Shabbat: Possibly An Actually Interesting Post, Maybe (Or Maybe Not)

This being the first weekend of February/Mid-Winter/"Spring" break, Shabbat stuff was a bit mix-and-match. I lead a weekday service for my first time ever- weekday mincha (afternoon service). We didn't get a minyan until latish, but things went alright at night. A series of characters and interesting interactions over the issue of Mourners' kaddish, which, since the usual gabbayim weren't around, I said/lead. (Raphi was running Friday night, I did Saturday stuff with nice chunks of help from Raphi and zodiacmg) Mincha was rushed, I rushed through that as well. After kabbalat Shabbat, there was a girl saying kaddish, very, very quietly- so I slowed down a lot and tried to match to her. I'm never sure in those situations if I should continue saying kaddish or just let the person say it. When they're that quiet and hesitant, I feel pretty right about saying it, just so they have something auditory to hold on to. After ma'ariv, someone came in and said kaddish very loudly and very quickly with a rather unusual accent: it sounded Russian to me at the time. Met the guy later, after shul, a student from Hebrew College, and intensely unusual. He reminded me quite a bit of my maternal grandfather. Also from Brooklyn, an atheist, and somehow a similar body language and posture. zodiacmg had met him before, and he seemed harmless and sort of lonely (he was loud in that desperate for human attention of any sort way), so I assessed that afternoon's cooking, and invited him to join us for Shabbat dinner, which I'd made (plus soup from skybluedreamer, general assistance from zodiacmg, and rolls and utensils and wine from tovah623, Daniel, pallasrosalind, efg) for a somewhat variably numbered crowd.

Dinner was a bit of an adventure, but a particularly pleasant one, over all. We had matzah ball soup (see the thanks department not-so-subtly hidden above), glazed carrots, heavily dairy kugel, potato salad approximating one of my mother's recipes (but without having taken the sensible step of calling her and asking for the recipe- that said, I think it turned out pretty well: I brought the leftovers to Seudah Shlishit and most of it got eaten there, although I was informed that it was a bit of an acquired taste by someone who decided he liked it only after figuring that it was on his plate, he might as well eat it, after his first bite), and a jar of small pickles. The guest list hovered between 6 and 11, mostly: there was a lot of general confusion abotu which meal it was going to be, who might be coming, who'd be around, who had other plans, etc. It ended up mostly being 9 people, and it worked very well. I enjoyed the meal, I enjoyed serving it, and I got lots of help cleaning up- although I still have to wash pots and a muffin tin that promises to be heck on earth. But over all, I enjoyed the cooking, and I enjoyed the serving, and I got lots of compliments, and anyone who wanted recipes, let me know. Or I can just put them up on LJ later.

Saturday morning was a bit more complicated. I was gabbaying, and got to shul plentifully early. Started P'sukei D'Zimra only a little late- I guess I should have waited longer, but I presumed people would show fairly soon thereafter, since we'd asked people to make an effort to show on time. We did a lot of waiting after that, and zodiacmg played my mental role of Chabad rabbi, running around campus and knocking on a few doors. I never have the guts for that sort of thing, myself. Instead, I got to be the decision making force about waiting longer, going on, etc. Not my strongest forte, but I managed. We finally got our minyan, somewhere around 10:45, and had a quite nice rest of the service. The layning went well, the only thing that had to be done last minute was the haftarah, this minyan is wonderfully competent, and I was quite happy. I read 2 aliyot- the first time I think I've done that, or maybe the second time at latest. 31 verses, learned over the course of 3 days, which is pretty reasonable, but somehow felt like a lot when I was thinking about it, even though it stayed pretty easily in my general limits of how much I prefer to learn in a day. (Although I'm starting to realize that limit is more a how much in one sitting limit than per day. I need to remember that.) So we got out a bit late, but somehow I was pretty unstressed by the whole thing, considering. Knowing that someone else was doing the running around somehow made me much less anxious and impatient. The earlier part was a lovely, sort of meditative slowish davening at least from my part. Didn't sing as much as I might have, but I have a hard time remembering tunes at the right moment- I can do so before or after, but it's hard to get them started at the right time. But it was quiet, and quite nice somehow.

We actually had a few more people for Mincha, partially because we asked a few folks to show so we'd have a minyan. It worked pretty well, especially considering that I was gabbaying, and slept about an hour and 15 minutes past when I'd planned to get up from my nap. (Luckily that was learning time, and my chevruta also fell asleep, then woke, realized I hadn't shown, and came and woke me.) It was, as the joking comment went "the [tovah623] show" (substituting actual name for LJ identity in there, of course): she both lead and layned, sort of by coincidence. Mazel Tov to her on her first leading of said service- it was quite good.

Overall, it was a remarkably calm and working Shabbat considering that I haven't gabbayed (is that a verb, even?) in a while, we were quite short on people, and the like. Somehow it all managed to turn out for the better, even if not the best.

Shabbat: Possibly An Actually Interesting Post, Maybe (Or Maybe Not)

This being the first weekend of February/Mid-Winter/"Spring" break, Shabbat stuff was a bit mix-and-match. I lead a weekday service for my first time ever- weekday mincha (afternoon service). We didn't get a minyan until latish, but things went alright at night. A series of characters and interesting interactions over the issue of Mourners' kaddish, which, since the usual gabbayim weren't around, I said/lead. (Raphi was running Friday night, I did Saturday stuff with nice chunks of help from Raphi and zodiacmg) Mincha was rushed, I rushed through that as well. After kabbalat Shabbat, there was a girl saying kaddish, very, very quietly- so I slowed down a lot and tried to match to her. I'm never sure in those situations if I should continue saying kaddish or just let the person say it. When they're that quiet and hesitant, I feel pretty right about saying it, just so they have something auditory to hold on to. After ma'ariv, someone came in and said kaddish very loudly and very quickly with a rather unusual accent: it sounded Russian to me at the time. Met the guy later, after shul, a student from Hebrew College, and intensely unusual. He reminded me quite a bit of my maternal grandfather. Also from Brooklyn, an atheist, and somehow a similar body language and posture. zodiacmg had met him before, and he seemed harmless and sort of lonely (he was loud in that desperate for human attention of any sort way), so I assessed that afternoon's cooking, and invited him to join us for Shabbat dinner, which I'd made (plus soup from skybluedreamer, general assistance from zodiacmg, and rolls and utensils and wine from tovah623, Daniel, pallasrosalind, efg) for a somewhat variably numbered crowd.

Dinner was a bit of an adventure, but a particularly pleasant one, over all. We had matzah ball soup (see the thanks department not-so-subtly hidden above), glazed carrots, heavily dairy kugel, potato salad approximating one of my mother's recipes (but without having taken the sensible step of calling her and asking for the recipe- that said, I think it turned out pretty well: I brought the leftovers to Seudah Shlishit and most of it got eaten there, although I was informed that it was a bit of an acquired taste by someone who decided he liked it only after figuring that it was on his plate, he might as well eat it, after his first bite), and a jar of small pickles. The guest list hovered between 6 and 11, mostly: there was a lot of general confusion abotu which meal it was going to be, who might be coming, who'd be around, who had other plans, etc. It ended up mostly being 9 people, and it worked very well. I enjoyed the meal, I enjoyed serving it, and I got lots of help cleaning up- although I still have to wash pots and a muffin tin that promises to be heck on earth. But over all, I enjoyed the cooking, and I enjoyed the serving, and I got lots of compliments, and anyone who wanted recipes, let me know. Or I can just put them up on LJ later.

Saturday morning was a bit more complicated. I was gabbaying, and got to shul plentifully early. Started P'sukei D'Zimra only a little late- I guess I should have waited longer, but I presumed people would show fairly soon thereafter, since we'd asked people to make an effort to show on time. We did a lot of waiting after that, and zodiacmg played my mental role of Chabad rabbi, running around campus and knocking on a few doors. I never have the guts for that sort of thing, myself. Instead, I got to be the decision making force about waiting longer, going on, etc. Not my strongest forte, but I managed. We finally got our minyan, somewhere around 10:45, and had a quite nice rest of the service. The layning went well, the only thing that had to be done last minute was the haftarah, this minyan is wonderfully competent, and I was quite happy. I read 2 aliyot- the first time I think I've done that, or maybe the second time at latest. 31 verses, learned over the course of 3 days, which is pretty reasonable, but somehow felt like a lot when I was thinking about it, even though it stayed pretty easily in my general limits of how much I prefer to learn in a day. (Although I'm starting to realize that limit is more a how much in one sitting limit than per day. I need to remember that.) So we got out a bit late, but somehow I was pretty unstressed by the whole thing, considering. Knowing that someone else was doing the running around somehow made me much less anxious and impatient. The earlier part was a lovely, sort of meditative slowish davening at least from my part. Didn't sing as much as I might have, but I have a hard time remembering tunes at the right moment- I can do so before or after, but it's hard to get them started at the right time. But it was quiet, and quite nice somehow.

We actually had a few more people for Mincha, partially because we asked a few folks to show so we'd have a minyan. It worked pretty well, especially considering that I was gabbaying, and slept about an hour and 15 minutes past when I'd planned to get up from my nap. (Luckily that was learning time, and my chevruta also fell asleep, then woke, realized I hadn't shown, and came and woke me.) It was, as the joking comment went "the [tovah623] show" (substituting actual name for LJ identity in there, of course): she both lead and layned, sort of by coincidence. Mazel Tov to her on her first leading of said service- it was quite good.

Overall, it was a remarkably calm and working Shabbat considering that I haven't gabbayed (is that a verb, even?) in a while, we were quite short on people, and the like. Somehow it all managed to turn out for the better, even if not the best.