hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Mar. 21st, 2008 12:35 pm)
Well, that was fun.

I sewed a paper plate and cup, and plastic cutlery, to a tablemat, and pinned it to a waistcoat. That is, I went as the Shulhan Arukh (the major law code whose title means Set Table).

I went to CSAIR in the evening - that's the local Conservative shul. I'd thought about going into the city, to Hadar's reading, but CSAIR's my community at the moment, and that won out, overall. There was a lot of noise, so it probably wasn't a very kosher reading for someone sitting at the back, but I was being one of the checkers, which means standing right next to the reader anyway, so I heard the whole thing. Some jolly good readers, two of whom are tiny wee things - one of them looks as though she's about ten years old, but she's presumably older than that; she was very good. Pizza bagels afterwards, yay.

Morning, got up at stupid o'clock to read at CSAIR's early reading. Only hardcore people get up for stupid o'clock readings, so this one was much more kosher. Also some jolly good readers. I like leyning, but I also like listening to leyning done well; it's like when people read foreign poetry, it just sounds nice. One doesn't hear it very often - too often people who can read well also read self-importantly. Competent but modest readers are rare gems. So anyway, there was one reader like that at the early reading, which was very much a treat.

Then zooming to the subway and downtown to Drisha's reading, since they're my community too. Also with one reader in particular who combines competence with modesty, exceedingly pleasant to listen to. And a couple of first-time readers, who are generally entirely precious, and all in all a very nice reading.

And I got to use my regel, yay, and we read from the megillah I wrote four years ago, and I read the bit about Esther writing. Esther's the only named woman in the Bible who writes, and when I wrote my first Torah I added Esther to my Hebrew name, feeling some sort of resonance with that. So it was particularly pleasing to read ve-tikhtov Esther.

Yummy food afterwards, and passing out fortune hamentaschen (i.e. fortune cookies, but with Yiddish proverbs and rabbinic aphorisms inside, and folded into the triangular Purim-cookie shape instead of the Chinese fortune-cookie shape), which were a smash hit, hurrah. Worth the fiddliness of making them for the fun of sharing them.
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Mar. 19th, 2008 02:27 pm)
Today I'm writing the bit in Exodus where the people donate to the building of the tabernacle. They bring gold and silver and miscellaneous rich and rare materials, and they keep on bringing, and eventually the tabernacle artisans plead with the people to stop bringing stuff because they're overwhelmed.

Comment from passer-by: Hah! That doesn't happen any more!

And she meant, hah, people these days aren't so generous, wouldn't it be nice if we were as generous as the Jews of old!

And whenever this story is brought up in sermons, that's the thrust. "Goodness, weren't those people a splendid example? They gave so much that the tabernacle fund couldn't cope! Give generously!"

Today this irritates me. Of course that doesn't happen any more. And it's not the people, it's the temples.*

Since when did a temple ever say "Thanks, we've got enough now," eh? I ask you. Whoever heard of a temple without bottomless coffers?

That is, people probably donate as generously as they ever did. It's not that people's ability to give is any different, it's the establishment's ability to take. The builders of the mishkan were able to stop taking when they had enough for their immediate needs.

Okay, the economics of a tabernacle in the mishkan and a contemporary synagogue are totally different things, and it makes sense for a synagogue to fill its coffers in anticipation of rainy days and leaky roofs. Totally.

But I resent the implication that people today are less generous than they used to be. Why not frame the sermon so that the implication is "Goodness, weren't the Tabernacle staff lucky! They knew that if they were running out of stuff, more would happen somehow!" Cast the comparison on the establishment rather than on the laity, why not?


* Solomon's Temple, Herod's Temple, the Great Synagogue of PreWarEuropeanCity, Temple BiblicalNoun-BiblicalName down the road, etc. Doesn't matter.
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Dec. 25th, 2007 05:02 pm)
I went to hear R' Professor Jonathan Magonet talking about the new (UK) Reform siddur.What he said is pretty much what he's written on this site, so you can go and read it in his words and not my rendition of same.

Here are some of the things which impressed me.

The layout. )The )piloting in the community and the ) thoughtful self-assessment, and a striking and intelligent )willingness to see the community in its present state with examples, and finally, this point: )

He said that the existing siddur had a function of giving the movement a point of unification, as previously there hadn't been a proper Reform Movement Siddur. Now the movement has matured and solidified somewhat, the unification can be taken more or less for granted, and the diversity can be accommodated, so the new siddur is to function less as a means of expressing unification and more as a tool which everyone can use, but which can be used in many different ways.
Tags:
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Nov. 17th, 2007 08:39 pm)
I learned the wrong Torah reading, and it worked out perfectly. The guy who was supposed to be reading the second section this week didn't show; I was reading the first one, and I'd thought I was doing the second as well (wrongly; that's next week) so I'd learned it, so it just so happened that I could fill in for the non-appearing reader.

And startle people, since it looked as though I was doing it cold. Heh. No, I can't leyn anything perfectly with 0 preparation.
Tags:
Tefillin Barbie 1 I often get asked "Do you think women should wear tefillin?"

Let's contextualise. Do I think all women should wear tefillin? No. For starters, I certainly don't think non-Jewish women should be required to wear tefillin.

All Jewish women? No. Tefillin are traditionally a men's thing; there are plenty of communities where gender roles are still rigidly defined and those communities are quite happy that way. Expecting these women to wear tefillin would be an alien cultural imposition. It would be like saying that Europeans should observe Thanksgiving - absolutely, ridiculously, acontextual.

All Jewish women in communities where gender roles are not so rigidly defined? Likewise no. There are plenty of egalitarian communities where the language of "should" is inappropriate. Any community which does not define itself as bound by the halakhic system will view the wearing of tefillin as optional. Expecting women or men in these communities to wear tefillin is akin to saying that Americans should celebrate Hallowe'en - clearly an inappropriate expectation since Hallowe'en is optional. It's not your place or mine to pass comment on whether someone should dress up and pass out candy, and likewise it's not our place to comment on whether someone who doesn't see himself as bound by commandments should be observing this particular aspect of ritual commandment. Whether he does or whether he doesn't, his choice is legitimate and deserves respect.

In communities which are professedly egalitarian and bound by halakha? Yes, I think women in these communities should be expected to wear tefillin.

The present practice of having egalitarian prayer but only expecting men to wear tefillin is shameful. The message is either that tefillin do not matter, which in a professedly halakhic community is resoundingly inappropriate, or that egalitarianism has different requirements for men and for women, which devalues egalitarianism.

So yes, in communities which accept halakha - including as it does the commandment to wear tefillin - as binding, and which aspire to accord equal rights and responsibilities to men and to women, I think that women should wear tefillin. The alternative is an egalitarianism which not only devalues egalitarianism but devalues Judaism, by demonstrating that egalitarianism is not much more than a feeble sop to women's feelings, and a sop, at that, obtained by discarding ritual structure.

By tacitly exempting women from wearing tefillin, these communities admit that the women do not really have the same communal status as men, since all rights come with attendant responsibilities, and in any community responsibility is what is significant in the long term. If we exempt women but wish everyone to be equal, everyone must be exempt, which says that tefillin - and by extension all commandments, which form the underlying structure of this community's Judaism - can be dispensed with. Egalitarianism is at best a fundamental development which elevates women to the same societal plane as men. This egalitarianism produces only the illusion of elevation, or levels the planes by razing the structure.

I happen to fall in the segment of the Jewish world which wants to retain halakhic structure, but wishes to see men and women as comparable elements of that structure, which is to say having comparable responsibilities and rights. Whom we expect to wear tefillin is illustrative of how we are choosing to value the one against the other. If we expect women to wear tefillin, and apply a similar attitude to other aspects of both egalitarianism and halakha, we will be further towards creating a strong halakhic structure through which both men and women may move freely. This is the context in which I think women should wear tefillin.
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Oct. 14th, 2007 05:00 pm)
Oh, I had a brilliant idea in shul on Friday night. I think mechitzot should have little doors cut into them, so that kids can go back and forth between the sides without having to be lifted over or having to go through the lobby. Like in playgrounds, where it says Must Be Below Red Line To Play - it would be Must Be This Small To Cross Mechitza. Don't you think that's utterly spiffy? Which of you YCT guys wants to suggest it to R' Weiss?
Tags:
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Sep. 22nd, 2007 08:37 pm)
Poor, poor Mussaf.

I won't describe what they did to the poor reader's repetition, but it's akin to inviting someone for tea and pouring scalding water into their crotch, bashing them over the head with the cake stand, poking a teaspoon into their eye, and then asking them if they want milk or lemon in their tea.
Tags:
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Sep. 21st, 2007 01:06 pm)
Life has been distinctly full over the past few weeks, what with one thing and another; I constantly feel that I'm running as hard as I can to stay in the same place, and still slipping back rather. I've been routinely going to bed at 1 and getting up at 6, and subsisting mainly on toast because it's fast to make. I've had some gigantic acheivements and some shattering changes, both largely fuelled by necessity, and haven't had time to realise it.

With that in mind, the approaching Yom Kippur feels like a welcome chance to come to a stop and breathe for a moment. This is, after all, a whole day set aside for reviewing what the previous year has been like and how one might go about tackling the upcoming year. Left to myself, I doubt very much I'd get around to doing this.

Musings on teshuva, tefillah, and tzedakah - basically I think ) tefillah is about reaching up and staying aware of the hugeness of everything, and tzedakah is about sharing yourself with other people. Internal, spiritual, and communal wholeness, if you will.

ETA: funnily enough, the rabbi at shul said more or less the same thing in his sermon.
Tags:
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Sep. 12th, 2007 01:21 pm)
Following the departure of our cantor, I'm now the person who's responsible for making sure all the Torahs in our shul are rolled to the right places at the right times. This morning, rolling for tomorrow's readings, I found that two of the Torahs had broken seams right in the middle of the readings. So, being the resourceful soferet that I am, I whipped out my Torah thread and sewed them up. How good is that? :)

I'm also learning a bit of the reading for the second day. There's a special tune for the High Holy days, which I learned last year teaching my student Sarah (may-she-rest-in-peace). It is much more ponderous and almost-mournful than the regular tune, and it's very odd: no matter how high in my range I place it, the heavy nature of the melody is giving me a headache. This fits the solemn nature of the day.

Relatedly, insofar as the season's theme is healing and repentance, cleaning is proving cathartic, and I think it delightfully symbolic that my first acquisition as a single woman should be a stepladder.

At this time of year, one is also supposed to attempt to mend breeches breaches with one's fellows. I expect I have some breaches I ought to be working on, but honestly right now I'm having enough trouble stabilising all my internal breaches; in order to hold together, most of the available energy for repentance and forgiveness is directed within. I hope that if anyone has any burning issues with me, they'll compromise enough to let me know about it, because this is the time for cooling issues but this year I haven't much energy over for identifying them.
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Jul. 24th, 2007 01:10 pm)
Last night at Big Egalitarian Minyan: mincha wasn't planned, but someone saying kaddish wanted a minyan, so they cobbled together mincha - all good so far - what did they get? Eleven guys and two women. What was outside in the lobby chatting? Women. This is an issue egalitarianism has yet to address. Beautiful Eicha reading, though. Competent, audible, lovely to listen to, almost all women.

This morning at Open Orthodox Shul, depressing contrast between the rabbi's introduction to each kina (=dirge) and the kina itself. He gets bouncy and excited about the words, the poetic structure etc, and then the kina is a godawful inaudible mumble.

Talking of poetic structure, kinot bring up my peeve with poets putting their names into their poems. A poem structured on the alphabet? Great. Lovely. But structuring it ABC...XYZJOHNWOZERE is a bit much, I think. Liturgy is supposed to be timeless, it's the massed nameless voice of Am Yisrael before God, wherein each individual merges into the of others who came before him, over centuries each adding his voice to his people's call to the Divine. It's not supposed to be a little ego-fest, ooh look at me I can write my name into this poem.

The Earnest Assistant Rabbi also waxed lyrical about the old-time community in Europe which would print liturgy for this day in special small books and then bury them, on the assumption that Jerusalem would be rebuilt by next year so the books wouldn't be needed any more. "They really believed it!" he said several times. Isn't that beautiful? Such faith! Such emunah! It's just so beautiful!

Leaves me cold, I'm afraid. I bet they didn't really believe it, any more than we believe dropping your clothes on the floor turns them into "dirty laundry."* But, Earnest Rabbi, why not credit them with some sense and assume that they didn't actually believe the Temple was going to be rebuilt before next year, and talk about why they might do it anyway? Turn them into real people and bring something human from their story into ours, so that instead of being rather sweet, credulous, and irrelevant European hicks they seem like intelligent people who are doing a ritual act with a rich symbolism we can learn from? Compare it to how people send wedding invitations for weddings "in Jerusalem unless the Messiah is late in which case it'll be in Teaneck"? Why leave it at "isn't that beautiful" and then launch into another godawful indaudible dirge?


* The custom is not to wear freshly-laundered clothes in this period. So, when they come out of the wash, we drop them on the floor (we vacuum first) and jump on them before ironing them and hanging them up.
Tags:
Yes, a soferet is like a swordfish.

If I work on a Torah for someone, it's as if I cooked swordfish in their kitchen. They can no longer share resources with Orthodox or non-egalitarian Conservative groups. If I cook swordfish* and I'm hosting Orthodox guests, it is an appalling desecration of trust not to tell them about it. If I repair a Torah and then let Orthodox congregations use it, it is likewise an appalling desecration of trust. If we want respect, as Jews or as human beings, we have to give respect, and part of that is accepting that other Jews' rule systems are valid despite being different from ours.

Before I work with any client, I make sure they're aware of this. People must know that if they hire me to work on their Torahs, it's like making swordfish in their kitchen. If they want to hold open the option of sharing their food, or their Torahs, with people who are more traditional, they must not cook swordfish and they must not employ me to work on their Torahs.

All non-traditional scribes have this responsibility. We MUST make sure our clients know what they're getting into. That their Torahs will be considered pasul by the traditional end of the Jewish spectrum, and that giving those people such a Torah to use for Torah reading is a terrible, terrible thing to do, just as it's a terrible thing to sneak pork to Jews who don't eat pork. Our clients may choose to support us and so forfeit sharing resources with those who don't agree, just like they do with their kitchens, but we must ensure that they are making an informed decision.

In my experience, even really learned people don't necessarily know that a soferet is like a swordfish. We cannot ever assume that our clients have already made their decision just because they are talking to us, even if they are learned. We must not ever assume it. We must be explicit, each and every time. I am like unto a swordfish, said the soferet.

Rabbi Yishmael said to Rabbi Meir that as a sofer he had the potential to destroy the entire world. We have the potential to destroy trust, and the responsibility not to. In this, a soferet is considerably more dangerous than a swordfish.

* Not that I do cook swordfish. But if I did.
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( May. 16th, 2007 09:53 am)
Funeral yesterday.

I'm blown away by how terrific W's friends are. They're unbelievable. There were a lot of people at the chapel, but most of them were too infirm to make it out to the cemetery. It was a pretty long way to the cemetery, but a whole crowd of Chovevei boys and JTS lads and one or two Friends From Elsewhere came despite that (one even came down from New Haven), and because of them there was a minyan at the graveside and the family could say kaddish.

They never met W's grandpa, nor even his mum and uncle. They took an enormous chunk out of the middle of a weekday to make this long trek out to a cemetery the other side of Queens. And they helped fill in the grave, with shovels, in suits and ties, until the whole pile of earth was shovelled away. Oh, and one of them lost his own father a few months ago and still came, and I can't actually find a way to express how incredible that is.

It's very humbling to have friends who will give so much.
Tags:
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Apr. 22nd, 2007 05:10 pm)
Rabbi Avi Weiss is a man who loves Jews. I mean he really, really loves Jews. He is TEH JEW LOVE MAN, in fact.

This past Friday night, R' Weiss led davening,* and during the part where the congregation recites together "You shall love the Lord your GOD with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might,"** he scooped up a child who had wandered up onto the bima,*** and stood there leading davening with one hand and cuddling this random child with the other. Cos R' Weiss loves Jews. I think that is what it is for him to love God.

And you'd think that would be horribly cheesy, wouldn't you? For the prayer leader to cuddle a small child whilst leading this prayer about love? But it isn't when it's R' Weiss. That is one of the things which makes him special.



* services. At the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, his home patch.
** in Hebrew, though.
*** pulpit, more or less
Tags:
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Oct. 9th, 2006 04:55 pm)
I tend to find waving the lulav to be rather embarrassing, to be honest. But this year, W and I were at Shaarei K'shishim, our assisted living community, being the Rabbinical Presence for the first two days of Succot. We've never been there for Succot before; we've been doing Shabbats for two years, but this is our first Succot with them.

And it was a total, total riot. I had the best time. When it came round to lulav-waving time, there were three sets - mine, W's, and Shaarei K'shishim's one. There were perhaps twenty people in attendance, and everybody needs to shake, so we did it in rounds. Well, the guys all got up and came to the front and got moving - W walking them through it charmingly - and I took mine over to the women, who were sat in their seats watching the men. One of the men, the one who knows English, asked, amazed, "Is this something women can do?" and then said "Good!" when I said oh yes it jolly well is.

So anyway, there's all these women, a few of them have fluent English, but the rest of them have Russian or Yiddish or hearing aids, all lining up for me to put the lulav and the etrog in their hands. They don't really read Hebrew, most of them, so I said the blessings word by word and they repeated them, and then I mimed the actions and they did them for real along with me. I'm so used to being able to do things like go buy a lulav that I forget that some people just don't have the chance, and even when the shul provides one, they don't have the chance to use it because they don't have the skills to do it from the siddur, and there's no-one to show them how, assuming that women won't be interested.

There were two specially moving ones. One Russian lady, who kissed the lulav and the etrog when I gave them to her, and reverentially shook them, and then cuddled them when she was done - that was beautiful. Plain, simple, beautiful piety. And the other, my friend the tallit lady, who has started wearing a tallit at ninety-nine years old - she was thrilled. So, so thrilled, by something as simple as a lemon and some branches. Definitely a humbling experience. So this morning, when it came to lulav-shaking time, I wasn't doing it in a half-assed "omg look at us waving vegetables" kind of way, no, I was thinking about my ladies at Shaarei K'shishim, for whom waving the vegetables was a brush with the sacred.

And the bit where we all made a procession around the sifrei Torah, taking it in turns to wave the lulav and trying not to fall over anyone's walker? Fantastic.
Tags:
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Oct. 3rd, 2006 05:08 pm)
I made it through Yom Kippur without fainting, throwing up, or falling over!!!

I think the consumption of a large bag of crisps (salt content) and a lot of water, and weaning off caffeine beforehand helped.

We davened at Tehillah, in Boston, which was very nice on the whole. Yom Kippur baffles me somewhat; the concept of sins between man and God is a complicated one if you have problems with the idea that God keeps score. It really seems awfully petty that God would keep score. No good solution just now, I'm afraid. Other fish to fry. You should see the results here soonish :)
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( May. 1st, 2006 11:13 pm)
We had a nice weekend in Baltimore/DC. Shabbat in Pikesville (Baltimore-ish); W was being the guest rabbinical presence.

a) So much green! and flowers! and balmy breezes! and space! rabbits! birds! I was HAPPY.
b) Nice Orthodox shul. I was the only woman wearing a tallit (I'm used to this), and after the service a woman came up to me and said "Can I ask you a personal question?" Here we go, I thought, it's the tallit questioning. So I said "Sure," like the nice role-model I am, and she said "Where did you get your pants?"
Hurrah!
A shul where people were more interested in the funkiness of my trousers than my tallit! Oh, I was happy.
c) W gave some talks. I am increasingly proud of him; he is very good at what he does, and he does good things with it. He is very special indeed.
d) There was a cute DOG at our hosts' house. A Lassie dog.

We got a ride to DC with a shul member and some of his children.
a) It was Girl #2's first time ever on a train, so I got to point out things like the electric rail, and she was so cute and excited
b) She grilled me about being a sofer, and she got that sort of look on her face which told me that if I'd had tools handy, she would've been having a go at calligraphy in about two seconds. Maybe if they invite us back I can do a Sunday morning workshop.

We were in DC for the Darfur rally.
a) I couldn't hear a thing, but there were lots of people there I hadn't seen in a while, and we got to hang out under some nice shady trees and have a nice picnic
b) There were about a million billion Jews there. Seriously lots and lots and lots. I don't know who mobilised the Jewish community or how they did it, but it was very fine to see so many Jewish groups there.
Tags:
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Apr. 20th, 2006 10:51 pm)
And in other news, on Wednesday I read the Song of the Sea,* and it was super-fun. You know how sometimes you're doing something performancy, and you just have the feeling it's going well? Like that. I'd forgotten that everyone stands for that bit, so when I paused just prior to launching into the grand parts, I saw everyone getting to their feet, and sort of thought 'gosh, look...this had better be good hadn't it...'

TMI )

* which, unlike for instance the Ten Commandments, doesn't play a huge part in Christian-based cultural traditions, so if you were wondering - we take it a bit more seriously. F'r instance, we stand up when it's read, like we do for the Ten Biggies.
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Apr. 17th, 2006 02:12 pm)
Sedarim in Boston.

I generally respond to queries of "What do you do?" with "I'm a sofer," sofer being a term people are at least vaguely familiar with, as opposed to soferet which tends to require explanation. I discovered that in Cambridge MA this is a bad idea, because people invariably responded "Oh, you're in software?"

I got to read Shir ha-Shirim too, because the shul didn't have Shir leyners, so I shared the reading with the shul's resident knows-how-to-do-everything. I wasn't expecting a chance to read. I was happy.
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Apr. 9th, 2006 09:46 am)
We got to the Shabbat Destination six minutes before sunset. Not by plan; we calculated a generous journey time, added fifteen minutes just in case, and still managed to get onto the slowest 7 train ever. So Will fought off the congregants so that he could daven mincha,* and I raced around the rabbi's private room getting the food onto the hotplate, the timers onto the lights, davening mincha and lighting candles. With time to spare, I may add.

They do have a wonderful stock of trashy novels there. Shabbat at the self-help is the time I treat myself to rubbishy murder mysteries, and now the clock's changed, there's time for a good long nap AND a couple of lurid thrillers. So that was nice.



* He couldn't stay in the corridor to daven, because there was a congregant out there who wanted him to say a prayer for her daughter, and you can't daven mincha while someone's telling you all about their children.
Tags:
hatam_soferet: (Default)
( Apr. 3rd, 2006 07:05 am)
W was away this shabbat, and when W is away, that means two things: DAIRY and CARBS! An adequate compensation, I think.

Shul was kind of depressing, containing as it did possibly the worst sermon ever. In a nutshell, it tried to say that Vayikra was relevant to us today because God always meant for people to be weaned off sacrifices and nowadays we have prayer instead. He brought the Rambam which says more or less that [but omitted to point out that Rambam doesn't let you stop there - philosophically he may have found a way to deal with not having a temple, but if there was the opportunity, he'd still make you do sacrifices].

He further proved his point by saying that before the destruction of the temple there were synagogues all over the place (therefore sacrifices were already insufficient in the minds of the people and were already being replaced by prayer) and after the destruction of the temple the rabbis 'put the final nail into the coffin of sacrifices' by ritualising individual prayer. This is wrong on SO many levels; it's historically inaccurate, and shows an absolutely shocking lack of knowledge of Bible and rabbinic literature. As well as being philosophically dubious.

So I had to leave before Musaf, because I wanted to drag him off the bima and argue with him (possibly using non-pacifist methods), and it's difficult to daven in that state of mind.

The other drasha was better; it talked about teaching Vayikra to little kiddies because there are no shades of grey in Vayikra; things are right and wrong, kosher and pasul, everything has a solution (usually on four legs). When you get older you learn the rest of Torah and see that actually life has shades of grey in it.
Tags:
.