cellio | Entries tagged with morning minyan

Today is Yom HaShoah (Holocaust remembrance day). I don't know what is done elsewhere, but my Conservative morning minyan adds a short service after the torah service. It consists of some psalms and some modern writings, and ends with an unusual Kaddish. The Kaddish text is the usual text, but it's interspersed with the names of camps -- Aushwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, and so on through the entire list. The reader reads the Kaddish; the congregation reads the names.

I led the service today, but someone else, someone who is old enough to remember first-hand, always leads this special service. So after he finished he turned to me to continue and it was time for...Aleinu. Aleinu is the prayer where we look forward to the day when the whole world will follow God.

I stumbled, tripped up by the cognitive dissonance.

I know that, even in the light of outrageous suffering at the hands of monsters, individuals can retain faith in God. People did, then and in earlier times (the Nazis were far from the first). People do today when murderous Nazis have been replaced with murderous Arabs. People will in the future too. Not all people, but some. This I believe.

This morning I found it a little harder to believe that at some time in the future the whole world will come around. I realize that Aleinu is looking ahead to messianic times, but the messiah will come only after we have done the groundwork. God won't send the messiah when we've sunk into the depths and all hope is lost; rather, God will send the messiah when we collectively deserve it. I hope that day will come. This morning I found it a bit harder to know that it will.

For the festivals my congregation does combined services with another congregation and today was their turn to host. I didn't want to walk that far (especially since the combined services are still, um, struggling to find their stride), so I had planned to go to either Young People's (been there before) or Beth Shalom (haven't been there before for a morning service, so new experience). But on Tuesday I learned that the wife of my "mentor" in the weekday morning minyan had died, and I hadn't found out in time to go to the funeral, and a festival ends shiva (the mourning period during which the minyan goes to the mourner's house for extra support), so I decided at the last minute to go to their service today so I could at least express my condolences to him in person.

I wasn't sure how many people to expect there, but I wasn't expecting to hear, upon walking in (half an hour late, it turned out; I didn't know the start time), "now we can do Hallel". Yup, I was the tenth person there. (We got more over the course of the morning, maybe twenty total.) This is comparable to the weekday-morning turnout.

A few minutes later the rabbi told me he was giving me an aliya (one of the several torah blessings). A few minutes after that he came back and said "can you lead musaf?" I said I don't know musaf -- specifically, the middle part of the amidah that's specific to that service. (Reform doesn't do musaf.) He said no problem; we don't do a chazan's repetition, where the service leader chants the entire multi-page amidah by himself, preferably with nice melodies that I probably don't know. Instead, as with other instances of the amidah I've seen there, we would do everything together through the kedusha and then continue individually. That text is common, so I said sure, I can do that.

Boy am I glad I looked. A few minutes later I approached him and said "this text for kedusha -- it is not the text I'm used to and I don't know how to make it scan to any melody I know". (Well, I once sang one part of a choral setting of it, but...) He said no problem; we'll help you out. Feeling somewhat uncertain about the whole proposition, but noting that the whole service seemed to be lay-led by a variety of people, I figured that if he was ok with it, so was I.

So in the end I led part of the service, from the chatzi kaddish at the end of the torah service through musaf, Ein Keloheinu, and aleinu, with the torah reader propping me up during that kedusha, and it was fine. I hadn't expected to do more than sit in the congregation. Neat.

This was, it turns out, the first time I've been to a Conservative festival service. (I've been to Conservative Rosh Hashana, once, but that's different. Also, it was a long time ago.) I've been to Orthodox festival services, where all this content is standard too, but somehow they've never asked me to lead, so it hasn't come up. :-)

The mishna teaches that one may move certain items (that otherwise would be forbidden to handle) on Shabbat to make room for guests or on account of neglect of the house of study. R. Yochanan learned from this that hospitality to wayfarers is as great as early attendance at the house of study. R. Dimi of Nehardea said hospitality is greater because it is listed first. R. Yehudah said in Rab's name: hospitality to wayfarers is greater than welcoming the Shechina (the presence of God), citing Avraham's encounter with the divine messengers.

R. Yehudah b. Shila said in R. Assi's name in R. Yochanan's name: there are six things, the fruit of which man eats in this world, while the principal remains for him for the world to come, being: hospitality to wayfarers, visiting the sick, meditation in prayer, early attendance at the house of study, rearing one's sons to the study of torah, and judging one's neighbor in the scale of merit. To this our sages add: honoring one's father and mother, the practice of loving deeds, and making peace between man and his fellow, and the study of torah surpasses them all. (127a)

The list from the second paragraph is part of daily morning services (eilu d'varim); specifically, it is some of the torah that we study each day. [1] (Because one should never go a day without studying torah, and because a blessing for torah study is part of the morning service so if you say the blessing you better do some studying.) The things on this list are things that, the rabbis say, you can never do enough of; while some mitzvot have limits (e.g. give this much to charity, drink this much wine to sanctify Shabbat, etc), these are different.

[1] In fact, this specifically is some of the torah study that goes where I'm instead inserting these daf bits, because for reasons unknown to me this congregation doesn't do the regular torah study. Who knew that someday it would come into the service via another route? When I saw this on today's daf I knew I had to use it. :-)

Today I led morning services. That's not unusual. Today this included Hallel; that's kind of unusual, and something I've only done about three times before. During Sukkot, Hallel includes some extra stuff, which I had not led before and was a little uncertain about. In particular, since I always just follow the leader on when to wave the lulav, and since work commitments prevented me from getting a refresher earlier this week, I wasn't sure I knew it correctly -- and in fact, Joe had to point out one place where I would have missed it otherwise (that final Hodu). There is also the small matter of not being able to hold the siddur at a good reading distance (for me) while also dealing with the lulav, so I did the best I could but had also memorized the key passages there. (For those who are wondering, David the torah reader always leads the special Sukkot processions, so I didn't do that.)

Before the service I asked Joe (the usual Hallel person, until he pushed me) a couple questions and he agreed to come up on the bimah with me for that part. But aside from that one correction he didn't have to do anything. I am pleased. Joe seemed very pleased, which makes me happy because he's my teacher there. Joe is the person who pushed me to start leading a weekday Conservative service at all, years ago, and more recently is the one who pushed me to lead Hallel (I'd always deferred to him).

(It's not that I don't want to lead services; I enjoy that and would like more opportunities in my own congregation. But even though I'm a regular I still think of myself as a visitor to this congregation; I'm not a member there nor even a member of that movement. I'm comfortable in this minyan but am mindful of the norms of hospitality, including that guests don't try to take over.)

The morning minyan has a particular person who always leads Hallel when it's included in the service (certain holiday seasons plus Rosh Chodesh, the first day(s) of every month). I lead the service on Thursdays, but if it's a Hallel day I turn it over to him at that point. A couple months ago he said "you need to start doing this"; I replied that I didn't want to usurp his role; he replied that I would do it next time. (Ok.) "Next time" is this Thursday, Rosh Chodesh Nissan. So I just ran through it; I'm comfortable with most of it, am unsure what melody to use in one place, and just plain don't know the melody he uses in one short place, but the world won't end if I just read that (and maybe I can get a quickie refresher before the service starts). Now, to see how this plan survives contact with the minyan. :-)

Err, yes, that does mean that Pesach is just over two weeks away. I'm looking forward to a seder with friends and singing. I should decide soon if I'm going to try to do something for the second night. (I don't hold it to be necessary, but it would be a learning opportunity. Hmm.)

Last week I co-led a workshop at my synagogue on a topic in prayer (the sh'ma and its blessings). Turnout was small and I felt kind of off the whole time, even though we prepared and I practiced. (The other person is a professional educator; I have no idea if she practiced, but if she didn't it didn't show.) I've received positive feedback from people who were there, but I still have the sense that I don't really know how to facilitate a discussion or teach an intimate class, though I'm a fine participant in either. (I don't know that I know how to present a lecture either, but I think I'd be on firmer ground -- but that's not what was called for here.) I'm not sure what to do about this -- the obvious answers being to teach more or teach less. (I'm leaning toward the latter but feeling like a bit of a coward for that leaning.)

Learning talmud with my rabbi and midrash with another of our rabbis continues to be quite nifty and engaging. For all that I can be nervous in a classroom (particularly if someone with superior knowledge is present), I really enjoy and hold my own in one-on-one study with people whose knowledge is vastly superior to mine. I wonder why that works like that. Sure, a lot of the comfort in one case comes from having studied with my rabbi (in various capacities) for more than ten years (!), but the other one is much newer so it's not just that. (I also wonder at what point I have the obligation to be the person with superior knowledge for someone else in a one-on-one setting.)

Today was Yom HaShoah and also my day to lead the morning minyan. I reviewed the siddur (Sim Shalom) in advance; there was one insertion into the Amidah (in sh'ma koleinu), and there was a section of readings in the back that seemed intended for a special-purpose service but not a general one. (That is, if you're specifically doing a Yom HaShoah service, which some communities do (usually in the evening), that would be good stuff to include, but that wasn't the intent here.)

When I arrived I consulted with the person who is more or less in charge of these things, and we agreed that we'd just do the Amidah insertion. That didn't end up being what happened, though, because members of this minyan are not shy. :-)

First, when we got to the end of the Amidah and I was getting ready to do the chatzi kaddish that goes there, someone shouted out "page 40!", which was that insertion. (I had made sure to point it out to people earlier in the service so they wouldn't automatically skip over it like usual.) I hesitated and then shrugged and said "ok", so we read that paragraph together in English. (After the fact it occurred to me that he'd probably assumed that people had read it in Hebrew, perhaps lacking comprehension.)

Then, during the torah service, as the torah reader was getting ready to do the mi shebeirach (prayer for healing), that first person came up and asked people to turn to the back and we did a couple readings there. (Ok, he must have changed his mind.) They were good choices; one was an E- Malei Rachamim specifically about the Shoah, and the other was a modified kaddish with names of camps interspersed. (It's intended for two readers, clearly. It was done responsively.) The reader, who is old enough to remember, was openly crying during both. I found that while the words affected me a little, his reaction to the words affected me a lot more. (As someone whose family was not affected, nor in a persecuted class, I realize that I have an unusual position in the community.)

In place of the usual "daf bit" I ended up using an excerpt from a sermon given in 1942 by the rabbi of a community that was then under attack. The sermon was given on Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat before Pesach. (This site does not say where he was writing from nor what became of his community.) This is the part I used:

I recalled what the great sage the Chatam Sofer had expounded on the seder song "one little kid". For the cat thought it could consume the kid but in truth, they will never consume us, because our father bought us for two zuz... So, inevitably there will always remain "one little kid"... For the Holy One will also make miracles for us. And the dog came... and the stick... all because of one little kid, Israel. And in the end what remains is the Holy One and the one little kid, after the Holy One consumes and smites all those who hate us. -Rabbi Shlomo Unsdorfer

A couple months ago I wrote about a musical issue in the weekday morning minyan. One of the regulars really likes a melody that the rabbi hates, so I was trying to find a way to make everyone happy. This is a followup.

I came up with a new melody that I thought singable enough (and perky enough) to satisfy the congregant without having the excessively-repeated text and cheesy melody that bothered the rabbi. (The cheesy melody didn't do much for me either, but that alone was not enough reason for me to change anything.) On the day I was going to spring it I wanted to take that congregant aside first to clue him in (I'd previously told him that I'd be bringing a new melody). But he wasn't there, and when we got to the t'filah I had my back to the congregation, so I didn't see him come in late. So when we got to l'dor vador I just chanted it, and I heard him say something like "argh". Oops.

He had an aliya, so I was able to whisper in his ear something like "I have a new melody but need your help; stick around after" and he said ok. After the service I told him I needed his help to get the congregation to sing a new melody; I didn't know if they'd be able to follow just me (with my back to them), but if he was also singing it that would help so could I teach it to him right now? Sure, he said, and the person sitting next to him also stuck around. (Good, I thought; this second person has a good strong voice.)

So I sang it for him, then sang it with him a few times, then asked if it worked for him. He said yes, he likes it a lot, and I said he needed to be ready to sing next week. We've now done it for several weeks; the congregant is thrilled and the rabbi is satisfied. I think most of the congregation is indifferent. (In a brief moment of inattention I let slip to the congregant that I wrote it, but I do not believe this is widely known, nor would I want anyone to feel pressured because of that.)

Edit: On reflection, one small piece of this didn't belong in a public entry. Yeah, what's out there is out there, but I'll still try to clean up what I can.

I am not Solomon, so I have to work harder for an answer. :-)

When I started leading the morning minyan, I did the service exactly as it was taught to me -- Hebrew here, English there, this melody, and so on. I have made a very few changes, gradually; after noticing that different people do in fact do it a little differently, I figured I could get away with that if I didn't jolt people too much. I made changes in the things I most care about.

Over time, I've learned, everyone else who leads this service has drifted away from one particular melody. Some people have asked me to kill it too. The rabbi, who is mara d'atra so may insist but knows the minyan was there before he was so he won't, hates it and said he would be delighted if I chose to get rid of it. I, personally, do not care; it would be hard to find a part of the service that I'm more neutral about. So for the last couple weeks I dropped it, just chanting that passage instead.

Naturally, there is one long-time, regular member who loves singing it and thinks people went behind his back to lobby me. He begged me to put it back. I did this morning, making a slight change to address what I perceive to be the rabbi's main complaint. (I haven't talked with the rabbi yet, so I don't know if that was effective.) Sigh. I wish I actually cared about this particular issue; then I could assert a position and go.

I might look for a different melody and see how that goes. I don't know any that fit all the criteria right now, but I haven't done any real work on this yet. (So hey, if any of you want to make suggestions, I'm open. It's L'dor vador; we currently do this one (ignore cheesy accompaniment please), which the rabbi feels is insufficiently reverent (um, yeah) and too repetitive. I suggested this one to the rabbi; the mood is much better, but he thinks it's still too repetitive. Any suggestions?)

This morning after I put a tallit on, a man I don't know approached me and asked if I'm the chazanit. I said "for today". He asked why I was wearing a tallit but not a kippah (skullcap). (In case anyone's wondering: egalitarian Conservative congregation.)

( Read more... )

This morning at the end of services the rabbi said he had a message for the congregation, and proceeded to translate from a certain postcard. Err, when I said "say hi to the morning minyan", I sort of assumed the postcard would beat me there. :-) (Two weeks.) He praised my Hebrew, I suspect more than it deserved. (I hadn't taken a dictionary with me.) But I figured it was fair to make him and Dani work a little for their postcards. :-)

Before sending it I took a picture:

handwritten Hebrew message

Thank you to everyone who responded to my laptop-versus-PDA query.

Thursday was our annual company retreat, held way the heck too far out of town. It's a nice site, but it's 40 miles from the office, and they schedule it so you're in rush-hour traffic both ways. Oh well. (Note to self: if we use this site again, bring own caffeine supply for the morning. They didn't put out pop until after lunch.)

I went late, after morning services, hitching a ride with someone else with a constraint (dropping kids off at school). I had an interesting (brief) conversation with that congregation's new rabbi after services. ( geeking )

Their new rabbi is on the bimah during morning services, but he doesn't lead. After the first time I asked him if I was encroaching (maybe he wanted to lead) and he said no, go ahead. Every week he has complimented me on something, so I'll take this as ongoing consent. (You don't need a rabbi to lead, of course, and it's not automatic that a rabbi would trump a layperson, but I figure it's polite to defer if that seems to be called for.)

The rabbi has an Ashkenazi pronunciation (and accent). Most of the congregation sits in the back third of the pews, so I'm not used to having a different-to-me pronunciation so close. It's improving my concentration skills. :-)

My "other" congregation has a new rabbi and he was there this morning (but he deferred to me for leading). Afterwards he praised me rather more than I would have expected and asked where I learned to daven. The answer to that is really the same as for most people: by showing up and doing it a lot. Most of the regulars in this group can daven at least as well as I can in most respects -- perhaps not as melodically, but that's the least-important part. I wonder if people who compliment me on leading services are really just reacting to my ability to sing.

On the other hand, during the Sh'liach K'hilah program many of my classmates told me that I (to paraphrase) ooze spirituality, that I can create the right setting and draw people into prayer. I think I do that instinctively when I lead on Shabbat mornings, and I actively work on that on the rare occasions when I lead on Friday nights, but I don't explicitly try and don't know how successful I am in doing it at the weekday minyan. (I don't know how to tell, from way up on the bimah while they all sit in the back rows.) This is, largely, not a group that lingers over prayer and reflects; most people have places to be after services are over. It's a weekday, after all.

It's possible that I am better at some of the simple mechanics -- navigation (page cues), flow, consistency in pace, and that sort of thing. I suspect that being both an adult learner and an analytical sort help there -- for as long as I've been going to services I've been both participating and observing what's going on and how it's put together. I didn't absorb "how it's done" before I was old enough to be cognizant of it. I notice things (my rabbi has commented on this) and analyze the heck out of them. Maybe that has paid off in ways I hadn't noticed.

Mind, I kept all of this inner dialogue away from the rabbi, who I thanked for the compliment. :-)

( weekday minyan )

Friday night I met next week's bar mitzvah and his parents. They seem like nice folks, and I'm glad we got to say hello to each other sometime before the rehearsal on Tuesday. They didn't stay for the oneg after the service, so I didn't get much chance to talk with them. Because I am not quick enough on the uptake, I failed to thank them for allowing me to play a role in their simcha. Must say so at the rehearsal. After all, they are making a sacrifice and taking a chance; when they started planning we expected to have a rabbi available that week, and they only have my rabbi's word that I'm up to the task. I want to make sure they're comfortable.

Shabbat morning we had a first-time torah reader. He did a good job and had some interesting things to say about the portion (which, alas, have not cohered in my brain). Every time a new person from our minyan decides to take a shot at reading torah and leading that part of the service I do a little happy dance inside. :-)

I will be conducting the torah study next week. (I had been assuming that the chair of the worship committee would do it, but he'll be out of town.) We're in Va'etchanan, in the repetition of the ten commandments. After an animated discussion these last couple weeks about "do not murder", next week we move on to "don't commit adultery". So I have to think about how to structure that and have some provocative conversation-starters on tap. This is one part of the job I'm not very good at yet -- I can participate in study (though less effectively at 8:30 in the morning), but guiding it is something I need more practice with. So, I'm getting practice, which is good. (I've done this in this group twice before, once with preparation and once with 30 seconds' notice.)

The first draft of Friday's sermon is almost done. I need some transitional bits in a few places and a better wrap-up. Then I need to put it aside for a day or two and then revise.

The part assignments for Friday's service are all taken care of. I was surprised to learn that of the four people from the worship committee (other than me) who are involved, only one is comfortable leading the Hebrew reading of ma'ariv aravim -- and I'm already using her for the torah service. I could do that part, of course, but then it would be obvious to the congregation at large that the person leading that section couldn't, and I don't want to cause embarrassment. So I asked the cantorial soloist to do it; that'll make it look like I planned to give her a role that's a little different. (She'll already be up there, having just lead barchu.) I think I'm starting to get a little better at those "people skills" I hear so much about. :-)

I've got the torah reading pretty much under control. Tomorrow I will move from practicing with the nice, neat print-out from Trope Trainer to practicing from the sometimes-fuzzy, sometimes-sloppy calligraphy in a printed tikkun. That's more realistic. (I am also promised access to the actual scroll for practice.)

All together, I'm doing, in one week, several parts of the job my rabbi does so smoothly (and, seemingly, effortlessly) -- leading services (two), reading torah, giving a sermon, conducting study, and coordinating the efforts of other congregants involved in the services. Some of my preparation has been spread out over several weeks; my rabbi does this every single week. Of course, he doesn't have another job -- but he does have a family, pastoral duties, administrative duties, community duties, and more. Still, this is all providing an interesting window into (part of) my rabbi's world.

Fortunately, all the rabbis in town have cross-coverage agreements, so there is zero chance that I would be called on to do a funeral while he's gone.

It's good to sit in the congregation every now and then. I've been leading the morning service for something over a year now. A couple days ago I got a phone call -- would I be willing to defer to another leader on "my" day for a special occasion? Yes, of course -- not a problem, I said. So this morning I heard someone else lead, and picked up a few nuances. And they gave me an aliya, too. :-) (They've never given me one while I was leading, nor would I want them to. Leading is already an honor; give the honor of an aliya to someone else.)

The t'filah (aka the amidah), the central prayer of the service, is said silently. It is customary for the leader to wait until everyone has finished before going on with the service, but the morning minyan doesn't do that. As a congregant I found this frustrating but eventually learned to live with it; as a leader I'm now a little frustrated from the other side. So this morning I raised the issue for the first time. (I don't have the authority to make the change unilaterally, but I want to get people talking about it.)

Pro: This is broad Jewish custom. (Halacha?)

Con: But not here, and not only that but their rabbi so ruled. (This isn't just a property of the morning minyan; it's true of all their services.) That makes not doing it "local halacha".

Pro: Slower people feel rushed and/or stomped on now.

Con: If we wait, the last person to finish may feel self-conscious (like he's holding the rest of us up).

Con: It may be hard for the leader (or at least this one) to tell when people are finished, because some just stay standing rather than sitting down only to get back up for the chatzi kaddish and torah service when everyone's done. (Remember that this congregation doesn't do a chazan's repetition of the t'filah, so if you sit down after the silent one it's brief. Some don't bother.)

Obviously, because their rabbi has made a ruling, this discussion isn't about making the change directly but about approaching the rabbi -- which I'll only do if this group agrees on the proposal.

I pried myself out of bed this morning to go to minyan; while normally I would have slept in on a day off from work, as the leader I didn't have that option. There were two other people when I got there (five minutes early). By the start time we were up to six, but unfortunately we topped out at nine. I often have to skip the first kaddish or two; a few times I've had to skip barchu; once I had to skip kedusha. I've never had to skip the torah service and mourners' kaddish before. That was weird, and unsatisfying. (The torah reader wasn't thrilled either.)

(I mean this is the first time in this congregation. I had to skip a torah service once at my home congregation.)

(For those who don't know, the parts of the service I listed are ones that require a minyan, ten adults, to do.)

The group has apparently talked about starting services later on secular holidays, but there were objections -- from people who were not there this morning. I predict that they will revisit the question. :-)

There's a point in the morning service where we study a little bit of torah. For reasons unknown to me, the weekday morning minyan almost always reads something from Pirke Avot in that slot, rather than the usual text called for in the siddur. So I've been doing that since starting to lead that service because, well, that's what they do. But I've sometimes seen variation from this norm, and these readings didn't really seem to be doing their job, so I decided to try something new -- short bits about the weekly parsha. (Yeah, I should have started last week. Didn't think of it then.) This is supposed to be study, not a d'var torah, so my plan is to repeat something from a source, not add my own layer of interpretation. We'll see how this goes over (no noticable reactions today).

Today's bit:

We might ask: why was it necessary for God to destroy the whole world with the flood? Was there no possibility of redemption? We learn in Midrash Tanchuma that when Noach was commanded to build the ark, he began by planting cedar trees. The people asked him what he was doing and he told them about the coming flood, but they ridiculed him. Later, he cut down the grown trees to make planks, and again the people asked him and ridiculed him when they heard his answer. Noach then built the ark, and only after all of that did God send the flood.

Meta: When we were doing Pirke Avot I just read out of a siddur; with this my choices were to carry a book in with me (the one where I found the passage), make a copy, or do it from memory. I opted for the last. I was a little nervous, but I think it'll be fine next time.

( Why do this? )

( Read more... )

Then we came home and watched West Wing, thanks to a coworker's tape. Yup, we both thought we'd correctly identified the leak. And is it my imagination, or is more of current-day American politics creeping into that show? I mean, it always rang true or it wouldn't have worked, but it feels a little more like I'm seeing last week's newspaper stories on the show this week, and that feels different.

During the torah service it's traditional to say a prayer for healing for specific, named individuals. (The congregation keeps a list or allows people to speak up.) This morning someone spoke up and said "can we say something for the bombing victims?" and David, who leads the torah service, said "we'll do that later". I immediately wondered two things: (1) what bombing? and (2) what does he have in mind?

(I know about the bombing now, but I don't routinely look at news before leaving the house. And it was probably too late for this morning's paper anyway, and I certainly didn't have time to check the web.)

While other people were preparing the torah scroll to be put away David took my siddur, hastily flipped through it, and pointed to a page of supplementary prayers for healing. It was just a psalm (I think -- I didn't see a label, though I noted a page number to check later), which we read in English. I asked him when to do this, and he said between the end of the torah service and Aleinu. So I did.

My instincts didn't go in that direction at all. I would have been looking for another misheberach to insert into the torah service, right after the one for individuals. I never would have thought to look where he did in the siddur. Actually, at my own congregation we would have just added the unnamed bombing victims onto the other prayer, on the theory that even if we don't know their names God does. (I believe the misheberach is also intended specifically for Jews, while this other reading was probably more general, but in our congregation we don't strictly enforce that either. We've certainly added known non-Jews to our list, like the head of the local Islamic center when he was ill. He's a friend of our communtiy.)

This is not the sort of thing that comes up often, so I was impressed by David's agility in immediately coming up with an answer. I wonder how much was knowledge and how much improvisation. I hope this is something I get better at in time.

I also hope I get better at faking that knowing look when I really have no idea what people are talking about. :-)

Disclaimer: this has nothing to do with my employment. If it did, I wouldn't be posting it for the world to see. :-)

Recently I was talking with someone about moonlighting, and the question came up: what exactly is wrong with moonlighting, anyway? In trying to sort out my answer to that question, I've concluded that it's "it depends".

One issue is conflict of interest. If you're the CTO of Google and you pick up a job as lead programmer for an up-and-coming search-engine company on the side, I'd argue that you have a problem there. At the other end of the spectrum, if you're working shifts at both McDonalds and K-Mart, or even if you're the CTO of Google and you're also working at a local restaurant, who cares?

But quite aside from that are the questions of the type of work and your own abilities. Specifically, if you have a job that requires some sort of creative energy (Google yes, McDonalds no), then you have to ask if the second job is drawing effort you "owe" to the first. I'm not saying an employer owns you 24x7, of course, but if you're, say, a salaried lead programmer, you're probably thinking about architecture, algorithms, and your particular problem domain at times other than when you're billing your time. That's a good thing; personally, I have some of my best ideas either in the shower or while driving in to work. (And sometimes Shabbat afternoon, but if I find work thoughts popping up then I try to banish them.) So if you're a full-time programmer with another gig on the side, do you have enough creative juice to go around so that you're giving them both the level of effort that you would have otherwise given the one? For some people the answer is yes and for some it's no; you have to know yourself here. (And in some ways you can benefit from re-use; yes for architecture and no for specific domains.)

If you are the sort of person who can manage that, then there's still the issue of appearances. Often appearance is more important than reality in the professional world; if your peers or employers think you're shortchanging them, it's going to be a whole lot of hassle to convince them otherwise. So you have to decide if it's worth it.

I've been couching this in terms of employment, but it can apply in other areas too. The consequences are less severe in a volunteer or low-pay millieu; if I sing in a congregational choir and play dance music once a week for the SCA and play blues every Saturday night in a club (to choose three things I'm not currently doing), it may be that I'm spending less time rehearsing any one sort of music than I would otherwise, but so long as I'm meeting the minimum obligations no one's going to argue that I should be kicked out. On the other hand, if it appears that I'm shorting the dance band because I'm hoping my blues career will take off, that could engender bad feelings even if it's not true.

( practical applications )

In an odd twist of timing, the rabbi emeritus of the other synagogue showed up to services this morning. This is, I'm pretty sure, the first time I've seen him this year; he travels a lot and doesn't always come to minyan even when he's in town. But he was there today (with a guest).

He hadn't seen me lead that service before, and he said lots of complimentary things to me afterwards. He also said he was heading off (with said guest, who turned out to be someone from JNF or UJF or some other Jewish TLA) to a meeting with my rabbi and he was planning to say nice things to him about me. Heh -- I'm glad I had that conversation yesterday. :-) Later in the day I got email from my own rabbi commenting positively on this.

So I think my rabbi is supportive. Time will tell how this affects my leadership opportunities in my congregation. (The worship committee is meeting next week; I don't yet know if lay leadership for Friday nights is on the agenda.)

I talked with my rabbi today about my leading services at the other shul. He already knew that I've been going there for shacharit for years (not every day); I told him that this was because of ties to a particular group of people, not to that synagogue or movement in general, and if that minyan were to disband I would not seek out another. I'm committed to my movement, my synagogue, and my rabbi; I just don't see a conflict with also participating elsewhere in small doses. (My synagogue does not have a daily morning minyan.) I then told him that I'm leading that service once a week, that this was because they had asked me (I didn't initiate), and that I'd said "no" for a good long time before agreeing. I asked if this was a problem for him. (I also apologized for not coming to him about this much earlier.)

The discussion went in two main directions. There were the liturgical questions -- how do I feel about praying for the restoration of the temple sacrifices, resurrection of the dead, and so on? I work around the first [1] and am comfortable viewing the second metaphorically, so those aren't problems. We are going to discuss the liturgy more next time, when I actually remember to bring a copy of that particular siddur along.

The other part of the discussion had to do with appearances. How large is this minyan? Could I be seen as being the leader of the group in general, which has implications beyond the service? We concluded that there is not an issue here; I'm one of several people who leads (and I'm not the main one), I'm on a short leash liturgically, I'm not doing anything else in that congregation, and the group is small (we usually have a minyan by Barchu, but usually not by Kaddish d'Rabbanan).

We also talked about my motivations and whether this fits with my educational path; everything appears to be fine there after discussion.

So everything's fine, but I really should have had the clue to talk with him when it first came up. I find it really hard to initiate conversations sometimes; with luck I'll get better at this. I really feel close to my rabbi, but there's also this professional arm's-length separation that prevents us from just being friends who talk about things. I wonder how I can change that.

( footnotes )

The job of a service leader is to lead the congregation in prayer. In other words, the leader serves the rest of the group. In my limited experience, this means the leader himself usually doesn't get to immerse himself in prayer in the same way he would out in the congregation. But if he does it right, he can help buoy the congregation, making it a little easier for them to pray.

This morning I was really tired (Dani snores), and I didn't have high expectations for my ability to lead. But I did, 'cause that's my job, and anyway, Dave (my mentor in that minyan) wasn't there. (I knew I was still competent, or I wouldn't have.) And you know what? Sometime during p'sukei d'zimra the congregration was helping to support me, which doesn't usually happen. I don't think they even knew it. Things went swimmingly from that point. It was pretty neat. While I've experienced that feeling in my congregation, I've not previously experienced it in this minyan.

Background: Often, the publishers of a prayer book also publish a "pulpit edition", a larger copy with larger type but otherwise identical. A few times I have noticably stumbled when leading morning services; it's obvious to everyone that the regular siddur is right at the limits of my vision (as modified by available lighting). A few weeks ago I casually asked if we were going to buy a pulpit edition and I was told one didn't exist yet. We have a "pulpit copy" of the regular edition that's been marked up with highlighter pen, but the first time I tried to use it I found that the highlighting caused problems for me (too dark, so reduced contrast making it harder to read the text). I made a comment to that effect and ever since have used a regular copy. It's not like I don't know all the cues by now anyway.

So, this morning I was surprised to find, when I got onto the bimah, a shiny new pulpit edition in the larger size. Woot! I opened it up to a random page and marvelled at the crisp, clear, Hebrew. This would make it much easier for me. The joy was short-lived, though; I turned to the beginning of the morning service to find that someone had highlighted all the leader's parts in blue. That's even worse than the pink they used previously. And even with the larger print size, it looked dicey and I didn't use it for fear of making mistakes. Some of those blue sections were dark -- even in the English I would have had trouble in places, let alone the Hebrew.

I really really hope that this is something they were going to get anyway, and that they didn't specifically get a book for my use and then mark it up in a way that makes it unusable for me. I would feel bad about causing them that expense, even though the markup isn't my doing and I would have said something if I'd known. Other people will certainly get use out of it; I only lead one morning a week, after all. But... ack.

For the record: if text must be highlighted directly, yellow is best. But better than marking over the text is to put highlighting (of any color) in the margins, with a tick next to the first word if that's ambiguous. The only time I've marked up a leader's copy of a siddur that's what I did, and it worked fine. (And, by the way: orange. When it's not going over text it's better for it to be a nice obvious color.)

Someone called a meeting for next Thursday morning. Initially I thought "hmm, I could get here in time for that if I skip the minyan's breakfast after services". Then I looked more closely at the calendar and realized that, it being the day before Purim, it's a public fast day -- so no breakfast after services. Ok, one problem solved.

Another problem created: I need to make sure I'm familiar enough with the insertions into the liturgy for public fast days to be able to lead them next week. Either that or get David to lead that part. (I know we insert Avinu Malkeinu after the Amidah; I can't remember if there are other changes. Fortunately, I own a copy of the siddur we use, so there shouldn't be any surprises.)

I happened to glance at next month on the calendar and noticed that the fast of the first-born (before Pesach) also falls on a Thursday, my day to lead services. This one poses more uncertainty -- it's a public fast day but only for some people. Breakfast will be held, taking advantage of a rather dubious rules hack, but I don't know what liturgical changes are implied for a day on which some people must fast and others not. Fortunately, I have a month to find out. :-)

There are five minor fasts in the calendar. Three have to do with the destruction of the temple and one falls before Purim (commemorating Esther's call for a fast before she tried to save her people). These apply to everyone, but they don't resonate for me at all. I can't say exactly why, at least in the case of Purim. Maybe it's this nagging question of why this attempt to wipe out the Jewish people in a particular area warrants special treatment when it's not a singleton -- just the first that the rabbis noted. I don't know; I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it.

But the fifth of these minor fasts is the fast of the first-born on the day before Pesach (or earlier if that would cause it to interfere with Shabbat, like this year). This fast exists because of the tenth plague, the one that killed the first-born malees. Jewish first-born were spared but this is later given as a reason that first-born men belong to the temple for service to God. (There is a redmption mechanism, called pidyan ha-ben -- which is good because otherwise those people would be stuck today.) And of all the minor fasts, this one resonates for me. Isn't that odd? I'm a first-born woman whose ancestors were never endangered by this plague, though obviously had I been there I would have been.

I'm a woman, so traditional Judaism would say I'm not obligated. But a consequence of being egalitarian is that I don't get out of it that easily; if I believe men are obligated, then I am obligated too.

I don't know if we are obligated, but I should give this one more thought. I've tended to non-observance in the past, or going along with that rules hack I mentioned, but I'm beginning to think that the correct thing for me is to (1) keep the fast and (2) not use the rules hack. I've got a month to figure that out, too.

Monica

a little cognitive dissonance

Shavuot morning: not what I expected

daf bit: Shabbat 127

morning minyan

random (Jewish) bits

this morning's service

morning minyan and melodies

splitting the baby

wearing a kippah?

Ivrit

work retreat, morning minyan

dissecting a compliment

assorted congregational doings

morning minyan

changing minhag

this morning's service

parsha bit: Noach

Sukkot (mostly)

I wonder if they teach this in seminaries

moonlighting

morning minyan

my rabbi and the morning minyan

oh, it does go in both directions

good news, bad news

public fasts, liturgy, and obligations

Expand Cut Tags

Syndicate