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The planning for this trip/job was a bit last-minute: the rabbi of the shul (with whom I was staying) exchanged a whole series of cell phone messages to coordinate when I was getting in- all after I decided Thursday afternoon that I probably ought to figure out when and where I was supposed to be going. So that was a little bit last-minute. In the same way, I packed, had No Idea what the shul's usual level of formality was for services, so I put out a whole series of different things, and then put them into my suitcase- but then wasn't sure if I was changing for shabbos before or after I got there: so I took out what I was going to wear Friday night and left it out on my bed- and then decided I'd change when I got there, but forgot to repack said item, so I just wore the dress I already had on- it's a good thing that what counts as easy, just-out-of-the-shower clothes for me also often tends to look nice. And then as I was heading for the subway, I realized I'd left my tallit, and had to go back for it (and of course didn't realize that I had left half my clothes at home until I got to 96th St or so, so no going back at that point).
Once I actually arrived, I realized I of course had no idea what the rabbi looked like. But it turns out that he was running a little late anyways, so I sat outside and worked on reviewing/cleaning up my layning, and he recognized me because well, who else would be sitting outside the train station with an open tikkun. So I was retrieved, brought back, and settled in.
Dinner was before services because there was a bat mitzvah (which I hadn't known about in advance), and the family was having a dinner and invited the rabbi, his wife and me. They were nice enough, but there were at least twice as many seats as people, so there were just the rabbi, the rebbetzin and me at this table for 8 or 10 people. Sort of weird, and before Shabbos started with none of the feel of a shabbos meal. The response from my hosts was a "if we'd known it would be like this, we wouldn't have come". But oh well. Friday night services were nice enough, and I rather liked the cantor's style, for all that the rabbi seemed to find it a bit of a pain. But the cantor seemed to be one of the few folks with any kavvanah. On the other hand, everyone seemed to be very close with eachother. There was a lot of talking at various points, often quite audibly. It wasn't that everyone was talking, just that the folks who were were all very obvious and very loud and clear about it.
Shabbos morning I sat down towards the front of the shul and was cheerfully sitting there and davening, and every little bit someone would come down off the bima, bring someone else up to me and introduce me, which was very weird. And then someone came over and told me I should come sit on the bima and that I ought to get used to it. So there I went (and the bima was Really high up. That part was weird. But sitting there was less weird than I expected. There was a substantial amount of chitchat there too. Weird.)
The torah reading itself went reasonably. I would have been much happier with it if I'd put a few more hours of work into it beforehand, but given that I didn't, it went reasonably. I had to be corrected on two or three hu/hi distinctions that I really did know, but otherwise the words were fine- it was the trope I lost on occasion. But I made it through, and got lots of compliments. And well, next time I'll do better. And as usual, I was pretty nervous at the beginning, and as time went on, really, my whole world became the Torah, the gabbayim and myself, which works well. And then it was done and I could relax, as it were, through the sermon and musaf.
I had lunch with the rabbi and his wife, then went and napped and read until mincha. They had a nice crowd for mincha and ma'ariv.
And over the course of Shabbos, I got the "tzara'at equal/is a metaphor for gossip" d'var torah at least 3 times: the rabbi started talking about it when introducing the parasha, the bat mitzvah girl talked about it, and then the rabbi talked about it again at seudah shlishit. My lord am I already sick of that d'var torah. There are lots of other interesting things in tazria-metzorah if you look for them. Really.
Once I actually arrived, I realized I of course had no idea what the rabbi looked like. But it turns out that he was running a little late anyways, so I sat outside and worked on reviewing/cleaning up my layning, and he recognized me because well, who else would be sitting outside the train station with an open tikkun. So I was retrieved, brought back, and settled in.
Dinner was before services because there was a bat mitzvah (which I hadn't known about in advance), and the family was having a dinner and invited the rabbi, his wife and me. They were nice enough, but there were at least twice as many seats as people, so there were just the rabbi, the rebbetzin and me at this table for 8 or 10 people. Sort of weird, and before Shabbos started with none of the feel of a shabbos meal. The response from my hosts was a "if we'd known it would be like this, we wouldn't have come". But oh well. Friday night services were nice enough, and I rather liked the cantor's style, for all that the rabbi seemed to find it a bit of a pain. But the cantor seemed to be one of the few folks with any kavvanah. On the other hand, everyone seemed to be very close with eachother. There was a lot of talking at various points, often quite audibly. It wasn't that everyone was talking, just that the folks who were were all very obvious and very loud and clear about it.
Shabbos morning I sat down towards the front of the shul and was cheerfully sitting there and davening, and every little bit someone would come down off the bima, bring someone else up to me and introduce me, which was very weird. And then someone came over and told me I should come sit on the bima and that I ought to get used to it. So there I went (and the bima was Really high up. That part was weird. But sitting there was less weird than I expected. There was a substantial amount of chitchat there too. Weird.)
The torah reading itself went reasonably. I would have been much happier with it if I'd put a few more hours of work into it beforehand, but given that I didn't, it went reasonably. I had to be corrected on two or three hu/hi distinctions that I really did know, but otherwise the words were fine- it was the trope I lost on occasion. But I made it through, and got lots of compliments. And well, next time I'll do better. And as usual, I was pretty nervous at the beginning, and as time went on, really, my whole world became the Torah, the gabbayim and myself, which works well. And then it was done and I could relax, as it were, through the sermon and musaf.
I had lunch with the rabbi and his wife, then went and napped and read until mincha. They had a nice crowd for mincha and ma'ariv.
And over the course of Shabbos, I got the "tzara'at equal/is a metaphor for gossip" d'var torah at least 3 times: the rabbi started talking about it when introducing the parasha, the bat mitzvah girl talked about it, and then the rabbi talked about it again at seudah shlishit. My lord am I already sick of that d'var torah. There are lots of other interesting things in tazria-metzorah if you look for them. Really.
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Tazria-Metzora is my parsha. Not in terms of a bat-mitzvah parsha, but it's my thesis parsha (maybe some day my thesis will have a bar-mitzvah). So yeah. Tons of fun things in the parsha.
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"And then someone came over and told me I should come sit on the bima and that I ought to get used to it."
R. Avi Weiss insists quite strongly that rabbis should sit with the people. (His shul doesn't even have a bimah, but he got to build it to his specifications!) At my new intermittent "playing a rabbi" gig* they left it up to me whether to sit on the bimah or not, and I made that decision in less than 0.68 seconds. I was fortunate in that there wasn't another rabbinical presence to toussle with, and the president of the shul was quite accomodating.
Introducing people during the davening is just rude and assur. Someone should make handy-dandy business cards that say so . . . hmmm . . .
* See, you don't even need to be a rabbinical student to get them! :-)
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I'm not a big fan of the bima thing, and apparently they don't use it much when there isn't a bar/bat mitzvah (why they feel the need to do so then, I'm not sure, except for acoustic reasons, since the room is large, and there were quite a number of folks). But well- people bopped up and down off the bima a lot, even with the 6 stairs.
The problem is that once someone is standing there and being introduced to you, what the heck else can you do besides smile and make as few polite comments as possible?
What sort of "playing a rabbi" gig do you now have?
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That's why I suggested making laminated cards. :-) Isn't there an American hand gesture or something that politely indicates "leave me the hell alone, I'm busy"? (I can only think of the Israeli one at the moment, which I find hopelessly rude.)
It's a dying non-egal Conservative shul whose rabbi recently left. I've only been there once, and will be there again this week. It's fine, just far away and boring for long shabbatot, but at least they feed us -- although they insist on keeping us company while we eat, which is annoying.