Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur went quite well. Better kavannah than Rosh Hashanah (which wasn't bad, just not quite Good), especially during Kol NIdrei/Ma'ariv, Musaf and Neilah. And I (with about 3 minutes of warning, and no chance to learn the special nusakh, but oh well, maybe next year- wait, did I just say that?) ended up leading psukei d'zimra. What else are you going to do when you know you can, and the rabbi comes up and asks you to do it and says that the special nusakh is nice, but Shabbos nusakh is fine? Oh yes, and I only noticed once I'd agreed that the Harlow makhzor doesn't have those happy little boxes that tell one when to chant aloud. But I managed just fine, I think. At least, I got no complaints. But then, the number of people who show for Pd'Z on Yom Kippur is fairly small. And most of the honors got out ok, and fairly easily. Except hagbah for the mega-torah (Rabbi Lehmann just made an announcement asking for someone with good balance and upper body strength to lift "our large second torah" and we got someone who did quite nicely- only a little worrisome wobble, which was very impressive), and a kohein for mincha (afternoon service) since I forgot I needed to get out such honors before the service started- got out 6 out of 7 honors in about 1 1/2 pages of text. Not too shabby. Just sort of rushed: my balance of students:community members got off. Oh well, I doubt anyone else pays too much attention to that. Or maybe they do, I don't know. I didn't Freshman year, but then I was so busy trying not to be absolutely lost that I didn't notice much outside my own experience. But it all worked. And Rabbi Lehmann told some very good stories. And the fast went smoothly. And we got the torahs (plural is what? torot?) back to the chapel before going to the breakfast (although post sip of grape juice left from havdalah that R.Lehmann passed around and a much appreciated cracker from skyblue_dreamer).

R. Lehmann added a new ritual practice this year that a few folks had told me about before- all through Ne'ilah, there was the chance for whomever wanted to to go up to the ark and spend a moment davenning there. People seemed to take to it well- there was a pretty steady flow of people going up, some with their prayerbooks, others not. And the appearances seemed to indicate good spiritual experiences. Tried it myself, after some internal debate, and thought it was very worthwhile, even though intellectually I'm not sure I ought to feel like being close to the ark is "holy space" per se. I mean, it feels a little too much like davennign to the torah scrolls, which we're not. But it worked. My thought just after was that there's this connection between our ark and the Ark or chest or whatever it was in the Holy of Holies. Or maybe it's just this impression that this is special that intensifies the experience of holiness. But it was nearly palpable. I don't quite understand it. But it worked, for more folks than just me, I think.

But this did just prompt me to start an actual written list of interesting and useful minhagim and rituals. Should have started doing that a long time ago.

OK, grocery shopping in the AM, should go to bed soon. This will be a parent-filled weekend. Steve's mom is in for Shabbos and a bit after. My own folks are doing dinner with zodiacmg and I after Shabbos, and I'm hoping to see them Sunday as well. I'm very much looking forward to that.

Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur went quite well. Better kavannah than Rosh Hashanah (which wasn't bad, just not quite Good), especially during Kol NIdrei/Ma'ariv, Musaf and Neilah. And I (with about 3 minutes of warning, and no chance to learn the special nusakh, but oh well, maybe next year- wait, did I just say that?) ended up leading psukei d'zimra. What else are you going to do when you know you can, and the rabbi comes up and asks you to do it and says that the special nusakh is nice, but Shabbos nusakh is fine? Oh yes, and I only noticed once I'd agreed that the Harlow makhzor doesn't have those happy little boxes that tell one when to chant aloud. But I managed just fine, I think. At least, I got no complaints. But then, the number of people who show for Pd'Z on Yom Kippur is fairly small. And most of the honors got out ok, and fairly easily. Except hagbah for the mega-torah (Rabbi Lehmann just made an announcement asking for someone with good balance and upper body strength to lift "our large second torah" and we got someone who did quite nicely- only a little worrisome wobble, which was very impressive), and a kohein for mincha (afternoon service) since I forgot I needed to get out such honors before the service started- got out 6 out of 7 honors in about 1 1/2 pages of text. Not too shabby. Just sort of rushed: my balance of students:community members got off. Oh well, I doubt anyone else pays too much attention to that. Or maybe they do, I don't know. I didn't Freshman year, but then I was so busy trying not to be absolutely lost that I didn't notice much outside my own experience. But it all worked. And Rabbi Lehmann told some very good stories. And the fast went smoothly. And we got the torahs (plural is what? torot?) back to the chapel before going to the breakfast (although post sip of grape juice left from havdalah that R.Lehmann passed around and a much appreciated cracker from skyblue_dreamer).

R. Lehmann added a new ritual practice this year that a few folks had told me about before- all through Ne'ilah, there was the chance for whomever wanted to to go up to the ark and spend a moment davenning there. People seemed to take to it well- there was a pretty steady flow of people going up, some with their prayerbooks, others not. And the appearances seemed to indicate good spiritual experiences. Tried it myself, after some internal debate, and thought it was very worthwhile, even though intellectually I'm not sure I ought to feel like being close to the ark is "holy space" per se. I mean, it feels a little too much like davennign to the torah scrolls, which we're not. But it worked. My thought just after was that there's this connection between our ark and the Ark or chest or whatever it was in the Holy of Holies. Or maybe it's just this impression that this is special that intensifies the experience of holiness. But it was nearly palpable. I don't quite understand it. But it worked, for more folks than just me, I think.

But this did just prompt me to start an actual written list of interesting and useful minhagim and rituals. Should have started doing that a long time ago.

OK, grocery shopping in the AM, should go to bed soon. This will be a parent-filled weekend. Steve's mom is in for Shabbos and a bit after. My own folks are doing dinner with zodiacmg and I after Shabbos, and I'm hoping to see them Sunday as well. I'm very much looking forward to that.