Monica

So I fell back to the Village Shul (Aish HaTorah), a place I'd been once before. This time, as last, I found them to be not too welcoming; this time I knew where to go in the building so the indifferent man standing at the entrance didn't hinder me, but nor did he respond to my greeting. At the kiddush (which was a standing-around affair this time, not a sit-down one), not a single person greeted me, even when I made eye contact. It can be hard for me to approach random people and start conversations; I greeted some and usually got responses but no one engaged. I don't know what (if anything) I was doing wrong; I think it was fairly obvious that I wasn't a regular, but I wasn't inappropriate in any way I could determine.

But all that said, I'm very glad I went for one reason: Tal.

Ok, I need to back up. T'filat Tal, aka the prayer for dew, is said exactly once during the year, on the morning of Pesach, in the musaf service. I had never heard it before. The Reform movement doesn't do musaf and didn't import that part into another part of the service (like is done with some other parts), and when we're in Toronto I don't always make it to Yom Tov services (but I insist on Shabbat). It's possible that I was at a Conservative service for Pesach once, and if so either they didn't do it or they didn't do anything special with it and I didn't notice.

So, this is either the first time I've encountered this prayer or the first time it registered. And it did in fact register. A resonant text (which I am unable to find online, help?), a beautiful and fitting melody (which I can't find a good version of online), and just the right amount of congregational engagement (a few words sung together at the end of each stanza) all came together into a heartfelt but not over-the-top prayer that felt entirely right to me. Wow.

And I think it needs all of those. As I said, the Reform movement doesn't do this text -- but let me predict how it would go down if we did. Because it's unfamiliar and people can't be assumed to be fluent, we would read (not sing) it, in English. Perhaps responsively, alternating stanzas. And it would fall completely flat, done that way. I'm not fluent and I'd never seen this text before either, but I listened to it in Hebrew while reading the English translation, and that worked. If I didn't need the translation then that'd be even better, but the text I read and the text I hear don't need to be the same language and that's just fine. Alas, mine seems to be a small-minority position in my movement, so I will probably not get the opportunity to experience this prayer in that setting, which makes me sad.

( some service anthropology )

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Personally, I find summer shabbatot long already (Saturday afternoon into evening is a long haul), so I'll only add 2+ hours onto the beginning if there's something in it for me. "Something in it for me" can mean a real d'var torah or sermon (aimed at adults, not dumbed down for kids), or a significant role in conducting the service (hard to get), or a new experience. So while I've gone to my congregation a couple times (once to support my rabbi in something, and once because our educator rabbi would be leading), I've also been seeking out new experiences elsewhere.

I've been to Tree of Life for their monthly music and to New Light (a 5-minute walk from my house), both Conservative. This week I sought out Young Israel. I had the impression that they were on the liberal end of Orthodox and that there might be singing and others my age. I'm not sure why I had those impressions.

Not knowing the lay of the land I dressed conservatively (I would never wear long sleeves in summer otherwise). Good call; black hats were the norm. Their entry way had only one door into the worship space (no separate women's entrance) and the women's section was on the far side, so I quietly opened and closed the door and tried to be unobtrusive while making my way over there. (Mincha had already started.) I saw no obvious place to get a siddur on my way past and didn't want to disturb any of the men standing there. (None of them looked at me.) On the women's side I found assorted books, which might have been people's personal copies, but there was no one there to ask. So I picked up an Artscroll siddur from on top of a bookcase and joined the service.

The service -- the remainder of mincha, then kabbalat shabbat, then ma'ariv -- was very matter-of-fact. There was a little bit of singing during kabbalat shabbat (not as much as I've seen at other Orthodox congregations). Mincha started at 7:30 and we were leaving the building by 8:30. I felt like I'd had a decent prayer experience personally, but didn't feel part of a community. No one greeted me as we were filing out, though someone did on the street half a block later.

I know that the conventional gender roles in the Orthodox community mean many women don't come Friday night, and if you want to meet a community you go Saturday morning. I have a place I'm very happy with for Saturday mornings, and I can't see anything currently that would cause me to skip that for someone else's regular service. (If there were a simcha involved for a friend that would of course be different.)

So far this summer, aside from the kallah, my Friday-night experiences have been "eh". They would have been "eh" if I'd gone to my own synagogue every week, so I haven't lost anything, but it's still a little disappointing. (On the other hand, it's confirmation that my own congregation is well above average when it's in "normal mode"...) Does anybody in this city celebrate Shabbat, as opposed to just getting through the service, at an hour that doesn't have one leaving the building with the sun high in the sky?

(Yes, I know you're allowed to accept Shabbat early. Coming out of ma'ariv into sunlight feels weird to me, and as I said before, I'm reluctant to add a couple hours to Shabbat this time of year.)

Oh well. There are still a few weeks left in which to explore.

magid

Yeah, I'm going. I want to see what this is like, and I'd like to meet more members of the traditional community who think women have a role in worship.

murmur311

( service anthropology )

Jenny and I chatted with the rabbi some after the service. He seems like a really friendly person; he'll be a good catch for some congregation. (Hmm, we'll be looking for an associate rabbi to start in a year, which is when he graduates...) We ended up talking a bit about rabbinic job-hunting and he explained how HUC's matching process works. (Ask me later if you're interested. He said it was similar to what medical schools do for residency placements, if that helps.) I said I might be seeing this process from the other side in the coming year (ok, I'm being presumptuous and assuming I can get onto the search committee), but this is interesting for other reasons too. He and Jenny had both recently read a book called The New Rabbi that he recommends highly. (He named the author. I forget. I'll look this up on Amazon when I get home if one of you hasn't fed it to me by then. :-) )

Shabbat morning we went to Temple Sholom, one of three Reform congregations within a block. That seems unusual to me; I think at least one of them split off from one of the others, but I didn't get the full history. (In Pittsburgh, by comparison, there are five Reform synagogues -- two in the city about two miles from each other, and the other three each in a different suburb ten miles out or so.)

Their rabbi said to tell my rabbi hi. I guess on the one hand you'd expect a movement's rabbis to generally know each other, but on the other hand there are what, 1200 or more Reform rabbis in the US? That's a lot of people to know or even know of.

( service anthropology )

During the torah study there was some discussion of why this story of a non-Jewish prophet would be part of the torah. One of the people there thought Bilaam had had a true change of heart (hey, that sounds familiar :-) ), though I think I remember reading last week that Rashi blames Bilaam for the Israelite men going on to sin with the Moabite women, so I'm not so sure that works. (Or maybe I'm misremembering and Rashi blames Balak. I don't have a copy of Rashi to check -- at all, let alone here in Cincinnati.) I suggested that while the torah is primarily about Yisrael, including a passage showing that even a gentile "gets it" about God's goodness and might could be valuable to later readers (and to b'nei yisrael too, if they were of a mind to pay attention). The rabbi thought this was a good interpretation. (I didn't bring up Rashi.)

I wonder, in thinking about it, if the Israelites at the time were even aware of Bilaam's curses-turned-blessings aimed at them. I don't see how they would be unless told. While this is not the generation that rebelled against God, they still might have been boosted somewhat by the endorsement from outside. Hmm.

I liked both congregations that I visited this Shabbat. I noticed that both have rabbinic interns in addition to rabbis; I guess proximity to HUC has something to do with that. :-) The intern I met Friday night knows one of the student rabbis we're going to have this week (not surprising; they're presumably classmates) and had good things to say about him. Presumably we'll meet them all tomorrow.

I spent part of Shabbat with the gracious murmur311, who took me to services at her congregation Friday night and another Saturday morning. (Hers doesn't have Saturday services this month. Lack of critical mass, I gather.)

( services and torah study )

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.)