My congregation has an evening service on Thursdays. (Long story.) Usually one of the rabbis leads it; if neither is available, usually I get a phone call. Tonight there was no rabbi and no phone call (something must have come up), so at five minutes past the start time the consensus was that I should lead it ( Read more... )

This morning we went to HUC for a double bar mitzvah and then we scattered, mostly into the old city. It was a good day, though mostly unstructured.
( service, old city, group dynamics, hebrew, reflections )

( a walk through Yemein Moshe )

I'm reading torah this Shabbat, which means I'm also speaking briefly Shabbat morning. I recently got some valuable tutelage in sermon-craft, which I would like to apply (even though it's really a micro-sermon or micro-d'var). This involves approaching it a little differently, and I was a little stuck for how to start, being new to this ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )

We have a new associate rabbi (just ordained, from Jerusalem), and this Shabbat the senior rabbi was away so he was on his own. So much for a gradual introduction. :-)
He did a very good job with the Friday-night service. He seemed at ease ( Read more... )

I'm not a rabbi, but this is the Shabbat when I played one at my synagogue. Overall, that went quite well!
( Friday night )

( weekday minyan )

( Read more... )

A few months ago my rabbi gave me a Friday-night service to lead, which will be next week (July 14). There have been some changes since I first wrote about my plans, so here's an update on my thinking. ( Read more... )