Yesterday's d'var torah:
( Read more... )

The Reform movement is publishing a new machzor (prayerbook for the high holy days) after several decades. The format is similar to Mishkan T'filah, the new rest-of-year prayerbook that was published a few years ago. Just as MT was intended to replace Gates of Prayer (its predecessor), the new machzor is intended to replace Gates of Repentance ( ( Read more... )

Yom Kippur was really good for me this year. I haven't had time to assemble a more-organized post (and lookie, Sukkot starts tomorrow night!), but I want to record a few disconnected thoughts ( Read more... )

This is nothing new, but in recent months I have become more attuned ( Read more... )

Friday night I led services. My rabbi and our cantorial soloist were also on the bimah. It went really well; the three of us work well together. In his greeting (and explanation of why I was doing this) my rabbi said some really complimentary things about me, which was sure nice to hear ( Read more... )

Friday night I arrived to find copies of Mishkan T'filah, the new siddur published by the Reform movement, in the racks. There have been some services with photocopied subsets of this book (probably copied from earlier drafts), but this was our first chance to use the real thing.
The service went remarkably smoothly, and especially so given that ( Read more... )

( last week's women's service )

This morning I participated in the annual Shabbat service held by the (Pittsburgh) Jewish Women's Center. I'm not really a member of the group (been to a couple functions, on the mailing list, don't pay dues), but several women in my congregation are and they recruited some of the rest of us.
I chanted torah, and it was the longest portion I've ( Read more... )

We were supposed to study talmud again today, but never quite got there: when I walked in, my rabbi asked me what I thought of the new siddur. We talked about some of the issues there, and ended up on a hunt for the alternate R'tzei.
( liturgical research ahead )

Following is the meat of my response to the evaluation form for the new siddur. The questionaire has several ratings questions, demographics, short-answer questions (they left space for a couple sentences per), and the obligatory "any other comments?" invitation. I'm not going to transcribe all the ratings questions, but I will comment on a few.
( Read more... )