borrowed cantor (from another synagogue, and it was only her second time with us) ended up leading parts that I thought were going to be led by members of our committee. Oh well; it came off ok. I wish they had gone the extra step of letting our own members with the relevant skills fill the cantorial spots, but I guess that's touchy with some people. My part went fine, though I was confident that it would.

At the oneg the aforementioned cantor, without any provocation, complimented me on my Hebrew and then told me she was glad I was there with her during a couple of the sung parts. I'm not sure what the latter was about; she's a professional singer, so it's not that she needed my voice for support or anything. Maybe she just meant that she liked having the person singing next to her being on key. Or maybe she was just glad to have someone from the congregation (who knows the subtle musical clues) up there. Whatever; I can take a compliment without having to deconstruct it. :-)

I learned something interesting during this conversation: as part of the process for applying for admission to cantorial school, you have to correctly chant an unfamiliar Torah passage. I'm not sure how much time you get to prepare. Wow; I figured that would be a skill you'd have to demonstrate, oh, around the end of your first year, not before they even let you in the door.

(I'm not about to go to cantorial school, though I would like to learn trope. I have a book; I haven't gotten very far yet. I want to chant torah again, even if I learn the next one by rote and not because I fully understand the notation. I pinged my rabbi about this again last week; we'll see if it results in an assignment.)

I got to see Patti, one of our members who is now away at rabbinical school in Philly. They're on winter break, so she came back to Pittsburgh. I wish we'd had more time to talk. It's not clear how long she'll be in town; she's going to wing it, depending on weather.

Monica

Wednesday ("hump day")

Tuesday

Monday

morning minyan

review: Trope Trainer

Shabbat (mostly)

semi-short takes

weekend

short takes

Shabbat

Shabbat services

short takes

upcoming services

short takes

Jewish geeking

buying a tikkun

short takes

short takes

the rest of the weekend

Shabbat report

Behar

Shabbats (future and past)

trope

trope geekery

Friday night

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