Graduation/Ordination
Yesterday was one of those days- just packed from beginning to end.
I started the day by heading out early to lead P'sukei D'Zimra at school. I'm not usually much for the JTS minyan, but this was actually a very special and lovely part of the day. I actually had a really good, spiritual experience while leading davening, which is not hugely usual for me. And then I felt involved and comfortable during Shacharit, even during the singing- unusual for me on a weekday. The leyning was sort of amusing: three different people leyned, the first two cantorial students, the last, a rabbinical student- and sadly, the first two sounded like folks with fairly little experience leyning, while the last was fluid and comfortable (although there were a couple of errors)... I had breakfast in the cafeteria with some classmates (who I usually would have been too intimidated to ask to join, but by some grace, I just did it, basically, and it was fine).
Robing was another humorous social experience, including a group decision against wearing the graduation caps, although we'd been encouraged to do so (although in the past, rabbinical students never have)... A classmate gave me a lovely card along with photos of me that she'd taken over the past 6 years. It was pretty amazing to see the differences, and the similarities.
Graduation itself was, well, a graduation, but there were some high points- walking in to the ceremony through a double-line of professors clapping was actually a pretty inspiring moment. Kind of breath-taking, actually. Also, it started nearly on time and ended a few minutes early, which shocked and impressed me.
After graduation, H, his dad (who came in for the event, and this weekend), and I hit a grocery store, and went and had a picnic lunch in Riverside Park. It was just the right break between two events with lots and lots of people for me. We bought way too much food, of course, but it was a very nice lunch, for all that I didn't end up eating very much- too excited.
(I'm listening to some Frank Ticheli while writing this, and in the midst of a piece called Angels in the Architecture, it just broke out into Heveinu Shalom Aleichem breifly- rather startling, that. It has now returned to sort of classic Ticheli stuff.)
Ordination was a strange combination of overwhelming, powerful and dull, as I suppose any ritual repeated 32 times (or 2 variants, repeated 5 and 27 times, respectively, more accurately) will be. I spent some of the duller moments looking out from the stage to watch my family, which I could do fairly easily. There was a little too much Debby Friedman for my taste (but then, more than a Very little of such will be more than my taste, anyways), but overall, I thought that they/we put together a very well-crafted ritual. The dancing afterward was lovely, and didn't go on too long- although we left quite early in order to get to the restaurant in time for our reservation (as ordination ran half an hour over the time it was supposed to end- that's a point against its well-crafted-ness.)
Dinner went pretty well. We had a little run-around when we discovered that I'd managed to get the wrong cross-street for the restaurant, and so we had to take the grandmothers for a short (few block) walk in NYC, which made me tense. But everyone got there without getting too uncomfortable. And then, since I'd picked out a very small restaurant (vegetarian, too- it was lovely), the hearing-impaired among us (a large proportion) had a better chance than usual at hearing. However, there were still some moments of hilarity (for me, at least) prompted by mis-hearings. And it was very special to spend some time with my grandmothers. I didn't get a ton of time with my dad, but we're planning on having a weekend together that's more time together and less Events, soon... One of H's cousins and his girlfriend joined us for dinner as well, and another will be joining us for shabbos lunch, since he couldn't make it.
While there were a variety of unexpected graduation gifts, the most unexpected, and very special to me, surprise was a gorgeous necklace from my paternal grandmother. The special thing is that it belonged to her mother, my great-grandmother. (Whose pin I had already chosen to wear- although I'm sure that she never wore it on her head, as I did.)
Altogether, it was a really lovely, powerful day. And now I'm a rabbi- no more putting it off, when people ask. This is going to be an interesting transition...
I started the day by heading out early to lead P'sukei D'Zimra at school. I'm not usually much for the JTS minyan, but this was actually a very special and lovely part of the day. I actually had a really good, spiritual experience while leading davening, which is not hugely usual for me. And then I felt involved and comfortable during Shacharit, even during the singing- unusual for me on a weekday. The leyning was sort of amusing: three different people leyned, the first two cantorial students, the last, a rabbinical student- and sadly, the first two sounded like folks with fairly little experience leyning, while the last was fluid and comfortable (although there were a couple of errors)... I had breakfast in the cafeteria with some classmates (who I usually would have been too intimidated to ask to join, but by some grace, I just did it, basically, and it was fine).
Robing was another humorous social experience, including a group decision against wearing the graduation caps, although we'd been encouraged to do so (although in the past, rabbinical students never have)... A classmate gave me a lovely card along with photos of me that she'd taken over the past 6 years. It was pretty amazing to see the differences, and the similarities.
Graduation itself was, well, a graduation, but there were some high points- walking in to the ceremony through a double-line of professors clapping was actually a pretty inspiring moment. Kind of breath-taking, actually. Also, it started nearly on time and ended a few minutes early, which shocked and impressed me.
After graduation, H, his dad (who came in for the event, and this weekend), and I hit a grocery store, and went and had a picnic lunch in Riverside Park. It was just the right break between two events with lots and lots of people for me. We bought way too much food, of course, but it was a very nice lunch, for all that I didn't end up eating very much- too excited.
(I'm listening to some Frank Ticheli while writing this, and in the midst of a piece called Angels in the Architecture, it just broke out into Heveinu Shalom Aleichem breifly- rather startling, that. It has now returned to sort of classic Ticheli stuff.)
Ordination was a strange combination of overwhelming, powerful and dull, as I suppose any ritual repeated 32 times (or 2 variants, repeated 5 and 27 times, respectively, more accurately) will be. I spent some of the duller moments looking out from the stage to watch my family, which I could do fairly easily. There was a little too much Debby Friedman for my taste (but then, more than a Very little of such will be more than my taste, anyways), but overall, I thought that they/we put together a very well-crafted ritual. The dancing afterward was lovely, and didn't go on too long- although we left quite early in order to get to the restaurant in time for our reservation (as ordination ran half an hour over the time it was supposed to end- that's a point against its well-crafted-ness.)
Dinner went pretty well. We had a little run-around when we discovered that I'd managed to get the wrong cross-street for the restaurant, and so we had to take the grandmothers for a short (few block) walk in NYC, which made me tense. But everyone got there without getting too uncomfortable. And then, since I'd picked out a very small restaurant (vegetarian, too- it was lovely), the hearing-impaired among us (a large proportion) had a better chance than usual at hearing. However, there were still some moments of hilarity (for me, at least) prompted by mis-hearings. And it was very special to spend some time with my grandmothers. I didn't get a ton of time with my dad, but we're planning on having a weekend together that's more time together and less Events, soon... One of H's cousins and his girlfriend joined us for dinner as well, and another will be joining us for shabbos lunch, since he couldn't make it.
While there were a variety of unexpected graduation gifts, the most unexpected, and very special to me, surprise was a gorgeous necklace from my paternal grandmother. The special thing is that it belonged to her mother, my great-grandmother. (Whose pin I had already chosen to wear- although I'm sure that she never wore it on her head, as I did.)
Altogether, it was a really lovely, powerful day. And now I'm a rabbi- no more putting it off, when people ask. This is going to be an interesting transition...