Monica

Lunch-time ponderings ahead...

This morning over breakfast we started out talking about Chol Ha-Moed (intermediate days of festivals -- Pesach and Sukkot) and ended up talking about Chanukah. And I still have a mostly-unanswered question.

Pesach and Sukkot are week-long festivals. (There's a third festival, Shavuot, but it's only one day so it doesn't have intermediate days.) For the week-long festivals, the first and last days are holidays, and the days in between are Chol Ha-Moed. These intermediate days are "semi-holidays"; essential work (like employment) is permitted, but they are festive days, not ordinary days. Among other things, this means that there are additions to the liturgy -- extra Torah readings and Hallel -- that are reserved for festivals.

Chanukah is not a festival, despite what a casual observer might think; it's a minor holiday. It lasts for eight days, and during those eight days there are additions to the liturgy -- like extra Torah readings and Hallel. So my question is: why is this permitted? Doesn't this give the impression, liturgically speaking, that Chanukah is a festival, on par with Pesach? When we are otherwise very careful to draw lines, how did this slip by? Isn't this marit ayin (giving the wrong impression) on a communal scale?

In some ways it doesn't matter, I suppose: anyone who is educated enough to understand the liturgical differences is also educated enough that he knows Chanukah is not a festival. But it still makes me wonder. I understand that the rabbis wanted to make Chanukah important (even if they had to fudge the true reason for the holiday), but weren't there other ways to do that, including changing the liturgy in a different way? Why emulate Chol Ha-Moed?

I'm not bothered -- just puzzled.

( evening )
( morning service )
( how can I offer blanket forgiveness? )
( afternoon )
( fasting )

Rosh Hashana went well. Some other time maybe I'll write about services and sermons and stuff. Short takes: There was, predictably, some discussion of 9/11. While I generally don't care for the formal, grandiose music of the high holy days, Shira (our cantorial intern) has a beautiful voice and I really liked her "Avinu Malkeinu". I think I dislike our synagogue president, who just oozes "slick salesman" whenever he speaks publicly. (The president always gives a short address sometime during HHD services.)

We had Fran, Alan, and Gail over for lunch on Saturday. I made honey-roasted chicken, yams, raw veggies with hummus, and a tossed salad -- and of course we had apples and honey, challah, and my traditional starfruit. They brought some really tasty (parve) chocolates. (For the chicken, on Thursday night I drizzled it with honey and then broiled it for about 15 minutes, then on Saturday cooked it in a crock pot with the yams. I was hoping the broiling would seal in the juices and keep it from drying out, and this was almost successful.)

( kiddush geekery )

I led services at Tree of Life last night. It rocked. This was the best I've done of the last few times, at least -- no mistakes, I was in good voice, and there was more kavanah (rough translation: appropriate intent/mood) than usual. I got lots of compliments, including from the person who leads the weekday morning service. (He's good and I look up to him to some degree.)

There are some logistics that I still have to work out with Rabbi Berkun. Specifically, he reads Hebrew much more quickly than I do, so during the parts of the service that are supposed to be silent, I know he is sometimes waiting for me. Last night he jumped in and started reading something (aloud) that I was about to chant, but I wasn't there yet. We need cues or something. I'm generally stripping these parts down to the halachic minimum because I know this problem exists, but it can be hard to judge pacing.

(Because, as chazan, I am praying on behalf of the congregation, there are certain things that I must say for the service to be valid. There is other stuff that one can say and that most people do include, and one of these days I'll be proficient enough to do so.)

This morning there was no bar mitzvah, so we were able to have a leisurely service with a Torah reading. The senior rabbi is still away, so the associate rabbi led. (The senior rabbi and I do this every year: he goes off to be a camp counselor or something for two weeks and then as he's getting back I go off to Pennsic for two weeks, so we go a month without seeing each other.)

This afternoon my reading lamp exploded. Bummer; it made the rest of the day more challenging. "Exploded" is perhaps too strong a word, but the timer kicked on, there was a flash and a loud pop, and then there was a cloud of smoke. I was concerned enough that I unplugged it right away. Later investigation showed that the base of the bulb and the inside of the socket had disintegrated, and the switch was also no longer attached. It was a good lamp (and one I've had for 30+ years), but I guess its time finally came.

Today was Thaddeus' wedding. It had the feel of an SCA event; they wanted to do a "medieval" wedding and invited guests to come in garb, and they arranged for some very good SCA cooks to do the food. It was extremely tasty, even though the cooks had to contend with more dietary issues than normal. Thaddeus is allergic to wheat, and Dana is lactose-intolerant, as are some other members of her family. This made the cake especially challenging, but they pulled it off. (Rice flour, they said.) Johan told me I should go ahead and eat meat, as the dairy was sparse and well-segregated. It's been a long time since I've eaten meat at an SCA feast.

The wedding itself started off with an exchange of gifts and each of them having to satisfy witnesses that they were suitable partners. It was schtick, but fairly well done. They said this was based on medieval (or renaissance?) Polish customs. This then led to a fairly normal wedding (with the traditional vows except for "obey"). There was a very short mass done for the benefit of the couple only -- that is, the couple got communion but no one else did, and it took about 10 minutes. Apparently this, too, is in keeping with whatever they were modelling the ceremony on. Aside from some verbal responses in which I did not participate, there was no congregational involvement. (Not like Isabella's funeral a few years back where I got broad-sided by the "let's all take hands and sing to Jesus" thing that made me bolt from the room. That was embarrassing; fortunately, the family concluded that I was overcome with grief and didn't bother me about it.)

The priest was Father Klukas (Robert's priest), who is a very cool person. He has a tasteful sense of humor that he applied during the wedding. (Rabbi Gibson is the only other person I've heard pull that sort of thing off during services.) Father Klukas has a degree in medieval history (or maybe medieval liturature, I forget now) and is very friendly with the SCA. A couple of times when we've had events at his church, he has done a historical mass (strictly optional attendance) as part of the re-creation. Pretty neat. (He preceeded them with short lectures about the liturgy of the particular period he was doing, and produced good handouts. In other words, he was definitely in teacher mode more than priest mode, though of course he was doing real masses.)

The modern Episcopalian (sp?) mass is very similar to what I remember of the Roman Catholic mass. There are extra words at the end of the "our father" prayer (I think Protestants do those too), and I think there were some minor wording differences elsewhere (less significant). I couldn't see whether communion included wine.

I find that masses can be interesting from a liturgical-anthropological point of view, when I am comfortable being present. (I was today.) We all know that Christian liturgy was derived originally from Jewish liturgy; it's interesting (to me) to see what they kept, what they changed, and what they discarded. At one point today I remember thinking "hey, that's the Kedusha"; it was very close to the text we say, until it veered off to talk about the trinity. (Christians will know this as the "holy holy holy, all the earth is filled with God's glory" part, if I'm remembering the mass text correctly.) At the time I couldn't remember clearly what had led off this section, so I asked Father Klukas later whether this was modelled on the Amidah (the prayer set that includes Kedusha), or if that part was just a noticable borrowing. He said the latter. It's times like this when it would be really handy to have a copy of the generic Catholic or Episcopalian text to refer to.

I also got an answer to a minor question: the bells that get rung twice during that service are there to get the attention of people who are either lost in prayer or just not paying attention. This apparently isn't much of an issue now, but was when masses went on for much longer and in Latin. The two points are at "this is my body" and "this is my blood"; I wonder if that is the point where they are actually consecrated (and, if you believe in transubstantian, are altered). I guess it makes sense that you would want people to witness that rather than being lost in their own thoughts at the time.

I'll write more later, but maybe not until after Shabbat.

Yom Kippur was overall a positive experience, as I expected. If someone had told me, before I became observant, that I would fast for 25 hours, spend about half of those hours in synagogue, and then would come out of it feeling refreshed, I would have made inquiries about that person's current drug intake. But you know? It actually works.

Last night the senior rabbi talked about how "attachment" (holding onto things, like bad attitudes) can interfere with "commitments", and how we have to let go of the former to pursue the latter sometimes. He spoke very well, and I'm not doing it justice.

One part: he told a series of stories to illustrate this point, one of which I found amusing as well as illustrative of the point. I do not recall the source, however. (I'm going to summarize.) So, there was this man who announced to his family one day that he was dead. He was absolutely convinced of this, and would not listen to arguments. The family called a shrink, who wasn't able to handle it, and then they called their priest with the same results. Finally they called the family doctor. He asked the man "do dead men bleed?" No, of course not, the man said. So the doc proposed a little test, and he promised to immediately bandage the cut he was going to make (which the man said was unnecessary). So the doc cut the man on the arm and it bled, and the family congratulated him on his cleverness. But as he was leaving, the man spoke up: "Doc, I was wrong. Dead men do bleed."

The senior rabbi also spoke this morning; the associate rabbi did not give any sermons. I wonder what's up with that. We have an assistant rabbi; shouldn't we use him more? (I wonder if he got flack from his Rosh Hashana sermon.)

I was one of the people leading the mincha (afternoon) service this year. There's nothing quite like having a very dry mouth when you're trying to speak coherently to a large room. Whee. Maybe next year I can read in the morning service... I feel really sorry for the rabbis and cantor, who had to be "on" all day, while fasting.

Every year I've noticed that our choir consistently omits three words from the kedusha (a fairly important prayer). They're pretty important words, too: "I the Lord am your god". I asked someone about it once and was told that it was a property of the melody they were using (I would have modified the melody in that case!), but this Yom Kippur I noticed at least three different melodies and they all omitted those words. So now I am motivated to find out what the heck is going on. Is it just my congregation? Is it a Reform thing? (We don't omit those words at other times of year.)

Tomorrow night I'm leading Shabbat services at Tree of Life again. Should be neat.