My synagogue, like everyone else, shut down in mid-March. They've been holding Shabbat services over Zoom; most Reform Jews don't care about using computers on Shabbat but I do, so I haven't joined. But I miss my minyan, and also we've been preparing for my rabbi's retirement (all those celebrations went out the window too), so, um.

A couple weeks ago the Conservative movement put out a detailed analysis of the issue. Their conclusion (and yes I read the supporting documentation, all 35 pages of it) was that, basically, passive computer-based stuff you set in motion before Shabbat is ok under these specific exceptional circumstances (do not extrapolate beyond COVID). Starting two weeks ago I've used my tablet (intentional: battery, not wall current) to join the Zoom meeting before Shabbat. I left it sitting there with a headset plugged in, with my video turned off and mic muted. (Even remembered to disable my password lock so I could see the video feed.)

People tried to interact with me that first week, but I didn't want to interact with the software on Shabbat to unmute and apparently they couldn't do that remotely, so oh well. I had a conversation with my rabbi about this, saying I'd talk if I didn't have to do anything but I did so I couldn't.

This Shabbat was my rabbi's last as our senior rabbi, after 32 years with us. It was, as you'd expect, a very emotional service, and I'm glad I could attend even in this limited way. (Better, of course, would have been for us to all be together physically, but that is not within our power.) I knew that someone in the minyan was organizing a thing at the end where each of us would say just a few words (the request was to share something fun, not teary), but as usual I didn't expect to be able to join in. Only during the service did it occur to me that had I gone to the home of another willing participant, I might have been able to passively benefit from others' use of Zoom. But I don't know how kosher it would have been to set that up in advance even if I'd thought of it.

So there I was, sitting in my living room with my tablet on the chair next to me, listening to people share stories... when my cat walked across the tablet.

And unmuted me.

And somebody noticed and said "hey, Monica unmuted", so I explained about the cat, who they declared to be a "Shabbos cat" in the nature of the "Shabbos goy".

And then I ad-libbed a response (everyone else had had time to prepare), and I felt like I was part of the goodbye for a rabbi who has meant a great deal to me.

Thanks Orlando. I don't know how you did that, but I'll take it.

But every time something like the to'evah (abomination -- and yes, I understand the strength of that word) of this past Friday's service happens, a tiny little voice speaks up in the back of my mind saying "you know, this could be a lot easier on you...". It's frustrating. If it weren't for the excellent relationships I've formed in my congregation, including both of our rabbis, I sometimes wonder...

So, this Shabbat the Reform movement celebrated its sisterhood's 100th anniversary (movement-wide, not just us). Cool -- sisterhood has never, ever spoken to me (and in fact I believe its existence violates a core principle of Reform theology, but that's a different post), but I can understand the desire to celebrate that milestone and all their accomplishments, honor their leaders, and so on. The international president of the sisterhood umbrella organization happens to be a member of my congregation, so clearly we were going to do something. So Friday's service was led by sisterhood leaders from a siddur produced by a committee of that umbrella organization.

They wrote a "creative" service. Cue ominous music here.

So what we got was an evening service that ran almost two hours (!) and still managed to omit half the amidah and all the brachot around the sh'ma except one (there was a song for hashkiveinu). Also all of kabbalat shabbat except L'cha Dodi, but we never get a complete kabbalat shabbat unless I'm running it, so that's noteworthy in degree but not in type (we usually do more than this, though not all). Are they kidding me? Who thought this was ok? Rabbis and cantors on the committee, apparently, so part of me is glad I don't know their identities as my opinion of them has just gone way down. (My rabbi tried to salvage some of the omissions during the service; I don't know if he had had a chance to vet this service beforehand or if he had trusted his colleagues.)

What did they fill all that time with? Lots of poetry, lots of "women are great" readings, lots of sisterhood self-congratulations, half a dozen "how sisterhood changed my life" testimonials incorrectly labeled as a d'var torah in the program... all sorts of stuff that would be more appropriate at a celebratory dinner than at a Shabbat service. Shabbat, and God, got short shrift -- at a Shabbat service.

(There was also a short torah service (we do that on Friday nights about half the time), with group aliyot. The last one of the three was for anyone who belongs to sisterhood; I didn't go up because they said "belongs", not "pays dues to"; I've never felt I belonged but as a board member I'm required to be a member on paper.)

When I got there and saw the service booklet I considered turning around and leaving. In retrospect I should have, perhaps visibly. Instead I ignored their service at times and picked up our regular siddur instead so I could have a valid Shabbat service. (My rabbi noticed.) But after the mourner's kaddish I saw that there were still a couple more pages of readings and stuff, plus they were going to teach a new closing song, and at that point I just said dayeinu and left. Ugh.

If they had wanted to have a special additional service that would be one thing. But this displaced the regular community service. In that regard it was even worse than a typical Reform bar mitzvah, and I hadn't realized that was possible. It is possible to honor people while preserving community norms, but that isn't a strong-enough guiding principle in the Reform movement. I alternate between being sad and saying "how dare they?".

When I got home I set aside what I had been planning to talk about in Saturday morning's d'var torah (it was my turn) and mentally assembled something else instead. That'll be forthcoming, but in case you wonder when you see it, yes there's a connection.

On today's daf the rabbis discuss throwing things (which counts as carrying). Suppose there is a tree on private ground with a branch overhanging public ground, and you throw something and it lands on the branch? Rabbi says the branch is as the trunk, so if you throw it from the public space you have transgressed by moving the object to a private domain. The sages, however, dispute this, saying we do not cast the branch after the trunk. (8a)

Usually "the sages" have the last word, though I'm not sure if that's always true and the g'mara here doesn't say. If any of my readers need to throw things on Shabbat outside of an eiruv, you should consult better sources than me.

There is no way that house is really only 1.6 miles from mine. The path is Pittsburgh-flat (nothing is really flat in Pittsburgh, but there were no major hills) and it took me 40 minutes to walk home. I don't mind a 40-minute walk in nice weather (which we actually had), but I was a little surprised.

Last Sunday we went to my niece's graduation (she got a master's degree from the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU). I hadn't realized the class was so large; I somehow had the impression, probably because of all the close collaboration they do, that there were maybe 25 students. I didn't count, but I think close to 100 graduated this year. Wow.

The ceremony was very well-organized. You know it's going to take a certain amount of time for each student to walk across the stage, receive a diploma, and pose for a photo with the folks on the stage (dean etc) -- so the emcee (I didn't retain her actual position) gave a short summary of each student while that was happening -- projects worked on, internships, and (where applicable) where the student would be working. She'd finish that, take three steps to be in the photo, then step back and start announcing the next student. And since all the projects were done by teams, meaning we'd be hearing the same names over and over, she managed to space out the explanations of what they were so that it wasn't tedious but we got clues about what they were rather than just names. Very smooth.

Today I got a notice in my mailbox from the neighborhood association. We have a neighborhood association? Cool! Not all of Squirrel Hill -- six blocks of our street plus some side streets. There is a block party in a few weeks that I will miss unless it rains (I'm free on the rain date), and there is apparently an email list (which I will now join). Even though we've lived here more than a decade I still do not know most of the neighbors, and it would be nice to start to fix that.

I recently came across rethinking egalitarianism and found myself emphatically saying "yes yes yes!" while reading. Excerpt:

Let's rethink what we mean by "egalitarianism." What if it meant "open to all who bother to make the effort"? What if synagogues distributed fliers that said: "Welcome! We are very glad you are here. Our service is somewhat traditional, because that traditional form works for us. You may be a little lost at first. So we warmly invite you to join our weekly Siddur 101 class, where you can learn the ropes." People who choose to accept the invitation obtain the rewards. Those who don't, don't. Not only would such an approach allow longtime participants to get more out of the prayer experience, but it would also suggest to newcomers that there's something worth working toward. Things that come cheap usually feel that way.

As I understand it, this is part of Rabbi Elie Kaunfer's argument in his recent book, "Empowered Judaism" (Jewish Lights Publishing). What the Jewish world needs, Kaunfer writes, is not more dumbing-down but more empowerment of individuals to opt in if they so desire. Before Kaunfer, this argument was Maimonides's: The best Judaism is really only for philosophers, but the opportunity to become a philosopher ought to be open to everybody.

American Jews have long prized education and knowledge. So why do we suddenly throw those values out the window when it comes to synagogue life? Is it really more inclusive to be patronized by a service aimed at the lowest common denominator?

( Friday night )

( some Saturday activities )

( Pirke Avot and a question about Rabbi Akiva )

What I really love about the shabbaton is that it preserves the sense of Shabbat past the end of the schmoozing after the morning service. It's a full Shabbat, which I rarely get. Except in the winter I often find Shabbat afternoons hard; in the summer Shabbat doesn't end until 9 or 9:30 (or later, a couple times), but my community pretty much disbands by noon and we haven't really gotten the "lunch and songs and torah discussion for a few hours in someone's home" meme going. (I invite people occasionally and need to do more, but I'm not critical mass. And a couple people, including my rabbi, are allergic to cats, sigh.) So Shabbat afternoon usually feels pretty isolated and restrictive for me; I'm not finding that joy I'm supposed to, many weeks.

I've discussed this with my rabbi in the context of his desire to start summer Shabbat services (on Friday) even earlier for the sake of families; if Shabbat already drags for me when why would I want to add an hour or two to it? During a break at the shabbaton we talked some about this and I asked if he thought we could have the occasional gathering in the synagogue after morning services -- either brown-bag or someone organizes food in advance. He seems open to the idea (but doesn't want to organize it, which I wasn't asking him to), so I'll see what I can do about that. We could eat and sing and discuss things like Pirke Avot. :-) We do have a monthly beit midrash in that timeslot, but people who aren't interested in the day's topic leave, so I'd like to create something more open and free-form on some of the days when we don't have the beit midrash. We'll see what happens.

There were about 20 people there, which someone said was a little small. Dor Chadash is a lay-led congregation, though the person who led this service is in rabbinic school (currently off and back home for the summer). There was also a cantorial soloist (someone said "cantor" but I don't think so). There was a lot of singing; many were melodies that I'd heard but don't know, but they were easy to pick up. I wish I had retained any of them. At least one felt like Carlebach to me, and I think I heard one or two of them at the kallah a couple weeks ago. Oh well; I'll encounter them again someday. Even if I would use a recorder on Shabbat, it's not like I would be inclined to carry one with me to services. :-)

They sang or read passages from several of the psalms in kabbalat shabbat (not all). At a rough guess the liturgical time was split fairly evenly between kabbalat shabbat and ma'ariv, which probably only stood out because of the kallah two weeks ago where kabblat shabbat was very much the lion's share with a quickie ma'ariv tacked on. Dor Chadash started the t'filah together but immediately went to individual recitation, and I was surprised by how fast they were (that is, how quickly people sat down). I was reciting it pretty efficiently (and skipping some bits once I picked up the vibe), but I was still the last to sit down. As a visitor I felt awkward, as if I'd come in from outside and slowed them down. But whoa was that fast -- maybe four minutes? (The cantorial soloist then chanted Magen Avot, which I suppose "covers" you if you didn't do your own, but I didn't know in advance that she would.)

There was a rabbi there (introduced as a guest), who gave a d'var torah. (He mentioned that he'd be reading torah the next morning; I don't know if he had any other leadership roles.) He talked about the beginning of Matot, which lists all the places Israel camped in the wilderness, and about the importance of remembering history and the effects of displacement. (It was more coherent coming out of his mouth then than my memory now.) Toward the beginning he asked the congregation how many places Israel camped and there was resounding silence, so I quietly answered. (I was in the second row, right in front of him.) I don't think I knew that I knew that until he asked, but I guess I did.

Everyone was very friendly after the service. I was the only newcomer, so it was easier for them to learn my name than for me to learn all of theirs. I talked for a while with a professor of music history at Pitt; we talked about 16th-century counterpoint, which I suspect surprised him as much as it surprised me for Shabbat conversation. And it turned out that the person who looked really familiar but I couldn't say why is a neighbor on my block, so we went home together. (And the friend who motivated that first visit was there too.)

Of the (local) places I've visited this summer, Dor Chadash is the clear winner so far. Next time I want to be somewhere other than my own congregation on a night when they are having services, I expect to go back.