It's been a few weeks since the kallah ended and there are things I'd meant to have written about by now. Well, better late than never.
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This is nothing new, but in recent months I have become more attuned ( Read more... )

My morning class at the NHC institute was "Jewish ethics of what we say and how we say it" (sh'mirat ha-lashon henceforth, for short), taught by Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips. This is a topic that interests me and I had heard a good review of this teacher from last year. I was not disappointed. :-)
(Let me note in passing how challenging it is to ( Read more... )

There are still some focused entries I want to write about NHC (at least two), but in the meantime, some shorter bits ( Read more... )

My afternoon class at NHC was "the art and spirit of prayer leading", taught by Julia Appel, a rabbinic student at Hebrew College. (I think she just finished her first year, so I hadn't met her before.) The class involved text study and discussion; this was not, as they say, a lab class.
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The "H" in "NHC" stands for "havurah" [sic :-) ], which suggests a certain style of prayer: participatory, musical, casual. (I don't know if it's fair to equate chavurah with the Renewal movement, but there's clearly overlap.) The institute actually had a variety of services, and some of what I found surprised me.
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I'm home from the National Chavurah Committee gathering (which I've come to think of informally as "JewCon"). As you might have guessed, I didn't write entries while there, so you get a dump in arbitrary order now. :-)
(Also, I won't be able to catch up on LJ. If I haven't already commented on ( Read more... )

We made introductions verbally, but I promised to do this here for the sake of the folks who were there. So, the attendees at today's lunch in Brookline, with identifying info where it's already LJ-public (or trivial), were:

• goldsquare and nudgeprincess, who took me to the airport afterwards
• jducoeur (Justin in the SCA)
• magid, who drove me to the conference and back (and who talked ( Read more... )

Ok, sounds like we have the beginnings of a plan. magid and I will be leaving FPU probably around 10:30-11AM; I don't remember what travel time is, but we can head to some place in Brookline. I think goldsquare and Robin, 530nm330hz, and mabfan (and gnomi?) are available for lunch; anyone else? I have phone numbers for all of you, so how about if I call when we think we're an hour ( Read more... )