I Need To Work on Assertiveness

Wednesday nights I "volunteer" by doing chevruta study with a Hebrew U student as part of a co-ed Beit Midrash program there. This week not only was my chevruta not there (he was out buying an oven), but three other folks were out sick, leaving only 4 of us: two from JTS and two from Hebrew U. I hadn't brought anything in particular, because I knew that my usual chevruta was unlikely to be there- and apparently he has some Tanakh that he wants to talk about with me next week anyways, and I'd expected just to be joining another group. So we just learned in one group, which basically meant that Steve, the other student from JTS (and the only guy, whether that's relevant or not, I don't know) taught a sugya from Brachot. It's one I've learned before in some depth, but basically I let him teach, and only managed to start including my own contributions a good chunk of the way into the time. I really need to be more assertive about participating. It was also interesting because it didn't give the folks who hadn't learned the sugya much chance to learn it themselves- mostly they listened to it. It's an interesting tactic, but very much not my teaching style at all.

Unrelatedly, in the morning I set out on Encounter, and return just before shabbos. So motzei shabbos/Sunday, I'll try and share some thoughts.