Shabbat service
Friday night's service went really well. I got lots of compliments,
including from both rabbis. Whee! Constructive criticism (which I
explicitly requested; how else will I get better?) will come later.
I did pretty much all of the service up to the torah service, except that the cantorial soloist led some stuff. I did some parts that she normally does; she was very gracious about it (and offered, in most of those cases).
I was confident, comfortable, and apparently smiling a lot. I'm told my articulation was very good, and that the 90-something-year-old who often has difficulty understanding people understood me just fine. I feel that I didn't look at the congregation while speaking (reading) as much as I wanted to, though I tried some things to make this not completely suck. (No one wants to look at a service leader who has his face buried in the book.) While reading a passage aloud you can read a few words ahead to the end of the sentence and then look up while reciting those from short-term memory; I did that a lot. Of course, that worked as well as it did because the prayerbook is familiar. I had more trouble doing this during my d'var torah even though I wrote those words.
I believe my t'filah change worked, though I'll have to check with some congregants to really know. I wanted to make it more intimate and personal, so I turned to face the ark too (so my back was to the congregation) and we chanted the Hebrew for the first three parts straight through and a-capella. Usually, as we do it, the people on the bimah face the congregation, there's piano accompaniment for the chanting, and there is English interspersed. As a congregant, I find it hard to get and keep my kavanah ("intention", very loosely) under those circumstances; I feel like I'm having a conversation with the people on the bimah instead of addressing God. Before the t'filah I announced this change, and it was also printed in the program insert, so no one was surprised. I figure this was my one permitted weirdness; as I said, I think it worked. (People are naturally resistant to change in significant size or quantity. I figure a guest leader can get away with one major weirdness. Actually, a guest can try things that the regular clergy can't, and if they don't work the clergy aren't on the hook for it. Perfect setup, in my opinion.)
Giving the d'var torah went pretty well; I wasn't as nervous as I expected to be. (I don't think the nervousness that was there was visible, either.) In retrospect it needed a stronger ending; next time I will ask to do a practice run in front of my rabbi (with enough time to then make changes). He didn't see or hear this in advance, which I regret.
From a mechanical perspective, formatting the d'var with one clause per line instead of conventional paragraphs made a big difference. I used 18-point Verdana (so that most phrases would fit on one line); next time I'll probably bump it to 20-point, but 18 wasn't horrid.
One thing I definitely need to work on: rehearse the ad-libs. Yeah, contradiction in terms -- what I mean is the bits like inviting the bat-mitzvah student to lead the one prayer she did, making references to the handouts, inviting silent prayer... all the stuff that doesn't exist as words in the prayerbook. I practiced the book; I needed more practice with the other bits.
Speaking of the bat-mitzvah student, she was amazing. She was poised and knew her stuff, and she has an excellent voice. If I hadn't had lunch constraints, I would have gone to the bat-mitzvah service this morning (after my regular service) at least through the torah reading and her d'var torah.
We deliberately chose an opening song that's not in the siddur, so we could print the lyrics on a program insert. This was important to set up the explanation of the t'filah; I figured that would give people the chance to read that explanation before we got to it. As long as there was an insert anyway, I decided to include a meditation to be read (if people wanted) during the silent prayer; this gave us a chance to feed in something from Mishkan T'filah in advance. (There will be natural resistance to any new siddur, even though much of its content will be extremely familiar. This was a tiny effort to make one more small piece be not completely new when we start using the book.)
The explanation and meditation:
About the t'filah
We read the t'filah together, but it is also a private prayer. We stand in community, but we reach out individually to God. This is a time to stand together and also a time to look within.
Tonight, let us try something new. Tonight we will chant the opening blessings of the t'filah unaccompanied and facing the ark together. May our prayer together fill each of our neshamot, our individual souls.
Meditation
Holy One,
give me a quiet heart,
and help me to hear the still,
small voice that speaks within me.
It calls me to come close to You
and to grow in Your likeness.
It teaches me to do my work faithfully,
even when no one's eye is upon me.
It counsels me to judge others kindly
and to love them freely,
for it persuades me to see the divinity in everyone I meet.
Help me, O God,
to come to the end of each day
feeling that I used its gifts wisely and faced its trials bravely.
- Chaim Stern
I did pretty much all of the service up to the torah service, except that the cantorial soloist led some stuff. I did some parts that she normally does; she was very gracious about it (and offered, in most of those cases).
I was confident, comfortable, and apparently smiling a lot. I'm told my articulation was very good, and that the 90-something-year-old who often has difficulty understanding people understood me just fine. I feel that I didn't look at the congregation while speaking (reading) as much as I wanted to, though I tried some things to make this not completely suck. (No one wants to look at a service leader who has his face buried in the book.) While reading a passage aloud you can read a few words ahead to the end of the sentence and then look up while reciting those from short-term memory; I did that a lot. Of course, that worked as well as it did because the prayerbook is familiar. I had more trouble doing this during my d'var torah even though I wrote those words.
I believe my t'filah change worked, though I'll have to check with some congregants to really know. I wanted to make it more intimate and personal, so I turned to face the ark too (so my back was to the congregation) and we chanted the Hebrew for the first three parts straight through and a-capella. Usually, as we do it, the people on the bimah face the congregation, there's piano accompaniment for the chanting, and there is English interspersed. As a congregant, I find it hard to get and keep my kavanah ("intention", very loosely) under those circumstances; I feel like I'm having a conversation with the people on the bimah instead of addressing God. Before the t'filah I announced this change, and it was also printed in the program insert, so no one was surprised. I figure this was my one permitted weirdness; as I said, I think it worked. (People are naturally resistant to change in significant size or quantity. I figure a guest leader can get away with one major weirdness. Actually, a guest can try things that the regular clergy can't, and if they don't work the clergy aren't on the hook for it. Perfect setup, in my opinion.)
Giving the d'var torah went pretty well; I wasn't as nervous as I expected to be. (I don't think the nervousness that was there was visible, either.) In retrospect it needed a stronger ending; next time I will ask to do a practice run in front of my rabbi (with enough time to then make changes). He didn't see or hear this in advance, which I regret.
From a mechanical perspective, formatting the d'var with one clause per line instead of conventional paragraphs made a big difference. I used 18-point Verdana (so that most phrases would fit on one line); next time I'll probably bump it to 20-point, but 18 wasn't horrid.
One thing I definitely need to work on: rehearse the ad-libs. Yeah, contradiction in terms -- what I mean is the bits like inviting the bat-mitzvah student to lead the one prayer she did, making references to the handouts, inviting silent prayer... all the stuff that doesn't exist as words in the prayerbook. I practiced the book; I needed more practice with the other bits.
Speaking of the bat-mitzvah student, she was amazing. She was poised and knew her stuff, and she has an excellent voice. If I hadn't had lunch constraints, I would have gone to the bat-mitzvah service this morning (after my regular service) at least through the torah reading and her d'var torah.
We deliberately chose an opening song that's not in the siddur, so we could print the lyrics on a program insert. This was important to set up the explanation of the t'filah; I figured that would give people the chance to read that explanation before we got to it. As long as there was an insert anyway, I decided to include a meditation to be read (if people wanted) during the silent prayer; this gave us a chance to feed in something from Mishkan T'filah in advance. (There will be natural resistance to any new siddur, even though much of its content will be extremely familiar. This was a tiny effort to make one more small piece be not completely new when we start using the book.)
The explanation and meditation:
About the t'filah
We read the t'filah together, but it is also a private prayer. We stand in community, but we reach out individually to God. This is a time to stand together and also a time to look within.
Tonight, let us try something new. Tonight we will chant the opening blessings of the t'filah unaccompanied and facing the ark together. May our prayer together fill each of our neshamot, our individual souls.
Meditation
Holy One,
give me a quiet heart,
and help me to hear the still,
small voice that speaks within me.
It calls me to come close to You
and to grow in Your likeness.
It teaches me to do my work faithfully,
even when no one's eye is upon me.
It counsels me to judge others kindly
and to love them freely,
for it persuades me to see the divinity in everyone I meet.
Help me, O God,
to come to the end of each day
feeling that I used its gifts wisely and faced its trials bravely.
- Chaim Stern