A Week of Things I Like, Day 2-ish: Beth El

On Sunday, I said this week was gonna be A Week of Things I Like on this blog, that I would only say positive things all week and that I would post once a day this week.

Here we are on day three and I already missed the second day’s post. And, as regular commenter Larry Kaufman points out, I was also unduly self-critical in the first post.

Anyway, I like Beth El, my new shul here in South Orange. Here are some of the things I like about it:

• I like that, as I pointed out in my first post about Beth El, their spirit of welcoming is great.
• I like that they make extensive use of lay leaders in all their services. Initially, based on a sample size of only two weeks, I assumed that Shabbat mornings were more lay-led and and Friday nights less so, but they’ve already got me signed up to lead a Friday night service in August.
• On a related note, I like how well-trained their lay leaders are. They all really know their stuff and they come from a broad range of ages, which, if I had to guess, is indicative of a great religious school.
• I like Rabbi Francine Roston and Cantor Perry Fine. By the end of the first Shabbat morning I spent there, Rabbi Roston had reached out to me and asked if I wanted to help lead services ever. By the end of my second Friday night at Beth El, Cantor Fine had also asked.
• I like that, according to this JTA article that I can’t seem to find anywhere other than at the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, when Rabbi Roston was hired in 2005, Beth El became the largest Conservative shul ever to hire a female as their senior rabbi. (According to the article, Beth El had 575 member families at the time.)
• I like that, according to Google Maps, it’s a four-minute walk from my apartment–if that.
• I like that there are a number of rabbis in the congregation. As I’ve previously mentioned, the head of ARZA is a member. Beth El’s rabbi emeritus is also in regular attendance every week and so is the provost of JTS.
• To continue my reportage on my chronic case of Foot-in-Mouth disease, I like that a number of them seem to have found this blog and have called me out on things I’ve said here. Most recently, one member of a group of men I previously identified as “the peanut gallery” jokingly informed me that I had assessed them incorrectly. Actually, he told me, they are “the judges panel.” I like that too!
• I like that I’m feeling challenged by Beth El. It’s good to feel comfortable within a routine at a synagogue, but it’s also good to feel a little challenged. So, to turn my whinging about wearing a kippah on its head, it’s good that going to Beth El is forcing me to wear one because it’s challenging.
• I like that going to Beth El is forcing me to confront the fact that there are things that I like about Conservative Judaism… which may make a whole post of its own later this week.

To make up for my laziness yesterday, I’m gonna do another post tonight for day three of A Week of Things I Like.

Minhag Chavurat Lamdeinu

The Chavurat Lamdeinu Aron

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for some time. A perfect storm at Chavurat Lamdeinu of me leading two weeks ago, our usual shatz leading last week, a conversation with him and our rabbi about our minhag this week; a minyan last week, no minyan last week and then Hallel for Rosh Chodesh this week finally convinced me it’s time to do it. The info in the post is culled from almost four years of notes in my copy of Siddur Eit Ratzon and from my memory.

I’m going to attempt, in this post, to catalog the minhagim and nuschot of Chavurat Lamdeinu, the chavurah I spend Shabbat mornings with when I’m here at Drew. I won’t explain too much about the group. Mostly, I think our minhagim will speak for themselves. I think it’s enough to say that the group defies classification in almost every way. It meets in a Masonic lodge. We have a chazan and a rabbi, but, more than anything else, they’re the most knowledgeable among equals. Demographically, it skews post-parenthood, mostly grandparenthood, but we had a Bar Mitzvah last year.

Background reading for details, if you want them: C”L’s website (mute your speakers before following this link!); my post about Erev Rosh Hashanah at C”L from 2009; a bit about Yom Kippur at C”L the year before that, a bit about our unique and beautiful Aron; the post I wrote after my first ever visit to C”L.

I’m gonna attempt to identify the origin of as much of what we do musically as I can, but I know I’ll get some of it wrong or leave some to speculation. If any other chaverim read this post and have correction, I encourage them to leave comments at the bottom correcting or elucidating.

So here we go: