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magidA pretty nice Shabbat, all around.
I didn't end up getting take out for dinner. Instead, I had rolls from the bakery, leftover chicken soup, a tofu-broccoli-carrot-water chestnut stir fry over rice, buttercup squash, and some Swiss steaks cooked with onions, yellow bell pepper strips, and chunks of potato. The food wasn't amazing, but reasonably good. Quiet dinner, then some reading aloud.
Nice to have the regular Shabbat davening (mostly). There was bircat ha-chodesh [1], which is always a favorite of mine, partly because it encapsulates so much of what I'd like in a month: health, a living wage, learning, no shame. Pretty straightforward. I hope this month will have these things, in fact. And this week was my favorite parsha [2], Breishit [3]. There's so much that goes on... We spent months of my first year at Nishmat learning this parsha, and that was with only a few commentaries. I skipped out before kiddush, though. No patience for the schmoozing, especially not in a room with those accoustics.
[1] Lit., "blessing of the month," a prayer said on the Shabbat before a new month.
[2] Torah portion of the week. They're divided up so as to make one reading of the five books in one (lunar) calendar year.
[3] Lit., "in the beginning," also known as "Genesis." This refers to the portion of the week (up to the first mention of Noah), not the whole book.
I met Queue, and we went to my friends B and D, who live around the corner, for lunch. Of course, the other guests were late, and we ended up wondering if Z and E were just running late, or had had to go to Children's Hospital. In the mean time, we chatted with D, and played with her daughter R, who is a cute but tiny mite of a person (really; Z & E's son, a year younger that her, is already at least her size...). We sang vowel songs, helped her on and off the rocking chair, did ring-around-the-rosy (with a second verse I'd never heard before, involving cows eating buttercups, and thunder and lightning, ending with standing up again), played with beads and keys. Other talk of jobs, of libraries, of people with short bowels and what can be done.
In the end, Z and E arrived, and we had lunch. It was nice having a chance to chat with people I haven't spent much time with recently, and make silly faces at the kids. I felt a bit badly that there was so much dairy, with Queue trying to avoid it... And then home again, for an hour of down time, reading and playing solitaire, before I went out to a class at JFK park.
The class is lead by Deborah K, a talented and knowlegeable woman (a Drisha scholar, also the rabbi's wife). The class is supposed to look at the parsha each week, and see how families work through the book of Genesis. It was "BYOS," Bring Your Own Sefer (book), and held out in JFK park, emphasizing the new, wonderful eruv. A beautiful day for sitting out on the grass, seeing the huge trees and the river nearby, enjoying creation, as it were.
Deborah had some interesting ideas about the portion. Of course, I wasn't taking notes, but some things stuck in my head.
The idea that to become a full person, not an animal or child, involves making choices that someone else says is wrong (Adam eating the fruit, or children doing something they're told not to do), that perhaps trangression of some sort is an integral part of the process of becoming a person.
The idea that people could've ended up eating of the other Tree (of eternal life). People could've chosen to be eternal people without free will (like angels), or people with limited life but with free will.
The idea that the punishment for breaking the commandment not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge is a paradigmatic shift, defining people roles more clearly: women now have pain in childbirth, and the raising of children who have a longer childhood than most species, which she cannot do alone (be it partner, or day care person, or whomever helping); men now will have to spend lots of time working for the daily bread. This is a more formal defining of M-F relationships than had been before.
The idea that people don't have relationships yet in this portion. God interacts with different people, but mostly, they don't interact with each other.
Other stuff I'm forgetting.
I very much enjoyed this topic class, and I hope it will continue.
I walked home with B, talking of why he (and his wife) had gotten this class started. Partly to get the teacher more adult time (she has three young kids), partly to get more potential interaction between people in different constituencies in the minyan (undergrad/grad/other), partly to get more use of the eruv. He's concerned that the undergrads don't appreciate it. He's also got plans for game afternoons (bring games to Hillel, on Shabbat), possibly 3rd meals (on Shabbat) not at Hillel, perhaps progressive meals or more potluck picnics (they're not just for Shavuot any more!), ideas for more community building. As always, interesting hearing his plans...
I didn't end up getting take out for dinner. Instead, I had rolls from the bakery, leftover chicken soup, a tofu-broccoli-carrot-water chestnut stir fry over rice, buttercup squash, and some Swiss steaks cooked with onions, yellow bell pepper strips, and chunks of potato. The food wasn't amazing, but reasonably good. Quiet dinner, then some reading aloud.
Nice to have the regular Shabbat davening (mostly). There was bircat ha-chodesh [1], which is always a favorite of mine, partly because it encapsulates so much of what I'd like in a month: health, a living wage, learning, no shame. Pretty straightforward. I hope this month will have these things, in fact. And this week was my favorite parsha [2], Breishit [3]. There's so much that goes on... We spent months of my first year at Nishmat learning this parsha, and that was with only a few commentaries. I skipped out before kiddush, though. No patience for the schmoozing, especially not in a room with those accoustics.
[1] Lit., "blessing of the month," a prayer said on the Shabbat before a new month.
[2] Torah portion of the week. They're divided up so as to make one reading of the five books in one (lunar) calendar year.
[3] Lit., "in the beginning," also known as "Genesis." This refers to the portion of the week (up to the first mention of Noah), not the whole book.
I met Queue, and we went to my friends B and D, who live around the corner, for lunch. Of course, the other guests were late, and we ended up wondering if Z and E were just running late, or had had to go to Children's Hospital. In the mean time, we chatted with D, and played with her daughter R, who is a cute but tiny mite of a person (really; Z & E's son, a year younger that her, is already at least her size...). We sang vowel songs, helped her on and off the rocking chair, did ring-around-the-rosy (with a second verse I'd never heard before, involving cows eating buttercups, and thunder and lightning, ending with standing up again), played with beads and keys. Other talk of jobs, of libraries, of people with short bowels and what can be done.
In the end, Z and E arrived, and we had lunch. It was nice having a chance to chat with people I haven't spent much time with recently, and make silly faces at the kids. I felt a bit badly that there was so much dairy, with Queue trying to avoid it... And then home again, for an hour of down time, reading and playing solitaire, before I went out to a class at JFK park.
The class is lead by Deborah K, a talented and knowlegeable woman (a Drisha scholar, also the rabbi's wife). The class is supposed to look at the parsha each week, and see how families work through the book of Genesis. It was "BYOS," Bring Your Own Sefer (book), and held out in JFK park, emphasizing the new, wonderful eruv. A beautiful day for sitting out on the grass, seeing the huge trees and the river nearby, enjoying creation, as it were.
Deborah had some interesting ideas about the portion. Of course, I wasn't taking notes, but some things stuck in my head.
The idea that to become a full person, not an animal or child, involves making choices that someone else says is wrong (Adam eating the fruit, or children doing something they're told not to do), that perhaps trangression of some sort is an integral part of the process of becoming a person.
The idea that people could've ended up eating of the other Tree (of eternal life). People could've chosen to be eternal people without free will (like angels), or people with limited life but with free will.
The idea that the punishment for breaking the commandment not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge is a paradigmatic shift, defining people roles more clearly: women now have pain in childbirth, and the raising of children who have a longer childhood than most species, which she cannot do alone (be it partner, or day care person, or whomever helping); men now will have to spend lots of time working for the daily bread. This is a more formal defining of M-F relationships than had been before.
The idea that people don't have relationships yet in this portion. God interacts with different people, but mostly, they don't interact with each other.
Other stuff I'm forgetting.
I very much enjoyed this topic class, and I hope it will continue.
I walked home with B, talking of why he (and his wife) had gotten this class started. Partly to get the teacher more adult time (she has three young kids), partly to get more potential interaction between people in different constituencies in the minyan (undergrad/grad/other), partly to get more use of the eruv. He's concerned that the undergrads don't appreciate it. He's also got plans for game afternoons (bring games to Hillel, on Shabbat), possibly 3rd meals (on Shabbat) not at Hillel, perhaps progressive meals or more potluck picnics (they're not just for Shavuot any more!), ideas for more community building. As always, interesting hearing his plans...