cellio | Entries tagged with shabbat at tol

I awoke today to frost. Apparently the temperature got down into the upper 20s last night. I'm used to light-sweater season, as opposed to jacket season, lasting more than four days. Perhaps it will return. (In case you're wondering, the four seasons are T-shirt season, light-sweater season (also known as sweatshirt season), jacket season, and mega-jacket season. They are not of equal durations; T-shirt season usually lasts about 5-6 months.)

I found this rant about Usenet interesting. And not solely applicable to Usenet. Thanks to autographedcat for the link.

Template for a badly-written poll: "Does X change your opinion of Y?" Sure it can, but neither "yes" nor "no" actually tells you anything else useful. If what you mean is "does X make you less inclined toward Y?", say that. (A current instance of this is a CNN poll, where Y is Schwarzenegger and X is his comments about Hitler.)

We had a very good On the Mark practice Wednesday. Robert, Kathy, and I will be performing at Darkover (without Ray, who can't make it), so we've been juggling some things around to make them work with just three people. We've also added a couple new pieces that we can just plan for three from the start. Things are sounding good, and we've still got more than a month and a half to practice. Kathy's been taking voice lessons and that's paying off, too.

( Jewish stuff, including some geeking )

I'm losing my quasi-cantorial job, except in emergencies or perhaps the dead of winter. They went and actually hired a cantor. Disppointing, but I certainly don't begrudge them a professional. Still, I'm going to really miss that. At least it's coming at a time when I have increased opportunities to chant Torah at my own congregation; that's something I've been wanting to do, and gets me into more of a leadership role there.

I first got this from

chaiya: go to Google, type in the query "weapons of mass destruction", and hit "I feel lucky". Don't be too quick to dismiss the results; actually read some. :-)

Interesting article on group dynamics by Clay Shirky (link from

ralphmelton).

Update: Man fakes own death to get off Harvard's mailing list, courtesy of

browngirl.

Last night Dani and I attmpted to see A Mighty Wind, but we were done in by an out-of-date theatre listing on the web. Pity. Looks like it's gone now, so we'll have to wait for the DVD release. But at least we had a nice dinner with

lefkowitzga and

tangerinpenguin first. We came home and watched the last episode of West Wing available on DVD; now we wait (supposedly not too long) for the next batch.

Tuesday night's D&D game was much fun. I've been updating the game journal some lately, though it doesn't yet reflect Tuesday's session.

I've been getting spam lately from what purports to be a couple watchdogs of the state government, but are actually just partisan publishers in disguise. I seem to be getting spam from both the Dems and the Republicans. If my cease-and-desist requests aren't honored soon, I think I'll report 'em both to the state spam tracker. Serves 'em right if I do.

I forget who it was on my friends list who recommended

preachermanfeed a month or two ago, but thank you. I probably never would have poked my head in at "Real Live Preacher" otherwise, and he writes interestingly and articulately. He writes about his religion with no apologies and no pulled punches but in a way that does not alienate or demean those who do not share his beliefs. That's hard to do, and he's doing it well.

Shavuot was great. I missed the evening service (which was mostly confirmation) because I didn't time dinner well enough; I'll do better next year. The tikkun was great, though as usual we didn't get to most of the material the rabbi brought. We always start by studying the revelation in the Torah, and this year that spawned a lot more discussion than in the past. It was all good, too. Around that we sang niggunim, and the rabbi read us some midrash -- some classical, some modern. Some Zohar too, I'm pretty sure.

As has become tradition the last couple years, he concluded with a reading of Before the Law. I don't know why that story gives me (and lots of other people) chills, but it does. It's very effective at 2 in the morning when you're hearing it; it's not quite the same reading it in the comfort of your office.

The group ranged from about 15 to 25 people, which is a good size. I prefer an intimate study session to a large one. Almost everyone participated, including a couple high-school students.

Afterwards I walked home with my rabbi. (Well, 80% of the way, until we reached the branch point.) I enjoyed our conversation, and at that hour of the night the neighborhood is quite peaceful.

After the morning service I invited two people back for lunch. (I'd invited one of them last Shabbat; the other I picked up at services, when I found out that her husband is out of town and she would otherwise be spending the afternoon alone.) It was a fun group with lots of good conversation. This was so much better than spending the day alone the way I did last year! (And, for that matter, the way I spent the seventh day of Pesach.)

Friday night I led services at Tree of Life. Turnout was low; I guess there was some element of "wait, we were just there last night, and this morning" going on, or something. The people who were there were very pleasant, though, and I got a disproportionate number of compliments compared to past times. (I thought I did a very good job, but it's always gratifying to have outside confirmation.)

The rabbi talked about yom tov sheni -- whether it's necessary to add an extra day to holidays outside of Israel. (ToL doesn't; neither does my congregation.)

I've heard varying rumors about whether ToL has hired a cantor for next year. (Maybe they have, or maybe they have just hired her for the high holy days.) The scheduling person called me a few days ago and signed me up for a Shabbat in September, so I know I've got at least one more. (The person they might or might not have hired becomes available in July, so a job could start any time thereafter.)

We had a pretty good turnout Saturday morning. Torah study addressed only one verse (Lev 19:17), and we spent a lot of time talking about rebuke and whether it's ever appropriate and if so how it should be done. This led into a discussion of authority (who can issue rebuke?) and community standards. It was interesting, and there was less off-topic chit-chat than we've sometimes had recently. (One of the major sources of that wasn't there today.)

Tonight I had close to 100 pieces of spam waiting for me. Ok, the spam problem has gotten worse; it wasn't that long ago that I averaged 10-15 pieces a day.

I just got a call from someone at Tree of Life asking if I could lead services this Saturday morning. I've never done that (there, I mean), and when I started asking questions about what parts they do and don't do, she said she'd have to relay those questions to the rabbi. (Turns out she doesn't belong there either; she's just an employee. We ended up talking about how Reform and Conservative services are different, because she goes to Rodef.) I predict two stumbling blocks: the chazan's repetition of the Amidah, and Musaf. (I know that Musaf is mostly just another run-through of the Amidah, but if there's other stuff and it's in Hebrew, it would probably be new to me.)

She called back a bit later to say that they'd found someone else for this time (too many questions too late in the week, I infer), but ok, I get the hint: I'll take a closer look at the morning service in their siddur so I'll have better instincts for answering the question next time.

Not that I'm going to make a habit of this or anything; I love my congregation's morning service, and I'm about to have some leadership opportunities there too. But I'm willing to help in an emergency (when not otherwise committed) -- when, of course, there is by definition little time to prepare.

How do you throw away a trash can? I've tried for the last two weeks on trash night (it's dead), but they keep taking the rest of the stuff and leaving it. I realize that the protocol involves leaving empty trash cans on the curb, but surely there's an override mechanism.

Last night's D&D game was exciting. During the final encounter my character was pretty ineffective, but that happens to everyone sometimes so that's ok. Most people were badly injured but no one died, so I'd say the DM's callibration is about right. This morning I got an idea for a fun bit of character fluff to throw in at the next game. (My sorceror just gained a new level, and thus new spells.)

Tonight I'm leading services at Tree of Life. The rabbi was happy that I'm available for this one specifically; it's "sisterhood shabbat" (so I guess some of them will be leading parts of it that I would otherwise do, which is fine), and I'm apparently the only woman currently in the cantorial pool there.

I recently had the opportunity to say, to my own rabbi, that, well um err, at the risk of being too forward or immodest, I'd like the opportunity to do this there. Our cantor isn't available every single service, after all (people get sick, go on vacation, etc), and I want us to use qualified people from the congregation, not hired outsiders. It was an awkward conversation, but he seemed receptive to the idea. We'll see what happens.

Tomorrow is an SCA event (Coronation), and our choir will be performing. It should be a good performance. Then after that we'll start working on the new Salamone Rossi piece ("Hashkiveinu"). Yay!

Last night around 6:30 I got a call from CompUSA saying "we're still waiting for parts". Around 9:00 they left a message saying "it's ready" (hrm?). I've got to call and confirm that, and ask them if they could leave it running overnight to confirm that it's not still spontaneously rebooting. I won't be able to pick it up until Sunday anyway.

Friday night services went pretty well. I got there only about a minute before the scheduled start time (I was aiming for 10), because I massively under-estimated the effect of icy sidewalks. Most people on Shady Ave don't clear their sidewalks, so my experiences walking to my shul (along Forbes, where more sidewalks are cleared) wasn't helpful. Oops. Fortunately, the rabbis (they were both there, surprisingly) were very understanding.

This was the first time I'd done the early service. There were a lot more kids there than there are at the later service, and they have some kid-oriented stuff in the service like inviting them up onto the bima to say the Shema together. I got most but not all of the relevant cues.

( logistics oops )

I just got a call from someone at Tree of Life asking if I can lead services tomorrow night. Tomorrow night my own congregation is having a special service I'd rather not attend (6th-grade class service), so I jumped at the chance. The nights ToL wants me almost never seem to match up with the nights I don't want Sinai; I'm pleased that it happened this time.

Also, ToL opportunities have dropped somewhat because of a schedule change at their end. Now, shabbat evening services are at 5:45 every week except once per month when they're at 8:15. They used to alternate. (I don't know what guides the choice of either time.) Anyway, during the winter 5:45 is just fine, but come spring I would have to leave work earlier than usual in order to get home, get stuff ready, and get there on time, which isn't going to happen. I have an understanding with my co-workers; I'm not going to make things more inconvenient than they need to be.

Friday night's service went very well. The turnout was small; I think people were scared off by weather fears.

The rabbi gave a good talk about how we treat each other, starting with the midrash that explains why Aharon, and not Moshe, delivered the first two plagues to Mitzrayim (Egypt). Specifically, according to what the rabbi said (and I've heard this one elsewhere too), Moshe objected to God that he couldn't possibly strike the Nile and the sand, because the Nile had saved his life when he was an infant (carrying him to Paro's daughter, who adopted him) and the sand had saved him when he killed the Egyptian taskmaster, by covering the body. So out of respect for the river and the sand, God had Aharon strike them instead.

Now also consider this: on Shabbat we cover the challah while making kiddush over the wine. Why? Because we do not want to "offend" the challah by giving the wine precedence, so we cover it until we're ready for it. (There is a story, I think talmudic, about a man who covers his challah but berates his wife, but the rabbi didn't bring that one up.)

The point of all of this is: if we (in the case of Shabbat) or our forebears (in the case of Moshe) show that much consideration for objects, how much moreso should we show respect for other people. The message isn't new, but he delivered it well. (In my experience, though, what people really need are concrete steps, not broad goals, to change stuff like this, and he didn't offer those.)

This afternoon I read the final (for now) issue of "Bentsch Press", a newsletter Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky has been publishing for the last year. It's a good newsletter -- mostly a collection of his thoughts, which are well-written and interesting. He said in the final issue that while he's had no shortage of material to write about, the mechanics of publishing a newsletter are just too much of a pain. It sounds to me like what the rabbi really needs is an LJ. :-) (Well, a web site would do, but I get the impression that he's not set up to do that on his own.)

I led services at Tree of Life last night. It went very well. There was a larger crowd than usual because they had a guest speaker, which I actually didn't know in advance. I got a lot of compliments afterward, which is always pleasant. Once again, a few people thought I was a cantor (TM).

I think one of the visitors thinks I'm Orthodox-leaning. He invited me to come check out Young People's Synagogue (YPS), which is a lay-run (rabbi-less) Orthodox congregation that describes itself as participatory and eager for new people. I am curious about that congregation and have thought of visiting it at times in the past, but I never have. Intimidation at work, I suppose. Perhaps I will drop in on them, now that I've been invited and all.

(Question for my traditional friends: I have zero fashion sense and don't know anything about hats. What exactly am I supposed to wear on my head if I go? I haven't been to an Orthodox service since getting married.)

A few of the weekday-morning regulars were there, and I was talking with one of them at the oneg. We talked about me maybe learning the weekday morning service, and he said something like "if I can do it you certainly can". I took the compliment for what it was while mentally disputing the antecedent. :-) (I've been there a few times when he's led. It was, um, a test of my powers of concentration. He is melodically and linguistically challenged, though he is a decent person who means well.)

The assistant rabbi (who was running things this week) overheard the part of this conversation where I said that I need to get someone to teach me a couple of the chants/melodies, and he offered to make me a tape of anything I want. I will take him up on that. Mind, the weekday group has a regular leader, so I don't see this coming up very often, but it would be handy to have the skill for the occasional times when he's sick or out of town or whatever. And besides, it would be kind of nice for me to be able to lead the whole service on my "birthday portion" next year. (This year I chanted Torah and led the closing part of the service. They offered me the whole thing, but I had to decline.)

We were supposed to study Talmud yesterday, but the combination of 9/11 and rabbinic obligations did that in. So we studied today. But neat as that always is, that wasn't the neatest part today.

( Lots and lots of stuff about prayer, obligation, and interpretation. )

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.

Note to future self: If, in the middle of something that could be classified as a public performance, you stifle a sneeze and your eyes get watery and you can't see the page you're reading from, it is better to stop cold than to trust your memory. Other than that, leading services Friday went reasonably well. It wasn't the best job I've done, but it didn't suck.

Last night I met "Sammy", a feline resident of Denniston Street. On my way to services I heard some plaintive meowing coming from under a parked car, so naturally I stopped to look. (I thought maybe the cat was injured.) She (I was later told it's a female) came bounding right out and demanded attention. I stopped and petted her for a few minutes, but I really did have to get to services. She was unhappy about my departure. I noted that she had a collar but no tags, and decided to walk this way on the way home and see if she was still there.

She was. Not only that, but she was under the very same parked car, and once again she came bounding out when she heard me. This time she would not stop meowing. She did not seem to be starving, but I was guessing that she had gotten away from her owners. She seemed to be trying to lead me up the steps to a particular house. That house was dark, but on further investigation (after trying a lit house unsuccessfully) I walked up and noticed that, in fact, someone was watching TV in a dark room.

The people who came to the door were very nice. No, they hadn't lost a cat; that's Sammy, they said. They don't know who she belongs to, but she prowls the neighborhood. The people thought her owners don't pay enough attention to her. While we were talking, Sammy kept meowing and eventually one of the people brought out a jug of cat food and gave her some (thus reinforcing the behavior). I wonder how many households are feeding her. (She wasn't fat, at least.)

All the people I talked with (a total of three) while trying to reunite the cat with her owner commented that it was very nice of me to go out of my way to help the cat. I thought it was just basic good manners, if you find an animal that is obviously someone's pet, to make an inquiry or two. I would hope that if one of my cats got away from me, someone would ask around upon finding said cat. Is that really so unusual? Yes, I live in a city and I probably learned this habit while growing up in the suburbs, but Pittsburgh isn't huge and intimidating as cities go.

( What a storm! )
( Davening by candlelight )

I was invited to Tree of Life's annual meeting tonight because they wanted to thank me for my occasional leading of Shabbat services. That's cool. I figured they were just going to have us stand up and have our names read or something, but they actually had award certificates for us so they called us up in front of the room. There seemed to be an official photographer who was taking pictures of everyone who was called up for any reason; I wonder where those pictures will end up.

On the way in Rabbi Berkun joked about charging me dues and I said something about reciprocity agreements being about more than just high-holy-day tickets. :-)

(The high holy days are the only time of year that most congregations limit attendance for services, because they're so crowded. Most of the time, if you belong to a congregation but are going to be somewhere else for those particular services -- out of town, for instance -- you have your shul send paperwork to your target shul and all is fine. The rest of the year, you can just show up anywhere you like.)

For the most part, of course, I didn't really know the people at the meeting tonight. Some I recognized from the morning minyan, and a couple from other things, but mostly not. Fair's fair; most of them presumably had no clue who I was. Still, even if it was just a minor blip on the radar for most people, it was nice that they think enough of me to formally say "thank you".

Tree of Life has a 15-member board of trustees and installed five new members tonight. So they, like Sinai, appear to turn over a third of the board each year. (They also do three-year terms.) They actually "installed" the new board members and officers, having them repeat an affirmation and all that. At Sinai, they held a vote and then said congratulations.

After the meeting there was a muscial performance that turned out to be something of a roast of the outgoing president. I wasn't expecting that. It was all in good fun, but I think I would see it as disincentive to take the job. :-)

Tomorrow night is Sinai's annual meeting. (What is it with annual meetings in late May?) I should really attend, being a board member

Friday night I went to Tree of Life again. The turnout was small; I wonder how much of that was due to the time being listed wrong in the Chronicle and how much was just normal fluctuation. (No bar mitzvah, winter, threatening bad weather...)

Rabbi Berkun had larnygitis (I bet I've misspelled that but I'm not sufficiently motivated to look it up), so it's just as well he had a guest cantorial type. He could barely talk; singing would have been a Bad Idea. I offered to take over most of the English reading that he normally does, but he had already scared up someone for that job. He still tried to give a sermon, but he cut it short.

The "sermon" was really more of a report from a conference he attended last week. It was a joint conference of Conservative entities with acronyms; I'm sorry, but I don't know who they all were. The rabbinical body, the cantors' association, something tied to education, a couple more... Anyway, some of the speakers, the rabbi said, had talked about ways of increasing individual observance levels, and Rabbi Berkun rattled off suggestions like lighting Shabbat candles, at least dropping pork and shellfish from the diet if not keeping fully kosher, and so on -- really basic stuff, in other words. I was surprised; the Conservative movement is a halachic one and -- officially -- considers all of these things obligatory, but either this speaker was out in left field or they are having big problems with this among the rank and file. These were suggestions I've often heard from Reform rabbis, but in that movement individual autonomy is encouraged, not shunned. I wonder what it all means.

This Friday was one of the nights that the intergenerational choir at Temple Sinai was singing -- oops. I didn't know about that at the time I scheduled Tree of Life or I would have tried for a different night. But I'm not sure how to discretely get a choir schedule, and I still feel like I'm "moonlighting" and thus don't really want to spread around my real reason for asking.

Saturday morning Rabbi Freedman led the informal minyan, which is unusual. He did ok for the most part (he doesn't usually come so he doesn't know the drill), though he lost control during his drash. (He allowed it to turn into a general conversation that went longer than we really had time for given that he had to go upstairs and do a bar mitzvah after this.) Oops. We still got some Torah study in, and after he left we just continued on our own.

Ok, I have a question about the various "personal offerings" (as opposed to specified communal ones) that were brought. (Maybe Rabbi Gibson will be able to help out next week.) One of these is often translated as the "peace-offering", though Plaut (and the Hebrew speakers in the room) assert that something like "offering of well-being" is closer to the mark. What I don't know is when, and how often, one typically brought these. And was this a case of "things are going well; time to give thanks", or one of "things are going badly; time to ask for help"? (Most people there seemed to think it's the former.) Was this something you did once or twice a year, or any time you wanted to have a festive meal, or what? (The offering could be anything from a bull on down to small birds... not sure if meal-offerings were part of this.)

The talmud talks at some length about making sure that procedures for handling "peace-offerings" and sin-offerings are the same, because we don't want to embarrass the person who brought the latter. The presumption, then, is that peace-offerings are at least as common as sin-offerings, because you're trying to set up the presumption that of course Shlomo over there is bringing a peace-offering, but that only begs the question. (We haven't gotten to sin-offerings yet.) Were people running to the Levites with offerings several times a week, or was this a special thing you did once or twice a year, or what? (I'm confident that the answer is between those extremes, but I don't have any better information.)

Saturday night I went to shiva for a fellow congregant. I didn't actually know the person who died, but I know his wife and she's on the board so I thought I should go. I still don't really understand the protocols. I'm also not sure why Rabbi Gibson has the idea in his head that I've offered to run shiva minyanim; I'm willing if asked, but no, this really isn't something that's calling to me, at least until I learn how to comfort the mourner better. (He asked me if I could run it one night later this week, but the night he wanted was bad and he said not to worry about it -- he has other people he can ask. That's reassuring.)

I led services again on Friday night. Overall it went very well. There were a couple of glitches (what else is new?), including one where the rabbi said "we will now chant Magen Avot" and I'd never heard it before. So I didn't lead that one, but I did a credible job of following. Ok, he has to teach me that one before next time; we've never done it while I was there before. Oops.

And while I know, intellectually, that non-professional lay people praising my voice is kind of akin to my mother thinking I'm a math wizard because I can do simple arithmetic in my head, it's still the case that these folks are permitted to stroke my ego any time they like. :-) Every time I lead services there at least one person mistakes me for a professional cantor, which is kind of cool -- though I always hasten to set the record straight.

Saturday morning the turnout for services was much higher than usual (don't know why), and a lot of people stayed for Torah study afterwards. I guess we now have an answer for those who worried about Leviticus scaring people off from the study group.

Dani had people over to play Twilight Imperium in the afternoon (I didn't play). I let myself get talked into a train game (1830) that was described as "not too long" in the evening, but it ended up taking 7 hours. The person who owns the game implied a higher degree of familiarity with the rules than was warranted; instead of him teaching us the game quickly, we all ended up sort of figuring it out together. I'd probably play the game again, but not under the same circumstances. Yawn.

Current Mood: tired

The service Friday night went pretty well, except the rabbi skipped some stuff that I know, apparently having forgotten that I know it. (I'm talking about a couple of the introductory psalms.) So next time I should refresh his memory beforehand.

Meeting Susan (the conversion candidate I mentioned before) was neat. She joined us for dinner and it was a very pleasant evening.

Saturday we had some people over to play a board game called History of the World. I've only played once before. It was fun, but I got whumped. Oh well. World domination just isn't in my blood, I guess. After that we played a couple of shorter games, including one based on Starfleet Battles that the publishers say is "simple enough that your girlfriend will play". (Yeah, they pegged that right with respect to SFB. I've played several times, don't see what the fuss is about, am not interested in combat at the level of the individual torpedo or the individual armor plate, and probably won't play again.) This game pretty much lived up to that claim; I think I'm the sort of person they meant, and I'd probably play again. The main limitations for me are actually vision-based, not rules-based. (It's a card game with too much different crap on too many cards to see easily across a dining-room table.)

I hate it when my vision dictates which games I can reasonably play, but oh well. I pretty much gave up on Magic: The Gathering when the card set went from 300 different cards to order of 2000 *and* they started publishing many of those 2000 cards with up to 4 different kinds of artwork. I rely on the art to track what's what, as I sure as heck can't read the text. (On the bright side, I sold my 20 most valuable Magic cards on eBay last year for close to $1000 total, which is much more than I ever spent on the game.)

This morning Temple Sinai had its annual book fair, so I went shopping. Book reviews later. :-)

Tonight a bunch of us went to see the Harry Potter movie. I have not read the books, by the way. (I'm not opposed; I've just had no motivation to do so thus far.) I thought the movie was cute and a fun way to spend a few hours, but it didn't wow me or motivate me to read the books.

Another member of the "friends of ruth" mailing list (converts et al) turns out to be local. We exchanged some email last spring and then I was a klutz and lost her email address. She just got back in touch this week. We've never met, so she's going to come for dinner tonight after services. This worked out well, as it turns out that her husband and daughter are out of town this weekend so she would have been spending it alone otherwise.

She does have to sit through my cantorial pretensions, but she's ok with that. At least it makes identifying each other easy; she'll find me. :-) (She was, as it turns out, at Temple Sinai last week, not that either of us knew to look for the other. Her home congregation is Rodef.)

I enjoy putting actual faces and people with email addresses. I'm looking forward to it.

Hmm, last night there was a short discussion on the topic of responsibilities of board members. (Themes included the idea that you're always a board member, even in the check-out line at Giant Eagle, and what you do reflects on the congregation, and you're the eyes and ears of the board, and stuff like that. Those in the SCA can substitute "peer" for "board member" and recognize the ideas.) In light of that, I wonder if there are any PR-type issues with a trustee of one congregation playing a minor-but-public leadership role in a different congregation. *I* don't think so (if anything I think it brings honor to my congregation, not dishonor), but I wonder if anyone else would have issues with this. We've seen already that I do not really understand the synagogue-operations mindset.

I met with my rabbi this morning. We talked about a bunch of things. I told him I really miss the regular meetings that we had back when I was studying with him.

He asked what I've been learning lately and I told him about the online mishna class (from the Masorti folks in Israel) and the miscellaneous other stuff (parsha commentaries and the like), and that it's been pretty self-directed and haphazard. He asked what I want to learn and my broad answer is "most things"; I realized during the course of the conversation that what I *really* want is a study partner, and the specific topics of study are less important than the process of learning how to learn, so to speak. He knows that I've had a long-standing interest in liturgy, so we talked about that for a while.

I mentioned the study-partner thing, thinking that maybe he could suggest someone else in the congregation who I could team up with, and he said he'd be happy to study with me. Wow! This would be order of once or twice a month; I'm supposed to call his secretary, schedule something, and tell her what we're going to study. :-) (He lent me a book on liturgical history, so we'll start there.)

We also talked about my desire to be more involved in leading services. (I didn't quite have the guts to say "hey, how about getting rid of the paid soloists and letting some of us do that music instead?") He said I'm already on his short list for people to call with little notice when things come up and he appreciates that I'm willing to help. Then he asked how my Torah-reading is. I said "unskilled now but I want to change that", and told him that I've been trying to learn trope from a book. He's putting together a small group of people -- some adults, some post-b'nei-mitzvah teenagers -- who want to do this again, and he'll teach us and assign portions with a few months' notice. I said to definitely count me in. He's going to start this in January, he said.

We ran out of time (I thought I had a longer slot than I did), so I had to cram in the "oh by the way I've been leading services over at Tree occasionally; hope you don't mind" bit at the end, when I had hoped to not just spring it on him. He didn't seem to have a problem with this, which is good.

Current Mood: ecstatic

The rest of this entry consists of Jewish minutiae about the service.

( Read more... )

I went to Tree of Life last night. There was a bar mitzvah this Shabbat, so the boy did some of the stuff that I would normally have done. He actually did more than I thought he would; at Temple Sinai the bar mitzvah makes kiddush Friday night but that's it until Saturday morning, when he does almost everything.

There's always a little "program" at services that lists service times for the coming week, who's leading which services, page numbers for the Torah reading, and so on. So my name was in this, as it was last time. (And yes, I collect the souvenirs at this point.) As I was sitting on the bimah waiting to start, I heard a familiar voice say "Monica??". I wasn't in a position to see who it was, but later I recognized one of the morning regulars and I think it was him. He came up to me afterwards and gushed. He can stroke my ego any time he likes. :-) (Several other people had nice things to say to me, which I found gratifying.)

The bar mitzvah was somewhat, err, melodically challenged, which I suppose is a common case for 13-year-olds. Since there was a microphone in front of me, I wasn't sure what to do on songs he was leading. I decided to turn my head away from the mike (I could still face some of the congregation while doing this) and sing; I'm pretty sure the mike didn't pick me up and overwhelm him. I tried to watch the front rows for feedback. (Yes, the relatives sat in the front rows. Regulars tend not to.)

This time I found the secret hidden glass of water before services started. These things are important. :-)

Rabbi Berkun introduced me this time as the "cantorial soloist". Whee. Yeah, that's what I am when I do this, but it still felt all warm and fuzzy to hear someone actually use the words. (Clarification: I am not a "Cantor"; that is a precise term for which I lack the credentials. Since you can't always hear whether the C is upper- or lower-case in conversation, I tend not to use the word by itself. I gather that "cantorial soloist" is ok, though, and "chazan" certainly is.)

I really enjoy doing this, and I perceive that I'm quite good at it. I don't think I'll end up doing it more than about every 6 weeks on average, and this strikes me as a reasonable balance between here and my own congregation.

I do wonder whether I should tell my rabbi about this. It's not a secret or anything, but I've seen no reason to bring it up, and it can be very hard to get "casual" private time with him. On the one hand, he shouldn't have a problem with it (if I thought he might, I would have discussed it with him first), but on the other hand, he might be hurt if he hears it through the rumor mill that I'm "moonlighting" on him. On the third hand, I don't want him to think that I'm unhappy at my synagogue (which I'm not), and he might never hear about it if I don't tell him.

I'm pleased with the way that worked out.

You know how sometimes people will say "good job" and stuff like that after you've done something, and you can tell that they're being polite but not sincere? I didn't get any of that. People seemed to be genuinely happy with the job I did (including the rabbi). A couple of people thought I was a professional cantor. Someone who knows what he's talking about complimented me on my Hebrew pronunciation. All in all, it was a very satisfying experience for my ego. (Before the service the rabbi jokingly asked if I'd brought my "cheering section", and I told him that would be inexpedient for my first time; after all, who knows whether I'd successfully pull this off? So I guess I should bring one for the *second* time, just for amusement value.)

I believe that I made no Hebrew mistakes and only minor music mistakes (things that the rabbi would have noticed but no one else would have). I did have one disconcerting moment: one of the prayers that I had learned the chant for was one that I thought I would be doing alone, so I didn't worry about the fact that it mutated a bit as I learned it (musically speaking); the result was appropriate and who cares about minor ornaments and slight variants and stuff like that? I was not expecting the rabbi to say, at that point in the service, "we'll now join Monica in vaychulu". Oops.

It was really hard to tell whether people were singing along on things. I was up on the bima, and there was a microphone in front of me, and -- as is typical for this congregation -- almost everyone was sitting in the back third of the chapel. That was too far away for me to be able to watch people, and the loudest thing by far that I heard was me. On the first song (yes, everyone knows it) I thought it was that I'd picked a bad key for them; they probably weren't expecting an alto. But my choice of key didn't seem to have much to do with the observed results, so I stopped worrying about it.

When I met with the rabbi right before the service to go over some logistics, he noticed that I'd inserted transliteration for some of the Hebrew into my book and he said this made him unhappy. There were two reasons I sometimes used translit: (1) for anything where I had to notate music, because I haven't trained my brain to read music right to left yet, and (2) for places where there was risk of failure because it was text I had just learned for this service -- crutches, in other words. I know from past performance experience that sometimes your IQ simply drops 50 points when someone sticks an audience in front of you, after all. I was pleased that in most cases I didn't need to look at the translit; I'll have to report back on this when I next talk with the rabbi. (He told me afterward that he definitely wants me to do this again.)

Current Mood: pleased

In about an hour, I'll be leading Shabbat evening services "solo" for the first time. (This is at Tree of Life, not my home congregation. I was recruited for occasional cantor-like stints. Yes, the rabbi will be on the bima so if I completely space there's a save, but the rabbis there don't lead the service -- they give sermons, but lay people lead.) This will be neat! I love my own congregation (Temple Sinai) and am not about to abandon them or anything like that, but this is an opportunity that I basically don't have there, so when the rabbi at ToL asked if I'd be willing to help them out I didn't have to think about it very long.

Current Mood: excited

Monica

short takes (pretty random)

short takes

Shavuot, Shabbat

Ok, ok, I get the hint :-)

short takes

Friday night

Whee!

Friday night

Friday night

prayer

Shabbat

close encounters of the feline kind

Friday night

(no subject)

Shabbat report

Shabbat

weekend in brief

(no subject)

(no subject)

Friday service

Friday night

Shabbat service

a gig

Expand Cut Tags

Syndicate