Monica

My synagogue had a Purim carnival for adults last night (the one for kids/families was this morning). I'd like to see more Purim activities that aren't focused on kids, so I went both to enjoy it (which I did) and to help encourage it (which I hope I did).

There was an expectation of costumes, so I went as Vashti and added a bit of modern commentary (see Esther 1, starting v. 10). The latter is where the dilemma came in.

Here's a picture:

And here's a close-up of that badge:

So, I was actually going to write גם אני on the badge, but on Shabbat afternoon it occurred to me that Vashti wasn't Jewish so would have no reason to write in Hebrew. So last night I asked Google Translate to help me out with Persian and used what it came up with. Modulo linguistic changes over the centuries (which Google Translate is not equipped to help with), this was more authentic and, I hoped, mitigated against people thinking I was Esther.

Some people wouldn't have understood גם אני either, but some would have. As it turned out, the hashtag was not sufficient clue on its own, even in a community that has talked about sexual harassment and related issues several times recently, so I ended up having to tell people that the text said "me too". Oops.

Were I to do it again, I suppose I'd add גם אני in parentheses after.

For people not familiar with the commentary: the rabbinic understanding is that when King Achashverosh commanded Queen Vashti to present herself to his buddies wearing the royal diadem, it meant and nothing else and that's why she refused. The guys have been on a drinking spree for seven days at this point, and the king is shown to be rather a dim bulb throughout the entire book.

Our associate rabbi gave a powerful talk this past Shabbat for Lech L'cha, the beginning of the Avram (Avraham) story.

When I was five, my classmates and I were playing in the schoolyard as part of the afterschool program. We were running around and the boys decided that it would be fun to chase the girls around and kiss them. One boy started chasing me and, although it’s very possible that I was also giggling out of nervousness or as excess energy from running, I was clear that I did not want him to kiss me. Finally, he managed to grab my hand and kissed the back of it. I promptly burst into tears and ran and told the teacher. She took a couple moments to placate me, telling me that I wasn’t really hurt and that it just meant that he liked me. Then she went to the boy, yelled at him, and put him in time out.

The typical response to this story is to laugh at what little boys thought was fun and to tease me for overreacting to an innocent kiss---clearly I was at the age when girls think boys are gross and vise versa. Sometimes people feel bad for the boy who got in trouble because I was upset by something so minor. I often imagine the teacher struggling to hold in her laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation and thinking to herself that it wouldn’t be too long before I’d react very differently.

But this was also the first time I remember being kissed against my will. At five years old, someone else decided that my body was for his use.

Go, read the whole thing.

My congregation hired a cantor two years ago, and wow did it make a difference. (Previously we'd had a cantorial soloist, meaning a good singer with an amateur understanding of liturgy, and we've had other such soloists at some of our services sometimes.) This difference really stood out for me at Shavuot a couple weeks ago.

I've encountered a few kinds of musical service leaders in liberal congregations. (Note: in many communities, especially more traditional ones, musical ability is a nice side-effect if you get it but not the driver -- somebody who's competent in the prayers and halachically qualified, who might or might not have a decent voice, leads the service. I'm not talking about that case.)

• Performers. This happens when the primary background is singing, with leading prayers being secondary. Some give off the definite vibe of performing for the congregation -- their singing, posture, and everything else says "I'm on a stage". I'm not dissing people's motivations here; this is about what they've spent time learning and doing before taking the job and what they convey (to me at least). If you hire a professional singer, you shouldn't be surprised to get a performer. But I don't go to services to hear a concert.

• Performers for God. These are people who understand before Whom they stand, who are focused on God more than the congregation, but it still feels like a performance. Again, not saying that's inherently bad -- in another religion you could put the "little drummer boy" into this category and that's generally considered to be a good role model -- but it still leaves the congregation as spectators, and that's a problem for me.

• Pray-ers who share their kavanah (intentionality, focus). These are people who are obviously praying not performing, and you can see their emotions, their intentionality, etc. I've been told that when I lead services I "exude kavanah", and I think this is what they mean. Sometimes this can carry people along; we had a visitor once to my Shabbat morning minyan and after the service I said to him, "it was a privilege to pray near you" because it felt like his prayer amplified mine. Other times it's just that guy over there having kavanah for his prayer but what does that have to do with me?

• Those who bring the congregation along in their kavanah. These are the ones who understand that da lifnei mei atah omeid, "know before whom you stand", has multiple targets -- God and congregation. They know that their role is in part to be a bridge. They're praying and facilitating others' prayer. I believe I have sometimes reached this level, but it's mostly instinct plus some coaching I've gotten along the way, not something I could explain how to do beyond being aware. Our cantor is in this category for me; her leading the service helps me, elevates my prayer, connects me.

(Yes I have told her, and my rabbi, this. Having done so, I'm now also trying to write it down.)

Now that I've shared my comments with my rabbi and the head of the committee, I'll go ahead and share them here. I'd love to hear opinions from people in other congregations who have also taken a look at the drafts.

( a brief note on context )

( my review notes )

On the job front there have been ups and downs but the year ended on an up. After thrashing about earlier in the year, being moved from one short-term or ill-defined task to another while people juggled charge codes and contracts, I finally got to settle into something (a) interesting and (b) that takes advantage of my particular specialty, and I rocked. I got a new manager mid-year (my first remote one, too; he's in AZ), which always carries some uncertainty, but he and I really click. He specifically appreciates what I do and wants to help me find more opportunities to do it. Excellent!

The cats have settled in well. I was only without cats for about 4.5 months, but they felt really empty. I mean, Dani's and my relationship is strong (no worries there!), but there was still something missing. That Erik, Embla, and Baldur all died within a span of 10 months (and the last on the day I returned from a frustrating trip to Israel) may have had something to do with that.

I continue to really enjoy my job as a moderator on Mi Yodeya, and last winter I was also appointed as a moderator on Writers (both Stack Exchange sites). On both sites I get to work with great teams on interesting content. I'm still trying to figure out how to increase the tech-writing content on Writers. I need to ask and perhaps self-answer some questions to nudge things along, I suspect.

2013 was a terrible year on another Stack Exchange site. What was supposed to be an academic-style biblical-studies site turned into a cesspool of Christian dogma. I know it's possible for people of different religions to have civilized, respectful discussions about the bible (and other religious matters); I've seen it. (I have thoughts on what makes it work when it works, but I'll save that for another time.) This site was supposed to be non-religious (though obviously most of its members are religious), like a secular university. But it didn't work out that way, and the evangelical moderators (there's no diversity on that team) either can't see or don't care about the damage being done. Everything I did to try to help get things back on course was thrown in my face -- with personal attacks, offensive (usually anti-Jewish) posts, and assorted misrepresentation. So I'm done with that; I have better things to do with my energy. There are a few good people there who are trying to turn some things around; I wish them much luck, but personally, I'm done.

I've had ups and downs religiously and congregationally. My rabbi is fantastic and I like my congregation, but there have been changes in how we approach services, and too many weeks I just don't go on Friday night because they're doing something kid-oriented or entitled (sisterhood service, Reform-style bar mitzvah, etc), and that's frustrating. The Shabbat morning minyan continues to be excellent and the spiritual high point of my week, so that's all good. I'm just trying to figure out Friday nights, and some of it is bound up in questions about whether the Reform movement is right for me at all (except I have this fantastic rabbi and he's worth staying for). It's just that sometimes, being rather more observant than those around me and caring about the halachic and other details that most shrug off, I feel like a mutant.

This year was the last Darkover Con, so On the Mark re-assembled to do a concert. That was fun, and it was nice to see friends I haven't seen in a while at the con.

I'm sure there's more, but this is what I've got right now. Happy 2014 all!

Our second-day service is more intimate than the first-day service, but is still a complete service. Members of the congregation share in leading the service and do the torah-reading. There isn't a big sermon like on the first day, but there's a shorter message. Over the years some people have told us that this is their favorite service, preferring it over the grand service on the first day.

As expected, turnout is rather lower for the second day. We started in a year where the second day fell on a Sunday and got about 50 people that year; on weekdays attendance is lower. Last year at this service we re-dedicated the chapel after renovations and got an attendance boost. This year, the second day was on a Tuesday.

We had about 80 people. Some were visitors from out of town who came with members, some I didn't know at all, and some sought us out because we're apparently the only local Reform congregation that does this. We got lots of thanks and compliments after the service.

One lesson I take from this: we have got to start advertising this. We offer a service that fills a void no one else is filling, and we do it well. We don't require tickets on the second day; anybody who hears about it is welcome to come. Next year I want to work a little on helping people to hear about it, like we did with our amazingly-successful children's service on the first day. (Last year we outgrew our space, so this year we rented space down the street at the JCC. As long as we were renting a hall anyway, we invited the community -- and got twice as many people as last year.)

Our second-day service is really pretty special. I'm glad we started it.

This spirit of inclusiveness extended to the morning bar-mitzvah service in one way. (This is the sanctuary service with family-centric attendance, not the regular morning minyan with a steady community. We're talking about ways to fix that but it's a hard problem endemic to the Reform movement.) Obviously the associate rabbi can read torah -- you won't graduate rabbinic school without demonstrating capability there -- but instead he invited another lay reader and me to read for these two bar-mitzvah services. The other one did last week and I did this week, each of reading everything except the part that the student read. Mine went very well, I thought -- I made two mistakes requiring correction, one of which was accidentally over-shooting an aliya boundary (I realized it at the same time as the rabbi). The bar mitzvah chanted very well; afterward I whispered to him that he was welcome to come back and read for us any time. :-) (Articulate, on key, and it was clear that he understood what the text he was reading meant.) I hope we'll see more of him.

The typical Reform bar-mitzvah service is somewhat tedious (to those outside the family) in some respects; there's a reason the president of the URJ once called it "king for a day". Yesterday's was a little better than I'm used to in some ways; I suspect that's the handiwork of the associate rabbi, and if so I'll be interested to see where this goes. Other aspects still require a lot of work, but I'm glad to have good relationships with both our rabbis such that I can talk with them about these things.

This rabbi was originally hired to focus on education and not be on the bimah much; with the (planned) departure of another associate rabbi earlier this summer, we are back down to two. So roles have shuffled around somewhat and he'll be on the bimah more. Between his service-leading skills, his excellent sermon-craft, and his interest in involving lay people more, I'm looking forward to this.

One oddity, though -- somehow we picked up about ten minutes! I asked afterward and the consensus of people I trust to tell it to me straight is that no, I was not rushing. We do know that my rabbi is more prone than I am to fill in extra explanatory bits and the like; this is not a criticism of him by any means (it's not excessive or anything), but more a comment on my comparative lack of skill and tendency in this area. I just don't ad-lib as well, and he's done this about a bazillion times more than I have so he's had more practice.

It is possible that some of the time came from musical choices. Not clear. And we did start on time, because I'm like that. This doesn't always happen.

Saturday morning I led both torah study and the service. (The lay torah reader had a sore throat, so while she would have led part of the service normally, she asked me to do it.) The second rabbi was there for this and he seemed pleased with the job I did. Another member of the minyan plays guitar and led some of the singing; I'm happy to see her be more involved. The torah reader asked the rabbi to read haftarah (I think on account of her voice). I hadn't heard him read before; I really enjoyed listening to him. He read more expressively than I'm used to.

After I prepared for discussion of the post-flood rainbow, we didn't actually get there. This is the nature of Jews studying torah sometimes. :-) (We spent the entire half hour on the three or four verses immediately preceeding that part.)

This year, as in the last few years, one of the projects was with the Humane Society, so I signed up for that. I thought we'd be doing things like walking the dogs and cleaning the cat kennels and whatever else needed to be done. But it turns out that their insurance company has been having words with them about fly-by-night volunteers, so we weren't allowed to do any of that because we haven't been through their formal training. Instead, we joined volunteers from the Pittsburgh House Rabbit Club in exercising, socializing, and generally playing with the shelter bunnies.

They had a large room set up with several low fences, each area enclosing either one or two bunnies with enough room to do stuff. There were about twenty bunnies total, many of them larger than my cats. They tended to be shy, but if you sat in the pen with them and offered toys, they would often come around. The senior bunnies, a pair of large, mostly-white bunnies with a few black splotches, were very mellow. (They had the run of the walkway between all the pens.)

This all reminded me of Stuart, the Dutch rabbit I had as a pet for about six months. I can't seem to find any pictures of him (hmm, I know I took pictures...), but the second one on the Wikipedia page is pretty close, except that Stuart was a stray, not a grand champion.

I hadn't been looking for a bunny in particular. I had just bought a house and so could finally safely have pets, but I hadn't done anything about it yet. Then someone on a local newsgroup was rather urgently trying to find a new home for a bunny, so after bringing all the might of rec.pets to bear on the problem, I decided this had promise. I wasn't interested in keeping him in a cage for the rest of his life (they're both smart and social), but Usenet told me that bunnies could be litter-trained. You know what they say: go not to Usenet for answers, for they will say both 'yay' and 'nay' and 'try another newsgroup', but I tried anyway. I ultimately failed in this task, but I was able to find someone else who already had litter-trained bunnies who was willing to add him to that colony. I did miss Stuart, but he was much better off with other bunnies, probably moreso than I had realized at the time. I didn't know until Sunday just how social they are or that some of them come in bonded pairs that must not be broken up. I also learned that the Humane Society hosts "bunny blind dates", which are mandatory if you already have a bunny and want to add another. Good idea. They also do this with dogs (optional there, I think), but they forbid it with cats -- the person telling me this explained that no one involved wants the amount of trauma that would bring. :-)

So I don't feel like I contributed much to the Humane Society on Sunday (continuing the pattern for mitzvah day), but it was kind of fun and it brought back memories of the pet who preceded the cats.