Shalom Aleichem and Shabbat Dinner Texts

[debka_notion]

I never knew Shalom ALeichem first appeared in 1641: since it was on my tape entitled "A Child's Look at What It Means to be Jewish" and therefore got worked into my consciousness as one of those essential Jewish things. (It was one of my very favorite tapes. My parents ought to have predicted this whole life-path for me then. I think that to some extent they might have.)

ALso interestingly, there seems to be Much, much less thought and writing out there about the texts used for home ritual than for regular liturgy: I'm in the midst of reading the volume of "My People's Prayerbook" on the Shabbat home liturgy, and it's ridiculously repetitive between teh different commentators, while the volume on the Amidah was almost never repetitive at all. But I do like Ellen Frankel better than Marcia Falk as the feminist thought commentator, so it does have its advantages. (I felt like Falk was mostly pushing her own book in her commentary.)

Comments

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

(I felt like Falk was mostly pushing her own book in her commentary.)

Or just pushing herself as the only one with the guts to fix everything wrong with the liturgy, while refraining from saying anything explicitly nasty about orthodox Judaism in case Daniel Landes should actually decide to read the book. (I'm not much of a fan of her commentary, in case you couldn't tell.)

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of a story I was told of one feminist theorist being furious that another theorist had been asked to review her book because "she's my intellectual enemy", somehow. I mean, isn't it just general politeness not to attack other people's beliefs in a cooperative (i.e. non-polemical) publication?

I tend to find it suspicious when someone is so desperate to change everything traditional just as much as when someone refuses to change Anything at all. Neither seem like really healthy approaches to a tradition.

Sholôm `Aleikhem

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my family seems to never have adopted the recent practice of singing Sholôm `Aleikhem and Eishes Hayil before Qiddush. And therefore, whenever I host Shabbos dinner in my own apartment, I typically recite Qiddush immediately upon arriving home. Occasionally, I get a guest who is either hardcore BT or hardcore Artscrollist (is there a difference between the two), who will start questioning the propriety of my actions. But this is rare.

When at other people's homes, I will hum along for Sholôm `Aleikhem, though I remain entirely silent while they sing the controversial third verse (which makes a petition to angels, as opposed to to God). I'll hum along for Eishes Hayil as well, or even sing along, but it's too long, so I often lose interest halfway through the middle, and pick up a book to read.