hatam_soferet (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hatam_soferet) wrote2004-08-01 08:07 pm
hatam_soferet) wrote2004-08-01 08:07 pm
stuff we've been doing
Friday morning a bride came by and collected her ketubah. She seemed to like it - my perpetual fear is that someone will hate it, but won't say so, and will fake pleasure. W thinks it was genuine, though. And she paid me a nice fat envelope of cash, which felt very good indeed.
This Shabbat was Will's first pulpit. He's the Visiting Rabbi (that is to say, doing the rabbi's job) at a seniors' living centre in Flushing. His job is to lead all the bits of the services, including doing all the leyning and giving a sermon.
Flushing is a long way from Forest Hills - eighty minutes' walk, a bit of a pain - so we decided to sleep over. No cooking facilities, only a hotplate to keep stuff warm, so we took dinner over there in tupperwares, and also took pans so that we would have hot food without melting the tupperwares. On the subway, the chicken made a brave bid for freedom, so we trailed an enticing smell of hot chicken all the way into Flushing. When we got there, it turned out we'd been told the wrong time, and far from being half an hour early, we were five minutes late. So Will had to start the service at once, and I got to be the dutiful rebbetzin and set up hot food, lights, timers, etc.
The next morning we started at 9 and finished about 11.55. Poor W got kvetched at by some deaf guy who wanted it louder, so he strained his voice. Next week he's going to tell the deaf guy to move closer if he can't hear. I was at the back, and I could hear very well. He's really quite good, once you get used to the can't-quite-sing-in-tune thing. And he looks jolly cute in a suit and tie :) I'm sure it's not polite to spend time in shul thinking how cute the rabbi is. Har. Anyway, more people arrived as time went on, about equal numbers of women and men, about three-quarters using Hebrew/English books and most of the rest using Russian/English. This tells us that a significant proportion don't really have English as a working language. Yiddish is the only common language, and W doesn't have Yiddish, so he sermonised in English, and someone came up at the end and asked questions, which was gratifying. (He was talking about how Moses says to God, PLEASE God can't I go to Israel, and God says, no you jolly well can't, and actually, go up that mountain and see what you're missing, which is just mean, and the solution he proposed is that God isn't being totally mean, and it's more along the lines of God saying, well I can't let you go into Israel cos I vowed that already, but if you want, you can go and have a look, and that'll be nearly as good - as good an interpretation as any.)
The best bit for me was W finding a dodgy letter in the Torah, and me being able to inspect it and pronounce it kosher - it's lovely when stuff you've been learning comes in handy.
At 12 everyone had gone and W flopped, having been standing for three hours solid. Then we walked back to Forest Hills for lunch - we were going to seudah shlishit with the embryonic Shira Chadasha of Forest Hills, and W was giving the shiur (this time, about ba'al tosif, and why doing optional things isn't). The people seemed nice, although rather older than us, and it's sort of difficult having conversations with people who are talking about what their kids are doing in grad school. I find it a bit difficult to relate.
Post-shabbat I remembere I'd left a bread pooding in the oven all of shabbat, which I've done before and it hasn't been a problem, cos the oven has always been a sterile environment. This one is a gas oven, however, which means that a) there is a big open hole in the bottom and b) the pilot light keeps it heated at a comfortable 40C or thereabouts, and consequently the pooding stank of BADNESS and had to be disposed of.
The other element of this week was cockroaches, which have multiplied to a terrifying extent. The building we are currently subletting from is nasty, I may say, and smells of garbage in the lift shaft. The lift has two sets of doors, one in the lift part, and one on each floor, and they open separately. The one in the lift part opens automatically, and the one to the corridor you have to push open yourself. This is an immensely distressing experience, because there are usually three or four cockroaches walking around on the door, more in the basement, and you have to make damn sure you aren't putting your hand on a roach when you're pushing the door open. You also can't lean on the lift walls, because there are roaches walking around on the walls.
I tend to use the stairs.
This Shabbat was Will's first pulpit. He's the Visiting Rabbi (that is to say, doing the rabbi's job) at a seniors' living centre in Flushing. His job is to lead all the bits of the services, including doing all the leyning and giving a sermon.
Flushing is a long way from Forest Hills - eighty minutes' walk, a bit of a pain - so we decided to sleep over. No cooking facilities, only a hotplate to keep stuff warm, so we took dinner over there in tupperwares, and also took pans so that we would have hot food without melting the tupperwares. On the subway, the chicken made a brave bid for freedom, so we trailed an enticing smell of hot chicken all the way into Flushing. When we got there, it turned out we'd been told the wrong time, and far from being half an hour early, we were five minutes late. So Will had to start the service at once, and I got to be the dutiful rebbetzin and set up hot food, lights, timers, etc.
The next morning we started at 9 and finished about 11.55. Poor W got kvetched at by some deaf guy who wanted it louder, so he strained his voice. Next week he's going to tell the deaf guy to move closer if he can't hear. I was at the back, and I could hear very well. He's really quite good, once you get used to the can't-quite-sing-in-tune thing. And he looks jolly cute in a suit and tie :) I'm sure it's not polite to spend time in shul thinking how cute the rabbi is. Har. Anyway, more people arrived as time went on, about equal numbers of women and men, about three-quarters using Hebrew/English books and most of the rest using Russian/English. This tells us that a significant proportion don't really have English as a working language. Yiddish is the only common language, and W doesn't have Yiddish, so he sermonised in English, and someone came up at the end and asked questions, which was gratifying. (He was talking about how Moses says to God, PLEASE God can't I go to Israel, and God says, no you jolly well can't, and actually, go up that mountain and see what you're missing, which is just mean, and the solution he proposed is that God isn't being totally mean, and it's more along the lines of God saying, well I can't let you go into Israel cos I vowed that already, but if you want, you can go and have a look, and that'll be nearly as good - as good an interpretation as any.)
The best bit for me was W finding a dodgy letter in the Torah, and me being able to inspect it and pronounce it kosher - it's lovely when stuff you've been learning comes in handy.
At 12 everyone had gone and W flopped, having been standing for three hours solid. Then we walked back to Forest Hills for lunch - we were going to seudah shlishit with the embryonic Shira Chadasha of Forest Hills, and W was giving the shiur (this time, about ba'al tosif, and why doing optional things isn't). The people seemed nice, although rather older than us, and it's sort of difficult having conversations with people who are talking about what their kids are doing in grad school. I find it a bit difficult to relate.
Post-shabbat I remembere I'd left a bread pooding in the oven all of shabbat, which I've done before and it hasn't been a problem, cos the oven has always been a sterile environment. This one is a gas oven, however, which means that a) there is a big open hole in the bottom and b) the pilot light keeps it heated at a comfortable 40C or thereabouts, and consequently the pooding stank of BADNESS and had to be disposed of.
The other element of this week was cockroaches, which have multiplied to a terrifying extent. The building we are currently subletting from is nasty, I may say, and smells of garbage in the lift shaft. The lift has two sets of doors, one in the lift part, and one on each floor, and they open separately. The one in the lift part opens automatically, and the one to the corridor you have to push open yourself. This is an immensely distressing experience, because there are usually three or four cockroaches walking around on the door, more in the basement, and you have to make damn sure you aren't putting your hand on a roach when you're pushing the door open. You also can't lean on the lift walls, because there are roaches walking around on the walls.
I tend to use the stairs.