I Plead Exhaustion

It's been a ridiculously busy couple of days. I'd call this the definition of "things came up".

In very happy news, Felicia from HaMakor (IFD performance group) gave birth yesterday to a boy yesterday, weighing 8lbs 3oz. This is her and her husband's second child, and second son. The bris is a week from today, unfortunately right when my classes start. I'm trying to decide if I can/should go: if it's ok to miss class for it, if I can get myself there and back reasonably, etc. I've actually never been to a bris: my parents friends all seem to have girls. I've been to my share of baby namings, certainly, though, including one of the cute and amusing sort involving washing the baby's feet as a welcoming ritual (it also involved tacky English readings- eh, nothing can be perfect).

Returning to the more prosaic side of existence, I still have bunches of torah reading to learn for Yim Kippur mincha (the afternoon service). At least it's regular trope, and I never got around to learning high holiday trope to pick up some of the morning torah reading: I think I've got enough on my plate this year. Maybe I can get the guy who knows it to teach me and I can pick up a bunch of the torah reading for one or both of the High Holy Days next year.

Tangentially: Here's another interesting terminology shtick. Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are either the High Holidays, the High Holy Days, or in Hebrew the Yamim Nora'im, which translates to the Days of Awe, conventionally. I've heard them referred to as the Days of Awe only in synagogue bulletins and shiur (religious lecture) titles. It's a pretty powerful concept, but it's a bulky sort of construction, and doesn't flow too well in colloquial speach. OK, that's an understatement: it doesn't flow at all in colloquial speach. Holiday is, I'm pretty sure (unless I'm doing horrid folk etymology, but it sounds too darn similar to be anything but, although I shouldn't say that, in Hebrew 'ish' (man) and 'ishah' (woman) are apparently from different roots) simply a conjunction of holy day that has sort of assumed a slightly different meaning/connotation. After all, we now have secular holidays, which if holiday only meant holy day would be rather a contradiction in terms. High Holy Days also flows much less easily than High Holidays, and neither really quite embodies the concept, although High Holy Days seems to focus more on the holiness of the days, versus High Holidays which just makes me think of particularly formal holidays, high seeming to come across as it does in 'high tea'. I guess the benefit of having a three word term is that the high can come across as modifying Holy rather than Holy Day. SO High Holy Days seems well, more holy, less holiday. And holiday does sort of connote relaxing break, and well, Yom Kippur is a break in a very different sense: it's a break from all the regular stuff of this world, as I'm sure one gets reminded every year by some clergy member (if one is the sort to encounter Jewish clergy at this time of year). But relaxing is hardly the appropriate word for these holidays. They're not like a school holiday at all. (Is using the term a school holiday a Britishism by any chance? I have this feeling that it is, and that I picked it up from reading too much Narnia or the like as a kid.) This fake analysis is brought to you by too much contact with linguists without knowing what I'm talking about.

I Plead Exhaustion

It's been a ridiculously busy couple of days. I'd call this the definition of "things came up".

In very happy news, Felicia from HaMakor (IFD performance group) gave birth yesterday to a boy yesterday, weighing 8lbs 3oz. This is her and her husband's second child, and second son. The bris is a week from today, unfortunately right when my classes start. I'm trying to decide if I can/should go: if it's ok to miss class for it, if I can get myself there and back reasonably, etc. I've actually never been to a bris: my parents friends all seem to have girls. I've been to my share of baby namings, certainly, though, including one of the cute and amusing sort involving washing the baby's feet as a welcoming ritual (it also involved tacky English readings- eh, nothing can be perfect).

Returning to the more prosaic side of existence, I still have bunches of torah reading to learn for Yim Kippur mincha (the afternoon service). At least it's regular trope, and I never got around to learning high holiday trope to pick up some of the morning torah reading: I think I've got enough on my plate this year. Maybe I can get the guy who knows it to teach me and I can pick up a bunch of the torah reading for one or both of the High Holy Days next year.

Tangentially: Here's another interesting terminology shtick. Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are either the High Holidays, the High Holy Days, or in Hebrew the Yamim Nora'im, which translates to the Days of Awe, conventionally. I've heard them referred to as the Days of Awe only in synagogue bulletins and shiur (religious lecture) titles. It's a pretty powerful concept, but it's a bulky sort of construction, and doesn't flow too well in colloquial speach. OK, that's an understatement: it doesn't flow at all in colloquial speach. Holiday is, I'm pretty sure (unless I'm doing horrid folk etymology, but it sounds too darn similar to be anything but, although I shouldn't say that, in Hebrew 'ish' (man) and 'ishah' (woman) are apparently from different roots) simply a conjunction of holy day that has sort of assumed a slightly different meaning/connotation. After all, we now have secular holidays, which if holiday only meant holy day would be rather a contradiction in terms. High Holy Days also flows much less easily than High Holidays, and neither really quite embodies the concept, although High Holy Days seems to focus more on the holiness of the days, versus High Holidays which just makes me think of particularly formal holidays, high seeming to come across as it does in 'high tea'. I guess the benefit of having a three word term is that the high can come across as modifying Holy rather than Holy Day. SO High Holy Days seems well, more holy, less holiday. And holiday does sort of connote relaxing break, and well, Yom Kippur is a break in a very different sense: it's a break from all the regular stuff of this world, as I'm sure one gets reminded every year by some clergy member (if one is the sort to encounter Jewish clergy at this time of year). But relaxing is hardly the appropriate word for these holidays. They're not like a school holiday at all. (Is using the term a school holiday a Britishism by any chance? I have this feeling that it is, and that I picked it up from reading too much Narnia or the like as a kid.) This fake analysis is brought to you by too much contact with linguists without knowing what I'm talking about.