![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuThe holidays were great.
Shmini Atzeret was very nice. For the first time in years, I wasn't assigned to daven geshem, which felt kind of weird, but the ba'al tefillah did it beautifully.
We were joined for Simchat Torah by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lucretia_borgia, sethg_prime, et fils, and it was delightful. The larger synagogue made it possible to switch from praying to dancing without a five-minute pause to clear away the chairs, and it also meant that the people who didn't want to dance had a place to sit and chat that wasn't in the way.
I'll post separately about my S"T shacharit davening, so that those who contributed ideas can see how it worked out.
Tani got his first real aliyah on S"T this year. He did very well; he remembered all the logistical steps and got the words and the melody right. He was ecstatic; as we walked off the bimah he asked me, "Did I really just do that?" and ran to tell Heather (who was in one of the rooms with a women's reading --- as an Orthodox synagogue, our community doesn't have men and women reading together, but as a Modern Orthodox synagogue, we have stations where women read for women so everyone can have an aliyah).
While I'm on the subject of our as-close-to-egalitarian-as-Orthodoxy-permits synagogue, this year we did Atah Hor'eita differently. Instead of going up and down the rows of the men's section; repeating as many times as needed to allow each man to read one line; we did it in groups. "Anyone who has written a book." "Anyone who comes to daily minyan." Not only did this keep things moving, but it allowed the women to participate equally with the men, without making a Big Feminist Deal out of it. Everyone loved this change, and it's a keeper for the future.
Shabbat was mostly quiet. Since it was a Shabbat Mevorchim, the shul had our monthly afternoon Women's Tefillah Group; Alissa got the honor of opening the aron kodesh, about which she was quite proud. It was the final service in the Legacy Sanctuary; this morning they started gutting that room to start Phase II of the synagogue renovations. (I was in there tonight to transfer some of the books from the downstairs library, which is being renovated, to the upstairs library, which was renovated in Phase I, and it was quite freaky seeing the place where we've prayed for the last fourteen years stripped to the walls.)
After Shabbat, we finished packing and hopped in the car to drive to NYC for my cousin's wedding, which was Sunday morning. The drive was quick and uneventful; the wedding was beautiful. I had been asked to be part of a TTBB quartet singing Eshet Chayil during the ceremony, along with (1) the groom, (2) my good friend Larry from Zamir who has known the groom for years, and (3) Cantor Charles Osborne, who had composed the piece along with a new original setting of the entire wedding ceremony and who was mesader kiddushin. It was an honor to be a part of it and I think we performed the piece well. My cousin was a beautiful bride and it was wonderful to see her so happy. May she and her husband have many years of happiness together and may they be blessed to build a bayit neeman b'Yisrael.
The kids had a good time at the wedding; they got to see their cousins and Alissa in particular was thrilled to be at a wedding for the first time.
And this morning we joined our good friends J and A at the domestic bat mitzvah celebration of their eldest daughter M. (The Israeli bat mitzvah celebration was over the summer.) H and I had the privilege of holding M the day she was born, yesterday it seems, and it was wonderful to see her claim her place as an adult and to hear her read Torah this morning.
Shmini Atzeret was very nice. For the first time in years, I wasn't assigned to daven geshem, which felt kind of weird, but the ba'al tefillah did it beautifully.
We were joined for Simchat Torah by
lucretia_borgia, sethg_prime, et fils, and it was delightful. The larger synagogue made it possible to switch from praying to dancing without a five-minute pause to clear away the chairs, and it also meant that the people who didn't want to dance had a place to sit and chat that wasn't in the way.I'll post separately about my S"T shacharit davening, so that those who contributed ideas can see how it worked out.
Tani got his first real aliyah on S"T this year. He did very well; he remembered all the logistical steps and got the words and the melody right. He was ecstatic; as we walked off the bimah he asked me, "Did I really just do that?" and ran to tell Heather (who was in one of the rooms with a women's reading --- as an Orthodox synagogue, our community doesn't have men and women reading together, but as a Modern Orthodox synagogue, we have stations where women read for women so everyone can have an aliyah).
While I'm on the subject of our as-close-to-egalitarian-as-Orthodoxy-permits synagogue, this year we did Atah Hor'eita differently. Instead of going up and down the rows of the men's section; repeating as many times as needed to allow each man to read one line; we did it in groups. "Anyone who has written a book." "Anyone who comes to daily minyan." Not only did this keep things moving, but it allowed the women to participate equally with the men, without making a Big Feminist Deal out of it. Everyone loved this change, and it's a keeper for the future.
Shabbat was mostly quiet. Since it was a Shabbat Mevorchim, the shul had our monthly afternoon Women's Tefillah Group; Alissa got the honor of opening the aron kodesh, about which she was quite proud. It was the final service in the Legacy Sanctuary; this morning they started gutting that room to start Phase II of the synagogue renovations. (I was in there tonight to transfer some of the books from the downstairs library, which is being renovated, to the upstairs library, which was renovated in Phase I, and it was quite freaky seeing the place where we've prayed for the last fourteen years stripped to the walls.)
After Shabbat, we finished packing and hopped in the car to drive to NYC for my cousin's wedding, which was Sunday morning. The drive was quick and uneventful; the wedding was beautiful. I had been asked to be part of a TTBB quartet singing Eshet Chayil during the ceremony, along with (1) the groom, (2) my good friend Larry from Zamir who has known the groom for years, and (3) Cantor Charles Osborne, who had composed the piece along with a new original setting of the entire wedding ceremony and who was mesader kiddushin. It was an honor to be a part of it and I think we performed the piece well. My cousin was a beautiful bride and it was wonderful to see her so happy. May she and her husband have many years of happiness together and may they be blessed to build a bayit neeman b'Yisrael.
The kids had a good time at the wedding; they got to see their cousins and Alissa in particular was thrilled to be at a wedding for the first time.
And this morning we joined our good friends J and A at the domestic bat mitzvah celebration of their eldest daughter M. (The Israeli bat mitzvah celebration was over the summer.) H and I had the privilege of holding M the day she was born, yesterday it seems, and it was wonderful to see her claim her place as an adult and to hear her read Torah this morning.