Jews of the Vegetative Persuasion
I spent this past Shabbos at a Jews in the Woods shabbatón in Western Massachussets. It was a crazy Shabbos of super-hippie transsectual rejewvination.
It started out with me and sen_ichi_rei and another person leaving NYC and getting lost 5 times on our way up north past the site of JitW to pick up Car Buddy #4 and get back down to it before Shabbos. At the time and at various times over the weekend, sen_ichi_rei blamed it on some kind of personal calamity zone of hers, but on Sunday morning I learned that that wasn't true - it was actually due to the effect of alanscottevil and his car buddies cursing us for having his maps in my car (even though he's the one who put them there in the first place)!
note: i forgot to "fall back" my camera, so the timestamps are an hour ahead of when they should be
We drove up the scenic Taconic State Parkway
And some time after crossing the border into Massachussets
we came across the Berkshire Mvsevm of Natvral History and Art
OMG! What's that out in front of the museum???
Could it be a STEGOSAURUS statue?!
So we pulled over and parked, and got out to take pictures.
One of them you can see in the profile icon of this post.
Here's another one of me with my head between the stegosaur's fearsome spiky tail:
Eventually we made it to the site about half an hour before Shabbat was going to start.
At Kabbalat Shabbat i realized that it's not quite that i don't like dancing during davening; I just don't like dancing with other people during davening. Solo hippie-dancing off to the side or in the back was perfectly fine and spiritually beneficial at some points.
The davening was a very powerful and moving experience. The only problem was that some times things went on that weren't quite in line with my halakhic requirements or sensibilities, which sort of shook me out of being able to participate wholeheartedly in the community. For instance, Pesuqey Dezimra of Shahhris on Saturday Morning was very untraditional, but the songs and chants were so beautiful that i wish i could remember them all. There was a particularly powerful one for Barukh She’amar, as well as (of course, or so i hear) ‘Ozi Vezimrat Ya(q). The only problem was that it wasn't fulfilling my obligations, and was probably messing with my fulfillment of them by changing words, skipping lines, and mixing sentences. So I had to say an abbreviated "Pesuqey" by myself before going back to sing with the community.
While I'm being negative, i might as well mention the touchy-feely factor. I am very much not a touch-feely person. Beyond the technical legal issues of shemirat negi‘a shebederekh hhiba, I have a form of sensory hypersensitivity which makes unexpected and involuntary sensations highly discomfiting. So when someone on Friday Night came up to me and suddenly placed their arm around my waist in an unexpectedly very (read: 'too') friendly manner, I had to stop myself from being rude and simply (read: 'violently') pushing their arm away, even though my whole midsection was already beginning to twitch from the unexpected/unwanted contact. So I assumed that they mistook me for someone else, but it turned out that they didn't... so i quickly explained that i'm not such a touchy-feely person, and they very nicely immediately stopped with the bodily contact.
Now back to the positives!
I leined one alíya, and got complimented by many people on my trop and pronunciation. Unfortunately, soon after i finished my cantillation, I was overtaken by a wave of exhaustion (probably the first blow of the cold i'm fighting off now) and stumbled back to my bunk and fell asleep. I didn't miss much, though, because davening took sooooo looooooonnngggg. Because of this mid-minyan nappage, i missed hearing someone lein with English tarjum! You hear that, margavriel? English tarjum!!!! From what i hear, it was amazing.
I also hhazaned Minhha, and again got many compliments and inquiries about my pronunciation. I found it very interesting that no one commented on my use of Old Ashkenazic variants of the prayers from before over-zealous wannabe linguists and kabbalists got to them. It seems that in such a varied place where some people are using Artscroll and others are inserting imahot or speaking to/of God in feminine word forms, saying וישמחו בך ישראל אוהבי שמך instead of וינוחו בם ישראל מקדשי שמך isn't anything to take notice of.
Back on Friday Night, there was a discussion about how to talk to people across ideological boundaries without misunderstandings. In the course of it, it turned out that there were a whole bunch of bloggers there, including sen_ichi_rei, spin0za1, batshua and orawnzva.
On Saturday Night, orawnzva took out his guitar that's bigger on the inside than on the outside, and sang some of his songs. Among the most moving, beautiful, inspiring, creative, and/or hilarious songs that this master songwriter sang and played were Jurassic Park Sunset, Here Be Cartographers, and the Judeo-Tolkienic Sukkot song Starlight through Woven Branches. How many Jewish, Eldarin, and other references can you find in it?
If any of the people involved would like any of the pictures i took before or after Shabbos, feel free to email me.
Have a VERY good week!
~~~~~
ps: i apologize to everyone on my friendslist who doesn't get the technical jewish terminology
pps: at jitw i discovered that i now associate mixed-gender davening spaces and egalness with work. thank you, conservative movement, for paying my bills. and thank G*d for the trichitza!
It started out with me and sen_ichi_rei and another person leaving NYC and getting lost 5 times on our way up north past the site of JitW to pick up Car Buddy #4 and get back down to it before Shabbos. At the time and at various times over the weekend, sen_ichi_rei blamed it on some kind of personal calamity zone of hers, but on Sunday morning I learned that that wasn't true - it was actually due to the effect of alanscottevil and his car buddies cursing us for having his maps in my car (even though he's the one who put them there in the first place)!
note: i forgot to "fall back" my camera, so the timestamps are an hour ahead of when they should be
We drove up the scenic Taconic State Parkway
And some time after crossing the border into Massachussets
we came across the Berkshire Mvsevm of Natvral History and Art
OMG! What's that out in front of the museum???
Could it be a STEGOSAURUS statue?!
So we pulled over and parked, and got out to take pictures.
One of them you can see in the profile icon of this post.
Here's another one of me with my head between the stegosaur's fearsome spiky tail:
Eventually we made it to the site about half an hour before Shabbat was going to start.
At Kabbalat Shabbat i realized that it's not quite that i don't like dancing during davening; I just don't like dancing with other people during davening. Solo hippie-dancing off to the side or in the back was perfectly fine and spiritually beneficial at some points.
The davening was a very powerful and moving experience. The only problem was that some times things went on that weren't quite in line with my halakhic requirements or sensibilities, which sort of shook me out of being able to participate wholeheartedly in the community. For instance, Pesuqey Dezimra of Shahhris on Saturday Morning was very untraditional, but the songs and chants were so beautiful that i wish i could remember them all. There was a particularly powerful one for Barukh She’amar, as well as (of course, or so i hear) ‘Ozi Vezimrat Ya(q). The only problem was that it wasn't fulfilling my obligations, and was probably messing with my fulfillment of them by changing words, skipping lines, and mixing sentences. So I had to say an abbreviated "Pesuqey" by myself before going back to sing with the community.
While I'm being negative, i might as well mention the touchy-feely factor. I am very much not a touch-feely person. Beyond the technical legal issues of shemirat negi‘a shebederekh hhiba, I have a form of sensory hypersensitivity which makes unexpected and involuntary sensations highly discomfiting. So when someone on Friday Night came up to me and suddenly placed their arm around my waist in an unexpectedly very (read: 'too') friendly manner, I had to stop myself from being rude and simply (read: 'violently') pushing their arm away, even though my whole midsection was already beginning to twitch from the unexpected/unwanted contact. So I assumed that they mistook me for someone else, but it turned out that they didn't... so i quickly explained that i'm not such a touchy-feely person, and they very nicely immediately stopped with the bodily contact.
Now back to the positives!
I leined one alíya, and got complimented by many people on my trop and pronunciation. Unfortunately, soon after i finished my cantillation, I was overtaken by a wave of exhaustion (probably the first blow of the cold i'm fighting off now) and stumbled back to my bunk and fell asleep. I didn't miss much, though, because davening took sooooo looooooonnngggg. Because of this mid-minyan nappage, i missed hearing someone lein with English tarjum! You hear that, margavriel? English tarjum!!!! From what i hear, it was amazing.
I also hhazaned Minhha, and again got many compliments and inquiries about my pronunciation. I found it very interesting that no one commented on my use of Old Ashkenazic variants of the prayers from before over-zealous wannabe linguists and kabbalists got to them. It seems that in such a varied place where some people are using Artscroll and others are inserting imahot or speaking to/of God in feminine word forms, saying וישמחו בך ישראל אוהבי שמך instead of וינוחו בם ישראל מקדשי שמך isn't anything to take notice of.
Back on Friday Night, there was a discussion about how to talk to people across ideological boundaries without misunderstandings. In the course of it, it turned out that there were a whole bunch of bloggers there, including sen_ichi_rei, spin0za1, batshua and orawnzva.
On Saturday Night, orawnzva took out his guitar that's bigger on the inside than on the outside, and sang some of his songs. Among the most moving, beautiful, inspiring, creative, and/or hilarious songs that this master songwriter sang and played were Jurassic Park Sunset, Here Be Cartographers, and the Judeo-Tolkienic Sukkot song Starlight through Woven Branches. How many Jewish, Eldarin, and other references can you find in it?
If any of the people involved would like any of the pictures i took before or after Shabbos, feel free to email me.
Have a VERY good week!
~~~~~
ps: i apologize to everyone on my friendslist who doesn't get the technical jewish terminology
pps: at jitw i discovered that i now associate mixed-gender davening spaces and egalness with work. thank you, conservative movement, for paying my bills. and thank G*d for the trichitza!