morning minyan
Whew. This morning I led the "entire" morning service (see clarifications below) at Tree of Life for the first time. It didn't suck, though I stumbled in some places. People were complimentary.
This minyan reads a mix of Hebrew and English. I switched to English for one paragraph that's traditionally done in Hebrew, because I just don't have it yet. (It's the final paragraph before Sh'ma, not something critically-Hebrew like the Amidah.)
During the "kedusha-ish" section of kriat sh'ma (a few paragraphs earlier), I read rather than chanted. This made things a little awkward because the congregational responses are chanted. I did clear that with the usual leader in advance and he thought it would be ok, but it's clear now that I need to learn to chant it. Not a big deal in the long term; I just had trouble allocating enough mental buffer space for both melody and text.
The torah reader conducts most of the torah service, but the service leader leads the opening and closing parts (taking the torah from the ark and returning it). I had the regular leader do those bits not because of any liturgical problems -- I'm fine with the text of the torah service -- but because I don't know if I can hold the sefer torah in one arm like he does. (The other hand holds the siddur and I need that.) The scroll is kind of heavy and I should get them to let me practice with it or something. I mentioned this to the regular leader afterwards and he said "so just have someone else carry it". That option didn't occur to me.
My Hebrew is still shaky in places. I got through it, but I'd like to do better. That'll come with more practice.
Random observation: I have a copy of the siddur at home (that's what I've been practicing with). It has a red cover instead of a gray one but the same publication date (2002, IIRC), so I assumed that was just a quirk of a differenr print run. This morning I noticed one place where the layout of the text is slightly different between the two. I was startled, because my visual memory had gotten used to the idea that such-and-such word (a local landmark) comes at the end of a line and this morning it didn't. Weird!
This minyan reads a mix of Hebrew and English. I switched to English for one paragraph that's traditionally done in Hebrew, because I just don't have it yet. (It's the final paragraph before Sh'ma, not something critically-Hebrew like the Amidah.)
During the "kedusha-ish" section of kriat sh'ma (a few paragraphs earlier), I read rather than chanted. This made things a little awkward because the congregational responses are chanted. I did clear that with the usual leader in advance and he thought it would be ok, but it's clear now that I need to learn to chant it. Not a big deal in the long term; I just had trouble allocating enough mental buffer space for both melody and text.
The torah reader conducts most of the torah service, but the service leader leads the opening and closing parts (taking the torah from the ark and returning it). I had the regular leader do those bits not because of any liturgical problems -- I'm fine with the text of the torah service -- but because I don't know if I can hold the sefer torah in one arm like he does. (The other hand holds the siddur and I need that.) The scroll is kind of heavy and I should get them to let me practice with it or something. I mentioned this to the regular leader afterwards and he said "so just have someone else carry it". That option didn't occur to me.
My Hebrew is still shaky in places. I got through it, but I'd like to do better. That'll come with more practice.
Random observation: I have a copy of the siddur at home (that's what I've been practicing with). It has a red cover instead of a gray one but the same publication date (2002, IIRC), so I assumed that was just a quirk of a differenr print run. This morning I noticed one place where the layout of the text is slightly different between the two. I was startled, because my visual memory had gotten used to the idea that such-and-such word (a local landmark) comes at the end of a line and this morning it didn't. Weird!