cellio | Entries tagged with shabbaton

This shabbat we had our approximately-annual shabbaton, or Shabbat retreat. Because everybody's there for the duration -- nobody has to run home for lunch guests or the like -- we can be more relaxed and have time for conversation. I like that aspect a lot.

When my rabbi read the fourth aliyah (Genesis chapter 14) in the morning service, he commented that the passage seems tangential and wondered what it's there to teach us. At lunch afterwards, I told him I could think of four reasons for that chapter to be there:

redemption of captives (Avram had to rescue Lot after the war)
we can't always isolate ourselves and sometimes get drawn into others' conflicts
tithing
Avram superseding Malki-Tzedek, a priest of God according to the text

My rabbi asked if I got that from Mi Yodeya. :-) I know I've asked a question about Malki-Tzedek, but the rest of this was my own reasoning.

He then added a fifth: consequences of bad choices. Lot could have gone anywhere when he split from Avram, and he chose S'dom.

This week was my congregation's annual shabbaton. We take over a cabin in the "suburbs" of Zelienople and have a grand time. This year was the largest I've seen at 42 people, and all of them seemed to be engaged in it. It was great.

When nobody feels pressure (got to get upstairs to the bar mitzvah, got to beat the lunch guests home, whatever), we can relax and just take our time with services. I don't get that very often and I treasure it. We had kabbalat shabbat out on the porch in the fading sun (plus there were porch lights). Saturday morning after the service we had an energetic discussion of part of the parsha (Tazria [1]), interrupted only by our need to walk up to the main building for lunch (but it continued later in smaller pockets).

Speaking of which: ( Read more... )

Friday night we had a study session around the second chapter of Pirke Avot (teachings of the fathers, where a lot of the sayings we "all know" come from). We broke into pairs or trios to study for a while and then each group shared something it learned. We've used this study method before and I find it works well; it's harder to do in-depth study with 42 people all together, but by doing it this way I learned things both from my group and the larger group.

Saturday afternoon we tried something new. My rabbi asked a few of us to prepare chugim, short sessions to run concurrently, so people could learn what they want. I taught (well, lead a study of) a section of talmud -- how various rabbis concluded their individual prayer at the end of the t'filah. (B'rachot 16b-17a, for anyone following along at home.) I approached this from the prayer context, not the talmud context -- we have this fixed text that we say every service and then we're supposed to say our own prayer, but maybe not everybody is comfortable doing that. The idea was to present a range of things that are recorded in our tradition; maybe people would get some new ideas.

I had not realized, and did not think to ask at the beginning, that no one there other than me had actually studied any talmud before -- maybe they'd seen material that came from the talmud, but they'd never looked at a page of talmud before. I, not knowing this, gave only the scantest of introductions to talmud itself (here's what the full page looks like, here's where we are, here's an interlinear translation to follow 'cause nobody here including me is going to read the Aramaic straight from the page). When I learned at the end that this was new to everybody, part of me wondered if I should have given more of an intro -- but I think not, on reflection. I helped a group of people just dive in to something that many consider intimidating; I think that probably left them all feeling better, and more confident, than a "talmud 101 using this text as an example" class would have been. I am becoming a big fan of the "just do it" school of teaching.

( footnote )

This shabbat was our congregation's annual retreat. We had several first-timers this year, in part due to better promotion, and I enjoyed getting to know them better. The study sessions were mostly done in small groups and we kept the same groups throughout (mostly); the other two people in my group were a first-timer I didn't know past his name (he's only been to the shabbat morning minyan a few times so far) and a second-timer I've gotten to know just a bit over the last year. While you can have amazing, deep discussions with people you've known well for years (I had a great experience like that last year), you can also have deep discussions with people you've just met, and I enjoyed that this year. The study sessions revolved around four questions in the book of B'reishit (Genesis): ayeka? (where are you?), ma t'vakeish? (what do you seek?), ha-shomeir achi anochi? (am I my brother's keeper?), and lamah zeh anochi? (why am I?).

We stayed up pretty late Friday night singing and more of the songs than usual were enjoyable to me -- a good mix of Hebrew songs and mostly 60s/70s folk music, with very few intrusions from the first half of the 20th century this year. (I recognize that older attendees feel about the music of the 30s and 40s the way I feel about music of the 60s, but I personally dislike the earlier era's music, at least what I've heard of it.)

For the torah service the rabbi did group aliyot based on how many shabbatons people had been at. (So everybody gets an aliyah, like on Simchat Torah. Nice.) I was a little startled that there were only five of us in the "10 or more" group, out of 32 people present. When did I become a quasi-elder of the group? :-)

There were other groups and activities at the campground (not surprising). Saturday morning we saw signs directing another group to the "Easter bunny brunch". It's dangerous to give a phrase like that to a bunch of Jewish geeks. We decided that while the wording was ambiguous they were probably eating with the Easter bunny rather than upon it, but that led to questions about the nature of the Easter bunny. Is it a single immortal being, like Santa Claus is understood to be, or do Easter bunnies retire and get replaced? Is there a training program and merit-based selection, or do Easter bunnies come from one unbroken family line (like kings, absent conquest) and there's always an heir apparent, or is it like the Dalai Lama and the reincarnated Easter bunny is identified in each generation? And, more specific to our group, are Elaine's iconic bunny slippers at all involved? Alas, these questions went unanswered, except that we think Elaine's slippers are likely to be innocent byhoppers.

This week was my congregation's annual shabbaton. I want more shabbatot like that. :-)

( 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.

This Shabbat was my congregation's annual shabbat retreat. I look forward to this every year -- sorry to anyone who was looking for me at AEthelmearc War Practice this weekend, but this takes priority. This year was also exactly my tenth "anniversary" -- ten years ago on the 36th day of the Omer, on a Friday, in the morning I went to the mikveh and then in the afternoon I went to my first shabbaton. This past Friday was again the 36th day of the Omer. Nifty that it lined up like that. My rabbi let me read torah and he gave me a special blessing, there with the core community. Nice.

Friday night after dinner and services and usually some teaching, we have a singalong. Usually everything sung is at least one of: a Hebrew song, a folk song from the 60s, or an easy song whose lyrics are in the songsheets or Rise Up Singing. This year there was a second guitarist (so my rabbi didn't have to do it all) who brought his own musical preferences. So there were a lot of songs from the 40s, and I found they really didn't resonate for me at all. I wonder if today's college kids feel the same way about the music of the 60s as I do about the music of the 40s.

My rabbi always prepares a bunch of material for study, more than we ever get to. This might be the rabbinic equivalent of the Jewish mother: heaven forbid we should run out of food, so cook twice as much as you need. :-) (To be clear: I'm not complaining, and I would probably do the same thing in his place.) This year I perceived that he had not gone so far as he usually does, and I think he was also more relaxed. Some years it feels like everybody else gets to rest on the shabbaton but he doesn't; this year I think he did too. Whatever changed, I hope we can keep it.

There was an amusing glitch in communications with the campground. We're not sure how this happened, but as we were eating lunch someone came in to tell us that the climbing wall would be ready for us at 1:30. Climbing wall? Someone apparently thought we'd booked a climbing wall. We always have some unscheduled time at the shabbaton and this was during it, so a few people went and reportedly had fun (and no one broke anything). Since the description of the facility did not include big piles of fluffy pillows, I decided to pass. :-) (Actually, I don't think I'd be uncomfortable climbing up; it's getting back down that would bother me.)

I get different things out of the shabbaton each year -- sometimes the learning stands out, sometimes the prayer, sometimes other things. This year what stood out is the connection with the other people in the group. There were a few people there who I don't know well, and I got to know them a little better. And with everyone, it felt like we were all there for the same thing and people cared about each other. It was neat.

In a "small world" moment, as we were driving out at the end we drove past an archery range, and one of the people I was riding with said if he'd known he'd have brought his bow. So we talked about archery at one point, and in the process I mentioned the SCA, and he said "do you know Gwilym?". Heh. They were coworkers for many years.

This Shabbat was my congregation's annual retreat. Another congregant put it well: this morning (parshat Emor) we read about the appointed times of the calendar (the festivals), and to many of us, this retreat is another such time. I haven't missed one of these retreats since joining the congregation, and it's hard to imagine something that would cause me to miss one now.

( Read more... )

This Shabbat was my congregation's annual retreat. I look forward to this every year. This year there were 30 of us (a few more than last year); we get a rural lodge and spend Shabbat singing, praying, studying, and talking. (And eating. I'm told it's genetically impossible for Jews to get together without lots of food. :-) )

( Read more... )

This weekend was my congregation's annual shabbaton (Shabbat retreat). A couple dozen of us, mostly regulars from the morning minyan, go to a cabin in rural PA to pray, study, talk, and eat. It's something I always look forward to, and this year was once again a good experience.

( Read more... )

This weekend was my congregation's annual Shabbat retreat. I had a really good time, and I found myself focusing inward more than I have in the past. Neither of the unpleasant people who sometimes come came, which probably helped. Unfortunately, a couple of our regulars couldn't make it at the last minute due to illnesses. We had 24 people in the end, which is a good size for discussions.

I'm not going to do a detailed chronicle here, but I'll mention a few things that particularly struck me.

( Read more... )

I have heard the following story before, and my rabbi told it again at the shabbaton:

A poor man in the shtetl has a dream one night that he should go to a certain bridge in Prague and dig under it to find a treaure. The man shrugs it off. The next night he has the same dream, but it feels more urgent. He'd love to have enough money to feed his family, he thinks, and mentions the dream to his wife, but following a dream is silly so he shrugs it off again. The next night the dream is even more intense, metaphorically picking him up by his shirt, shaking him, and telling him to go to Prague and dig under the bridge. The next morning, over objections from his family, he says he's going to do this and sets out.

After several days he arrives in Prague and finds the bridge from his dreams. He feels embarrassed, and there's a watchman there, so he just stands around for a while. Eventually, overcoming the awkward feeling, he begins to dig in the dirt with his hands, at which point the watchman asks what he's doing. He answers evasively and the watchman summons the police, who escort the man to jail for loitering.

The police ask him why he was digging and eventually he says "this is really silly, but I had this dream that if I came to this bridge and dug, I would find enough money to feed my family". The guard laughs at him, saying: "Ha! Just last night I had a dream that if I went to the home of some stupid Jew 50 miles west of here and dug under his stove, I'd find a treasure! You don't see me doing that, do you? Dreams are just dreams. Go on, get out of here." And he sends the man on his way. The man, of course, goes back home, digs under his stove, and finds a treasure.

Sometimes you have to travel away from your home to find something that was there all along. This Shabbat was kind of like that for me.

This year's shabbaton was wonderful. The sense of connection and completeness that it provides is just so much stronger than a "regular" Shabbat. I want more of that! :-)

We had 24 people this year, and went back to the site we used before the one we've been using for the last few years. This site is a longer drive and is a little more primitive in some ways, but it's in a more pleasant location (lake, trees, privacy) than the other, and the communal space is more comfortable. I also found the staff we encountered to be more friendly. And it doesn't have crosses and stuff all over the place like the Lutheran camp. I hope we keep going to this one.

One of the best things about a retreat like this is that you're not time-constrained. You don't have to worry about the folks who are getting antsy because the service is running long and they want to get their kids in bed, or the rabbi isn't getting ready to run upstairs for the second service, and stuff like that. Things take as long as they take and no one cares. So we took some things slower, and did stuff we sometimes skip, and experimented with some things. (Like an actual individual Amidah -- this congregation is mostly used to saying it together, and I've been hoping we would try cutting people loose to go at their own pace. That seemed to work, so I hope we do it more.)

Friday night, after the service and dinner and before the singing that goes into the wee hours, is usually kind of quiet and meditative (niggunim, storytelling, focusing on breathing, and so on). That worked really well this year. I think my rabbi was fairly relaxed by then, maybe more relaxed than in past years.

I found myself being my rabbi's "right-hand man" in assorted things. It was very natural for both of us. ( Read more... )

This afernoon during the study session we talked about middot, which are, basically, self-improvement techniques. (The text we had referred to this as "tikkun middot", analogous to "tikkun olam" but focused inward rather than outward.) I've encountered many of the ideas before, of course, but not all neatly packaged up under a single heading. Some of them are things I've been working on for years; others are things I should work on more; still others are things that I think I mostly have a reasonable grasp of.

I spent some time this afternoon with one of our newer torah readers, who will be reading in a few weeks (Bamidbar). She asked if I could chant some of her portion for her (she wanted to check some things). I said "I'm not very good at sight-reading, but let me look at it". I did, and it was all standard trope with no surprises, and the text was very easy (and repetitive), so as it turned out, I could chant it for her. Nifty! I'm glad a new person got this portion; we assign portions based on dates, mostly, not based on any sort of evaluation of difficulty.

Odd encounter: Friday when we arrived I noticed that one of the staff members seemed to be staring at me, but I shrugged it off. A bit later he came up to me and said "I think I know you but I don't know why". So we started comparing notes; it turns out that his brother was fringe SCA at CMU when I was there, and he recognized me from visits to his brother's fraternity house (where the SCA hung out and a RuneQuest! game I was in was held). Small world. He's now working for AOL in Virginia, but he works at this camp on some weekends. (Am I just incredibly bad at things like this, or is this a fluke? I would not know by sight any of my sister's friends from 20+ years ago; heck, I probably wouldn't recognize most of my own college classmates, if we weren't otherwise close.)

The only problem we had the entire time was in following the directions to get there. For my (and maybe your) amusement, here follow the directions with my annotations in italics: ( fluff )

This shabbat is our morning minyan's annual retreat. These are always a blast -- spending an entire Shabbat with like-minded people. We're going to have fewer like-minded people this year than usual due to various scheduling problems, but the last number I heard was 24 and that's past critical mass. So we'll go to a cabin in the woods, and we'll study and sing and pray, and other people will feed us. I should take the tikkun and the trope book, just in case someone expresses curiosity. And anyway, David (the reader at Tree of Life) agreed this morning to let me chant for my "birthday" portion in two weeks, so I should review that. (I've done the first two weekday aliyot before, so that's just rust. I'm welcome to tackle the third, but no pressure.)

I'll be riding to the retreat with a new member (of both the congregation and the minyan), which should be fun. She's a retired professor of Jewish history, if I understand correctly. She seems smart and clueful.

Random factoid learned from our top-notch administrator: the torah scroll always gets wrapped in colorless plastic for the trip, never a black bag -- because black bags are well-understood as trash bags. Hmm, never thought about that, but yeah -- wouldn't want anything to happen to that! (Hmm. I wonder if anyone in the minyan has basic woodworking skills. A box for transporting a sefer torah shouldn't be that hard, if you've got the tools and the clues.)

This Saturday is the Shabbat service where I'll be chanting Torah. I have the first piece. (There are, I think, five readers total.) This should be nifty. I went over the portion with my co-worker again today and things seem to be in order. (I also went over it with Aya, a fellow congregant, at the shabbaton.) I think my plan to chant Behar at Tree of Life the following week might fail, though; the portions are too similar, and I'm getting cognitive dissonance. (When I first set out to do this I thought the portions were two weeks apart, not one.) Oh well; if not this year, then next.

The shabbaton featured some very good conversations that I find myself unable to summarize. We spent some time in the morning studying Pirke Avot (particularly talking about discipline in study and observance), and some time in the afternoon talking about how we relate to God and why we're uncomfortable talking about God. Friday night included a lot of music and storytelling.

A while ago I noticed a big difference in approaches to ritual between the liberal and traditional Jews I know. The shabbaton provided another example with havdalah, the ceremony marking the end of Shabbat. I've done this with traditional friends who've done it quickly and matter-of-factly, not because they were rushed but because that's just the way you do things. At the shabbaton, havdalah extended for a good 15 minutes (maybe more), with music. We were relaxed about it. It is the difference between fulfilling a specific obligation, because you have to, and infusing a ritual with meaning (or at least making it fun). You can see something similar with prayer sometimes; we say fewer words than they do, but we don't rush it as much as some of them do. (Far be it from me to generalize to all traditional Jews. I'm talking about trends I've seen, nothing more.) When you've got so much text that it'll take you 40 minutes to get through (daily) morning prayers touching every word, you don't have much incentive to linger.

I sometimes wish that the Reform movement would put a little more of the traditional content back, but I don't want to end up in a tradition of speed-davening at the expense of paying attention to what the words actually mean. There must be a balance point.

The shabbaton was wonderful, and I'm finally able to articulate why: I get to spend an entire Shabbat (well, less a couple hours) with like-minded people (whom I know) doing Shabbat-appropriate activities. My typical Shabbat is effectively solitary, aside from going to services and the very occasional guest. Here we could pray together (without worrying about being done in time for the second service), linger over meals and zemirot (songs), talk theology, study together, sing, listen to Chassidic stories, and schmooze. I wish I could capture more of those elements for more of my Shabbats.

Tonight after Shabbat we went with friends to see a movie I'd never heard of, Bend It Like Beckham. All I knew was that it's a British film about a Sikh girl caught between her traditional family and her desire to play soccer. We didn't have high expectations but an evening with friends sounded like fun, so we decided to give it a shot. The movie turned out to be a great deal of fun, and it was very well-done. I don't know if this is part of the mainstream movie circuit or if you have to hunt it down, but I recommend looking for it.

I'm heading off to my congregation's annual Shabbat retreat. It's been a wonderful experience every time I've gone, and I'm sure this one will be no exception.

Wow. Just wow.

More later in friends-only posts. (If I have non-friend readers who want to see this, get in touch.)

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