Sheva brachot
Nov. 11th, 2002 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidThe short version: didn't have a minyan [1]; was fine even so.
[1] religious quorum [2]
[2] I love translating stuff that gets me English words rarely used otherwise.... see phylacteries...
Hectic day Friday getting everything done. In the end, resorted to a bit more "shove things into the bedroom where no one will see it" straightening than I generally prefer. OTOH, the public parts of the apartment looked pretty good, even with all the chairs lining the livingroom, and the folding table there, too (thanks, Queue (and Cthulhia) for the loaners). No way to fit everyone in another room, so buffet was the order of the day.
(have to put in the food bits...) The menu: wine, challah (a big pull-apart loaf of cylinders; it looked really great, even though the center wasn't quite completely done. At least it was edible all the way through...), pea soup with potato and butternut squash (the last farm butternut; I was pleased it really wasn't a pain to peel), many cheeses (boursin, cheddar, chavrie, an herbed goat cheese), zaatar dip, cranberry sauce, green salad (many kinds of greens, pine nuts, scallions, balsamic vinaigrette), pesto barley salad (with scallions, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives), roasted potatoes in cubes, followed by tea, chocolate cake (I even frosted it), and/or apple crisp.
I was interested to see what I had leftovers of and what I didn't...
People showed up over the course of an hour. I was still nervous about getting a minyan, but I'd set a bunch of people on the job of grabbing any possible guests from shul, so I was hopeful. I got more hopeful when one couple "crashed" (their word), since that would put us at 9, and I was likely to be able to grab a neighbor. Unfortunately, one of the others didn't show. So, in the end, there were 8. One couple I'd invited didn't know the bridal couple, but are good friends of mine. He learns a lot, and I asked him if he knew whether we could say some of the sheva brachot even w/o a minyan, since I'd been somewhere that this had happened. He didn't know, but started looking through a couple of the sefarim (lit, "books," but here used as "Jewish religious texts") I have. In the end, he gave a d'var torah about the situation, discussing how the Rambam seems to say that the saying of the brachot is really tied to the new faces at each sheva brachot, an exclamation of joy that is more communal than completely focused on the couple exclusively. In the end, we said the last one, and benched over wine, and all was good. It felt like the right thing to do. (And, frankly, I'm now at the point where if we said a bracha we shouldn't've, it's so far from the end of the world....)
The "crashing" couple are people I'd invited over at least a half a dozen times before, but they were never available. It felt odd to have them over now...
Particular entertainment was provided by the almost-2-year-old, who is cute and a sweetie (and finally starting to eat. Hopefully she'll start growing more soon!). Lots of playing with toys and non-toys (jars of jam being more appealing, somehow). I most remember her starting to clap to our singing grace after meals... with her hands over her head. Her mom wasn't incredibly pleased, since this lead to more accidental hitting in the face than she'd've liked, so she (the mom) got interesting expressions on her face when the adults started encouraging her by clapping over their heads as well.
Many thanks to Queue for door duty and general helpfulness, all around.
And then we'd said grace, and, as the bride said the next day, I apparently looked exhausted, so everyone headed out, rather earlier than I might've expected. Still, I think people had a nice time, and the food was ok. And it's over with now, too.
.
[1] religious quorum [2]
[2] I love translating stuff that gets me English words rarely used otherwise.... see phylacteries...
Hectic day Friday getting everything done. In the end, resorted to a bit more "shove things into the bedroom where no one will see it" straightening than I generally prefer. OTOH, the public parts of the apartment looked pretty good, even with all the chairs lining the livingroom, and the folding table there, too (thanks, Queue (and Cthulhia) for the loaners). No way to fit everyone in another room, so buffet was the order of the day.
(have to put in the food bits...) The menu: wine, challah (a big pull-apart loaf of cylinders; it looked really great, even though the center wasn't quite completely done. At least it was edible all the way through...), pea soup with potato and butternut squash (the last farm butternut; I was pleased it really wasn't a pain to peel), many cheeses (boursin, cheddar, chavrie, an herbed goat cheese), zaatar dip, cranberry sauce, green salad (many kinds of greens, pine nuts, scallions, balsamic vinaigrette), pesto barley salad (with scallions, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives), roasted potatoes in cubes, followed by tea, chocolate cake (I even frosted it), and/or apple crisp.
I was interested to see what I had leftovers of and what I didn't...
People showed up over the course of an hour. I was still nervous about getting a minyan, but I'd set a bunch of people on the job of grabbing any possible guests from shul, so I was hopeful. I got more hopeful when one couple "crashed" (their word), since that would put us at 9, and I was likely to be able to grab a neighbor. Unfortunately, one of the others didn't show. So, in the end, there were 8. One couple I'd invited didn't know the bridal couple, but are good friends of mine. He learns a lot, and I asked him if he knew whether we could say some of the sheva brachot even w/o a minyan, since I'd been somewhere that this had happened. He didn't know, but started looking through a couple of the sefarim (lit, "books," but here used as "Jewish religious texts") I have. In the end, he gave a d'var torah about the situation, discussing how the Rambam seems to say that the saying of the brachot is really tied to the new faces at each sheva brachot, an exclamation of joy that is more communal than completely focused on the couple exclusively. In the end, we said the last one, and benched over wine, and all was good. It felt like the right thing to do. (And, frankly, I'm now at the point where if we said a bracha we shouldn't've, it's so far from the end of the world....)
The "crashing" couple are people I'd invited over at least a half a dozen times before, but they were never available. It felt odd to have them over now...
Particular entertainment was provided by the almost-2-year-old, who is cute and a sweetie (and finally starting to eat. Hopefully she'll start growing more soon!). Lots of playing with toys and non-toys (jars of jam being more appealing, somehow). I most remember her starting to clap to our singing grace after meals... with her hands over her head. Her mom wasn't incredibly pleased, since this lead to more accidental hitting in the face than she'd've liked, so she (the mom) got interesting expressions on her face when the adults started encouraging her by clapping over their heads as well.
Many thanks to Queue for door duty and general helpfulness, all around.
And then we'd said grace, and, as the bride said the next day, I apparently looked exhausted, so everyone headed out, rather earlier than I might've expected. Still, I think people had a nice time, and the food was ok. And it's over with now, too.
.