[Written Wednesday night, then trapped on the wrong side of a service
outage.]
I waffled briefly about going to evening services but decided to do so.
(It's not like there was anything I could do about Johan on
Monday night, after all.) Services were good; there were a bunch of
teenagers there, uncharacteristically, and I later learned that they'd
been taught Israeli dancing and told to show up. They did participate,
though I didn't see them doing much dancing.
For the hakafot (processions with the torah scrolls) our rabbi usually
calls groups. Sometimes it's stuff like "native Pittsburghers" or
"new members of the congregation"; more often it's family-focused
stuff like "grandparents", "mothers and daughters" (meaning groups of
people, not everyone who is someone's daughter), and so on. This time
was about par for the course; a good thing is that he included "men" and
"women" as two of the early groups, ensuring that no one had to be an
also-ran ("anyone who hasn't come up yet") for the last one. (Having
spent my first six Simchat Torah services as an also-ran,
let me just say how irritating that can be.)
Everyone gets an aliya on Simchat Torah, and for as long as I've been
there they've called people in groups based on birth months. That
works well as it ensures that everyone has exactly one chance.
There was a lot of singing during the hakafot and the cantorial soloist
tried to get some line dancing going, but she didn't get a lot of
takers. Still, it was a nice bouncy occasion.
Tuesday morning the turnout was much lower; I think there were about
40 people there. For the hakafot they didn't bother with groups; they
just kept it going until everyone had done as much as he wanted.
That's the way to do hakafot, in my opinion, and I hope they
do that again in the future. Just let people figure it out on their
own.
After I'd gone around once the cantorial soloist grabbed hold of me and
one other person and started dancing, so I joined in. Eventually we
had about eight people dancing in a circle in the front of the sanctuary
while other people continued circling around the room. That was fun!
In retrospect, though, I think I can competently do any two of the following
three: dance, sing, and carry a sefer torah. It's ok; the cantorial
soloist was singing enough for both of us. :-)
A few times a year, toward the end of the morning service is Yizkor,
a memorial liturgy. I suspected that I was going to want to leave
the room, so I sat near the back of the sanctuary (uncharacteristically).
In traditional congregations it's customary for people whose parents
are alive to leave during Yizkor, but our congregation doesn't have
that custom. I slipped out anyway, hoping not to draw attention to
myself, and waited. I could hear parts of the service in the hall,
and twice I kind of lost it -- Shiviti and ...Malei Rachamim -- so
I made the right decision. Yes, our rabbi says that Yizkor is for
both those with fresh wounds and those whose losses are more distant,
but I don't think he meant that fresh.
Oh, for whoever was asking after Yom Kippur: 17 minutes this time.
I slipped back in at the start of Aleinu. Afterwards one person said
to me "I didn't know you had the custom of leaving" and I said usually
not but today I did. I left it at that.
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ariannawyn held a wake for Johan last night. There was a
book in which people were writing memories, but I decided to write mine
with the benefit of a text editor and without imposing the burden of my
penmanship.
