Shabbaton
This Shabbat was my congregation's annual retreat. Another congregant
put it well: this morning (parshat Emor) we read about the appointed
times of the calendar (the festivals), and to many of us, this retreat
is another such time. I haven't missed one of these retreats since
joining the congregation, and it's hard to imagine something that would
cause me to miss one now.
We did the Friday-night service from Mishkan T'filah, the new Reform siddur. (Well, photocopies of the relevant pages; our books haven't arrived yet.) No problems or surprises there, though, granted, the shabbaton attendees are among the most liturgically clued-in in the congregation. (Still, if that's an indicator of how things will go when we roll it out to the full congregation, that's great.)
Later in the evening we did the customary song session until around 12:30. We could have gone longer, but all the guitar-playing was killing my rabbi's fingers, and he was the only guitarist present. (A-capella singing never really caught on in this group.) Belatedly, I wonder if the piano that was in the room would have been an option. (I know he plays, but I don't know what he plays.)
The singing tends toward a mix of Hebrew songs, 60s-era folk songs, and miscellaneous songs from Rise Up Singing, not all of which I know how to classify. (For example, what genre is "Good Night Irene"? It's before my time and I really don't know.) This year we did more Debbie Friedman songs than usual, presumably because of her recent visit to our congregation. The song sessions are fun; we have a lot of enthusiastic and skilled singers, and this brings Friday night to a close on a high.
We took the morning service at a slightly more leisurely pace than usual. This week is the 50th anniversary of our president's bar mitzvah and today was actually his birthday, so he read torah and gave a short d'var, and everyone was happy for him. We also learned that morning that another attendee had just become a grandparent (a little earlier than she'd expected). Between those two happy occasions and the visit from a former congregant who's now living in Alaska, there was plenty to be cheerful about.
The question for the morning was about a memorable time when we'd stayed up all night (or close to) with others. Most people talked about all-night gab sessions with good friends (some recent, some from college days). I realized this morning that Shavu'ot (in a few more weeks) marks ten years since that night that I really pursued my curiosity, stayed up all night studying torah at two very different synagogues ("gee, I guess I need to actually go to a synagogue"), and found myself starting to say "we" instead of "you" or "they". So I talked about that.
In the afternoon we studied a chapter of Pirke Avot (ethical teachings, mostly). My rabbi has recently been encouraging chevruta study, so we broke up into groups of three for a while and then came back together. My group had lively discussions, and I gather the others did too. We had a good mix of people -- very different outlooks and assumptions, but all eager to learn and explore. Then we came together for a larger discussion (with each group commenting on things that resonated, positively and negatively), and that was good too. In my (so-far-limited) experience, chevruta study in particular helps bring out the fact that no matter how many times you study the same text, there's always more to learn and discuss. I guess the Pesach seder is supposed to be like that, too.
In around all of this, there was also time to sit and talk with people, or read, or take walks. I'm not doing a good job of describing it (nor did I set out to do a detailed chronology), but I came away from this tonight feeling the wholeness that a full Shabbat in like-minded community can be. I don't get that nearly often enough. (Once again I find myself thinking that I need to more regularly invite people for Shabbat lunch and hope they stick around for a while to talk and sing.)
We had 34 people this year, a few more than usual. We were at a new site, which seems a clear win over the previous two so I hope we keep using it. (It's a shorter drive, the communal space is comfortable and large enough, the beds are comfortable (rare in camp lodges, I gather), and the grounds are pleasant with lots of good places to walk. The only complaint I heard was about the communal bathrooms; my own take on that is that it's one night and not that inconvenient, so shrug.
Random bit #1: at some point someone talked about the 100,000+ people dead in Myanmar and how we're connected even though we'd never have the chance to know folks from there. Funnily enough, I told him later, I actually had been in contact with someone from Myanmar once -- a school teacher who had found an article I'd written and had written to ask advice. That specific case never went anywhere but, I pointed out, the internet makes the world much much smaller. (And now I find myself wondering about the fate of that teacher and the group of students who wanted to build a yurt.)
Random bit #2: our visitor from Alaska and I both ended up in the same car. One conversational snippet:
Visitor: You wrote about (something) on your LiveJournal.
Driver (of my parents' generation): I didn't know you had a LiveJournal.
Me: I didn't know you knew what LiveJournal is.
So, if you're reading this... hi. :-)
We did the Friday-night service from Mishkan T'filah, the new Reform siddur. (Well, photocopies of the relevant pages; our books haven't arrived yet.) No problems or surprises there, though, granted, the shabbaton attendees are among the most liturgically clued-in in the congregation. (Still, if that's an indicator of how things will go when we roll it out to the full congregation, that's great.)
Later in the evening we did the customary song session until around 12:30. We could have gone longer, but all the guitar-playing was killing my rabbi's fingers, and he was the only guitarist present. (A-capella singing never really caught on in this group.) Belatedly, I wonder if the piano that was in the room would have been an option. (I know he plays, but I don't know what he plays.)
The singing tends toward a mix of Hebrew songs, 60s-era folk songs, and miscellaneous songs from Rise Up Singing, not all of which I know how to classify. (For example, what genre is "Good Night Irene"? It's before my time and I really don't know.) This year we did more Debbie Friedman songs than usual, presumably because of her recent visit to our congregation. The song sessions are fun; we have a lot of enthusiastic and skilled singers, and this brings Friday night to a close on a high.
We took the morning service at a slightly more leisurely pace than usual. This week is the 50th anniversary of our president's bar mitzvah and today was actually his birthday, so he read torah and gave a short d'var, and everyone was happy for him. We also learned that morning that another attendee had just become a grandparent (a little earlier than she'd expected). Between those two happy occasions and the visit from a former congregant who's now living in Alaska, there was plenty to be cheerful about.
The question for the morning was about a memorable time when we'd stayed up all night (or close to) with others. Most people talked about all-night gab sessions with good friends (some recent, some from college days). I realized this morning that Shavu'ot (in a few more weeks) marks ten years since that night that I really pursued my curiosity, stayed up all night studying torah at two very different synagogues ("gee, I guess I need to actually go to a synagogue"), and found myself starting to say "we" instead of "you" or "they". So I talked about that.
In the afternoon we studied a chapter of Pirke Avot (ethical teachings, mostly). My rabbi has recently been encouraging chevruta study, so we broke up into groups of three for a while and then came back together. My group had lively discussions, and I gather the others did too. We had a good mix of people -- very different outlooks and assumptions, but all eager to learn and explore. Then we came together for a larger discussion (with each group commenting on things that resonated, positively and negatively), and that was good too. In my (so-far-limited) experience, chevruta study in particular helps bring out the fact that no matter how many times you study the same text, there's always more to learn and discuss. I guess the Pesach seder is supposed to be like that, too.
In around all of this, there was also time to sit and talk with people, or read, or take walks. I'm not doing a good job of describing it (nor did I set out to do a detailed chronology), but I came away from this tonight feeling the wholeness that a full Shabbat in like-minded community can be. I don't get that nearly often enough. (Once again I find myself thinking that I need to more regularly invite people for Shabbat lunch and hope they stick around for a while to talk and sing.)
We had 34 people this year, a few more than usual. We were at a new site, which seems a clear win over the previous two so I hope we keep using it. (It's a shorter drive, the communal space is comfortable and large enough, the beds are comfortable (rare in camp lodges, I gather), and the grounds are pleasant with lots of good places to walk. The only complaint I heard was about the communal bathrooms; my own take on that is that it's one night and not that inconvenient, so shrug.
Random bit #1: at some point someone talked about the 100,000+ people dead in Myanmar and how we're connected even though we'd never have the chance to know folks from there. Funnily enough, I told him later, I actually had been in contact with someone from Myanmar once -- a school teacher who had found an article I'd written and had written to ask advice. That specific case never went anywhere but, I pointed out, the internet makes the world much much smaller. (And now I find myself wondering about the fate of that teacher and the group of students who wanted to build a yurt.)
Random bit #2: our visitor from Alaska and I both ended up in the same car. One conversational snippet:
Visitor: You wrote about (something) on your LiveJournal.
Driver (of my parents' generation): I didn't know you had a LiveJournal.
Me: I didn't know you knew what LiveJournal is.
So, if you're reading this... hi. :-)