cellio | Entries tagged with judaism

After dithering for a while, I've decided not to go to the program at Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem this year. It was going to be expensive before the dollar tanked (let alone now), and I haven't been able to find out a lot about it, and I figure I can wait for a review from the fellow congregant who's going and re-evaluate for next year.

I am pretty sure I am going to National Havurah Committee's summer institute, unless all the classes I'm interested in have filled up since the list went live a couple months ago. (I've sent email to inquire.) This is the week after Pennsic, which is a little awkward, but I should be able to make it work. (I want some down-time, but I'll come home from Pennsic on Friday and not need to leave for this until Monday morning, probably.) Do I know anyone else who is going this year? I know magid has gone in the past.

(By the way, can anyone from the area tell me what NH temperature and humidity tend to be like in mid-August? This informartion seems remarkably hard to gain via Google.)

I have also heard some really good things about a short program called Limmud. When I first heard of this what I found was a weekend(-ish) program in the UK, which seemed rather a bit of trouble for something so short. (At the time I didn't have a passport. I do now, so it would just be about time and airfare.) But someone on a mailing list recently mentioned the New York instantiation. This program is for a long weekend in the winter. They don't have any details posted yet, but I'll check back later. (I wonder what the least-bad way is for getting to the Catskills in January. Maybe some other congregants will be interested and we could drive; flying is not clearly a win.)

I attended a talk tonight by Rabbi Harold Kushner, who is best known for When Bad Things Happen to Good People. This talk was based around a different book, How Good Do We Have To Be?. The talk was engaging, and motivates me to seek out the book.

I'm not going to try to summarize. Instead, here are some short takes (my attempts to capture what he said):

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Why, oh why, is tulip season so short? It feels like they just showed up not long ago, and now they're fading. Oh well... on to something else, I guess! (I think the lilac bush is next to bloom, but I'm not sure.)

This weekend Dani and I joined some friends for a last-minute gaming get-together. We played La Cita (my third time, I think), which split interestingly: the winner had 35 points (would have been 40 if he hadn't starved his people in the last round), another player and I had 32 and 33, and the other two were in the high teens. It didn't look like that in play. (I thought I was doing worse and those last two better.) Then we played Rum and Pirates and all clumped within a few points of each other (something like 62-70). I like both of these games and will happily play more.

A few weeks ago I ordered a used DVD set via Amazon Marketplace. (I decided to see what all the Heroes fuss is about.) I chose a seller who had only a handful of ratings, all positive, figuring that someone like that is motivated to give good service. (Also, I noticed that the DVD would ship from PA.) A few weeks passed with no DVDs, so I sent email a couple days ago. This morning the seller wrote back with profuse apologies; he (she?) had accidentally sent my order to someone else who'd ordered on the same day, but now had the set back in hand -- "so I'll drive it over this afternoon". It turns out the seller is in the greater-Pittsburgh area. As promised, the DVDs were waiting for me when I got home from work, so everything worked out just fine. (I never order anything from third-party sellers that I actually need in a hurry.)

Speaking of TV, the BBC might bring back Blake's 7 (link from caryabend). Woo hoo! I trust that this will eventually find its way to DVD and, thence, my TV. Since it's been more than a quarter-century, I do wonder what they'll do for casting. Of course, they could well do a "25 years later..." story, even though the final season left things on a cliffhanger.

(Anonymous) quote of the day, after interviewing a job candidate: "He has a lot of learning to do, and I don't want to pay the tuition".

This sign in a shop made me laugh.

Reusable printer paper looks like an interesting idea; I wonder if it can be developed economically. I'm surprised by the claims about what it costs to (1) manufacture and (2) recycle a piece of paper.

Quote of the day #2 brings some much-needed context to the flap over Obama's ex-minister. Excerpt (compiled by dglenn): "No one likes to hear someone, especially a preacher, criticize our good country. But Donna Potis [...] and so many others who decry presidential candidate Barack Obama for having attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church while he preached prophetically have very selective memories." The whole thing is worth a read; it's not long.

Somewhat relatedly, osewalrus pointed me to this post pointing out that all the candidates and the voters have a bigger religious-leader problem than this. Excerpt: "[I]f I wake up and find that I'm in an America where certain pastors and certain churches are openly denounced from the White House's presidential podium, I will suddenly get even more nervous about freedom of religion in America than I already am." Yes.

I found this speculative, alternate timeline of the last ten years by rjlippincott interesting.

Question for my Jewish (and Jewish-aware) readers: Thursday is Yom HaShoah (Holocaust rememberance day), so instead of my usual "daf bit" in the morning service, I'd like to do something on-theme. It has to be a teaching, something that would qualify as torah study, which rules out most of the readings that tend to show up in special services for the day. Any suggestions? I could probably find something in Lamentations, if that's not cliche, but I'm not really sure. And naturally, I do not wish to offend with a bad choice people who are old enough to remember.

We were in Toronto for a few days, so Shabbat morning I went to services at the Village Shul, which is run by Aish HaTorah. We don't have Aish in Pittsburgh, so I was curious. I understand them to be in methodology kind of similar to Chabad -- friendly outreach to people at various levels of observance -- without the chassidism and the strange moshiach stuff. So I figured I'd go there and see what it was like, and if it was horrible I had a backup a few blocks away.

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Questions from Zahava over on Blogger.

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( SCA, career, games, judaism )

Airfare to Israel these days costs how much?! This may require more thought.

The local SCA choir started some new songs tonight, including Salamone Rossi's Kedusha, which has been in the files waiting to emerge for a few years. It's a pretty piece as a whole; some of the individual lines are a little funky. I think it's going to sound really nifty when we've learned it. The director quite reasonably asked me to lead people through the pronunciation; I had forgotten how awkward I now find transliteration. I should have just read from the Hebrew. Oh well.

The choir performed at an event last weekend, including one joint piece with our consort. That was fun, and the consort is bigger than it's often been in the past. We'll be doing a joint performance at Pennsic.

Last night Dani and I went to a pot-luck dinner (by local SCA folks). The theme was "black history month"; most people interpreted this as calling for African recipes. (I would have figured we'd get some Carribean, but no.) The result was that almost everything involved at least two of: rice, beans, peanuts. (I made a West-African vegetable stew with peanuts, served over rice.) It was all quite tasty, though we usually manage more variety. :-) (Themes sometimes act as themes and sometimes as loose inspiration. We once hosted one with the theme "once in a blue moon", which produced round foods and stuff with blueberries.)

I owe a few sets of interview answers. Thanks for the interesting questions.

The Pardes of pastoral care by Velveteen Rabbi is an interesting, multi-level take on the sometimes-difficult task of relating to people.

Two interesting studies reported by

siderea. "Rat Park" was new to me; who knew that rats use drugs to relieve boredom rather than out of addiction?

Signs you might not be from LJ originally; I forget now who pointed this one out.

Qualities people will pay for even if there are free options, via

dsrtao.

My rabbi recommended the Lay Leadership Summer Study Retreat, which I am strongly considering going to this year. From what I've read so far, it sounds like an excellent learning opportunity. I learned this Shabbat that a fellow congregant is definitely going, which would reduce some of my "travelling alone in a far-away place" jitters (it's in Jerusalem). It's kind of pricy; I can afford it but am asking myself cost-benefit questions. I'd be away for about 10 or 11 days (late June/early July). Those 10 or 11 days span a period when Dani would be away anyway (at a gaming con), which seems like a win in the spousal-away-time department. (It's a given that he's never going to accompany me on one of these trips.) Note to self: stay here.

It's either that or the National Havurah Committee summer session, recommended by

magid (who attended last year). This, too, sounds like a good program -- it's got stuff I'm definitely not into (granola), but enough serious study to keep me busy. It's probably smaller and a little more intimate than the Hartman program, and I'd know one person there (assuming

magid goes again). It's the week immediately after Pennsic -- dodging is good but back-to-back vacations might be bad.

This year's URJ Kallah is a no-go. I kind of figured it would be with the title "Israel at 60", but it was possible the program would surprise me. It's now been published; it didn't. So, some other year, maybe. (Israel is of course an important component of Jewish study, but I'm looking for something with more traditional text and less modern history/zionism, thanks.)

I do mean to return to the Open Beit Midrash at Hebrew College, but not this year.

Someday I will be able to take the 3+ weeks needed to go to the Conservative Yeshiva's summer program in Jerusalem, but not this year and probably not next. I'm pencilling it in for 2010. (Similarly, Drisha and Pardes have programs that are too long for me right now.)

( Hebrew )

( talmud class )

( intensive study? )

( individual study )

I was recently given a photocopy of the article "Conservative Judaism in an Age of Democracy" by Rabbi Harold Kushner. (I think it came from Conservative Judaism magazine. I can't find an online copy.) This theologically-attuned Reform Jew found it a fascinating read.

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Judging by the traffic on relevant mailing lists, lots of Reform congregations have the problem of families expecting to "own" the service at which their kid is bar or bat mitzvah. ("Own" means the kid does most of the service, family members get all or nearly all of the honors, the parents stand up and kvell about the kid for several minutes, and so on.) The topic came up again this week, with someone asserting that we have to make kids feel welcome and this "cannot be done" by a service not owned by the family.

I find myself wanting to write about this from time to time, so I'm recording my response to that message:

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From

gnomi: Rabbis, it is time for the morning posts, which I found hilarious. This is what happens when Jewish geeks meet fanfic, I gather.

If you know even a little about talmudic tradition, I recommend it.

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For the two or three people reading this who haven't already seen the interview game, here's how this works:

If you want to be interviewed, leave a comment saying so.
(I will probably fail to get back to you for some time, because this is a busy time of year.)
I will respond, asking you five questions.
You'll update your journal with my five questions and your five answers.
You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

Again, summary now and more later (I hope):

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It looks like Mishkan T'filah, the new siddur from the Reform movement, might actually come out before the moshiach comes. Someone asked on the worship mailing list how people feel about physical aspects of prayer books, such as hard-cover versus soft-cover. This made me think explicitly about things I implicitly react to.

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I was recently asked about this, and I don't know what the current thinking is.

The question of when an astronaut observes Shabbat (while in space) is well-understood. [1] But what happens when we colonize other planets and your hometown is on Mars? Do you count six Mars-days and observe the seventh as Shabbat? How long is a month (and how do you decide which moon)? Is it still desirable to stay in sync with Earthly seasons, or will that go out the window? If you follow the sun as locally experienced, what happens when that causes hardship? (Does the lunar colony observe one ~29-day Shabbat every seven months?) There must be commentary on this by now from sources other than Wandering Stars, but I don't know what the popular opinion is.

[1] I know of three opinions for the astronaut in space: follow your hometown, follow the city from which you launched (your port of departure, like for ships), or follow Jerusalem. All of these involve a ~25-hour Shabbat every seven days, like on Earth, even though your orbit might cause you to see a 90-minute day. But the astronaut is, by definition, just visiting.

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"Everything is in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven." Rabbi Chanina bar Chama, commenting on Deuteronomy 10:12.

One of Dani's relatives asked me a question during our visit. He wanted to know how an intelligent, rational, analytical person can believe in God. This was not hostile but inquisitive, so I didn't blow him off, but I did tell him I didn't think he would find my answer satisfying. "Try me", he said.

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He actually liked that answer, to my surprise. This then led to a discussion of the truth of torah, but I'll save that for another time.

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I know I owe questions to some people. I'm not ignoring you.

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I'm on a mailing list for discussing worship issues in the Reform movement. Recently there's been a discussion of services on Shabbat morning. Someone posted about his congregation's successful early service, which draws people who wouldn't attend the bar-mitzvah service that is largely unfriendly to the community. Someone else chastised that person, accusing him of Balkanization of the synagogue and saying that those people should go to the bar mitzvah. This morning I posted the following, which I want to preserve here. (I am not the person who introduced the phrase "bar-mitzvah show", FYI.)

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Last night was class #10 (of 30 for the year), and evaluation night. They wanted the forms back that night, so I had to write comments quickly. I hope I was sufficiently diplomatic about the first course.

The second class last night involved a discussion of miracles. The rabbi started by asking us to list things we considered miracles, and we got some interesting personal stories that way. I, in typical fashion, said that it depends on how you define "miracle" -- which, I wasn't surprised to learn, was the point of the exercise. :-) (Collect input first, then look for trends, then bring sources to bear.) It was a good discussion.

One idea I want to capture before I lose it: we might think of the burning bush as a miracle about the bush (that it burned without being consumed). How long do you have to stare at a burning bush to realize it's not being consumed? Maybe the real miracle was that Moshe stopped to look and study it. (This tied into an idea I raised in the earlier discussion, not original to me, that God is always present, like a radio signal, but you have to be tuned to the right frequency for that to do any good.)

New word: bloggerrea. I'd been wondering why sometimes an update causes the RSS feed to spew old entries. Pretty annoying.

Clever, in that "uh-oh" sort of way: one piece of spam-sending malware installs its own anti-virus program, because it doesn't want all your other viruses slowing it down. (I recommend Security Mentor to pretty much everyone, even the tech-savvy. Syndicated here as securitymentor2.)

Unclever, in that "uh-oh" sort of way: A few months ago I replaced my anti-virus software (moved from MacAfee to BitDefender). I disabled MacAfee but didn't uninstall at the time. This weekend my subscription expired -- and something (MacAfee? Windows?) decided that since I was obviously unprotected, it would be best for all concerned if I couldn't see the internet. Ahem. Fixing that was much more hassle than it should have been.

When I was in Boston one of the LJ folk I talked with (I forget who) mentioned t'fillin Barbie. I've now forgotten where I got the link too; I think a (different) LJ source. Twisted, very twisted. (The Barbie, I mean, not my friends. :-) )

I found this article on reaching the 20- and 30-somethings in congregations interesting. Excerpt:

Jewish community leaders would do well to examine the changing nature of today's 20 and 30 year olds. For Baby Boomers, synagogue membership and Jewish institutional affiliations were primary markers of Jewish identity. In the past, Jews showed their support for synagogue life by paying dues- whether they were enthusiastic participants or not. Today, that sense of obligation is gone: young adults do not feel compelled to join a synagogue if they have no intention of attending. However, when they to do decide to join, they participate as active, invested members.

Hebrew College describes itself as "trans-denominational"; they are not affiliated with a single movement and their students have a wide variety of backgrounds. Because I was there for a few days, I got to see how that plays out in communal prayer. How do you come up with something that everyone can live with? When asked that question directly, Rabbi Arthur Green, one of the founders of the program, said "with a great deal of trust".

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Monica

summer learning

how good do we have to be?

random bits

visit to Village Shul

interviewed by Zahava

interviewed by jducoeur

short takes

options for Jewish learning this year

assorted Jewish education

mitzvot in Conservative Judaism

"private" versus community bar-mitzvah services

humor: not quite the talmud

interviewed by steven

Thursday and Friday summary

physical aspects of siddurim

Shabbat (and other times) on Mars

interviewed by alienor

belief

interviewed by filkerdave

interviewed by 530nm330hz

interviewed by patsmor

communities and the "bar-mitzvah show"

Melton class, miracles

random bits

trans-denominational prayer

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