My now-former synagogue has an occasional shabbaton (Shabbat retreat), nominally once a year but sometimes the gaps are longer. They had one this past Shabbat; I've attended every one since I joined the congregation and if this isn't the last one, it will be the last one as "us" before a merger/acquisition, so I wanted to be there even though I've otherwise moved on to my new synagogue.

This one didn't have the usual longer lead time; a date became available and they jumped on it. We were missing several of the regulars and some newer minyan members weren't able to come, so it was small -- which could have made it more intimate, but it didn't have quite the right mix for that. There was a single member from the other synagogue, plus their interim rabbi, and I wonder how it felt for that congregant.

I couldn't help noticing that the average age has skewed way up (most are rather older than me), especially if you exclude the clergy (who have to be there).

Because it was Halloween, their interim rabbi led a text study on spooky stories from the talmud, which was pretty engaging. From what I've seen, text study is his strong suit, so I'm glad he did that. The senior rabbi prefers discussions to more formal study and did that. The cantor taught about a rare and distinctive trope (cantillation mark) that appears in next week's parsha, one of only four times in the torah. I hadn't previously noticed that, every time shalshelet appears, it's on the first word of the verse. His source sheet is public.

I got email on Monday asking if I would lead a text study on Shabbat afternoon. I called it "Avram before Lech L'cha" and drew a lot from Bereishit Rabbah, which I hope to write about separately. The afternoon sessions are always more lightly attended (some people take walks or nap or shmooze), but we had enough people to have good conversations and I overheard some comments that suggest I have fans. I think it went pretty well. My biggest fear in leading a study session (as opposed to giving a d'var torah) is always what to do if people don't engage. Fortunately, people did. Someday maybe I will get better at facilitating rather than wholly directing conversations like this.

Overall: I'm glad I went, but I felt less inspired and connected than in the past. Maybe that's the mix, maybe it's that our long-time now-retired rabbi set a really high bar, maybe it's the merger, maybe it's me. I don't feel the need to go to whatever follows this in future years, even if many of my friends are still going.

I came home from the shabbaton last night, and this morning went to a very nice welcome session and brunch for new members at my new synagogue. One era ends, another begins. (And Beth Shalom does a great job with welcoming newcomers!)

Yes. More like this, please.

Today is busy, building the sukkah and preparing for Shabbat, so brief notes will have to suffice for now.

I had no length expectations for Kol Nidrei. Ran about 2.5 hours, including a speech from the synagogue president which is pretty common. Before the service started, someone from the congregation played the Kol Nidrei melody on a violin; I recognized the styling and ornaments from the much longer version Temple Sinai does on cello and piano. Shorter and before the service was nice. I assume there is a "thing" about people expecting to hear the Kol Nidrei melody on bowed strings, but I don't know more than that. I thought it was just a Reform thing (Sinai and Rodef both do it during the service).

The essays in this year's seasonal book from Hadar were helpful, and fit nicely in that block of time between getting home and going to sleep.

Being able to spend the entire day in synagogue makes a big difference to me. I'm glad my new synagogue doesn't have a long stretch of down-time mid-afternoon like some do. We had classes and discussions -- optional and small, as most people left, but we didn't have to. Nice.

Morning service was somewhere around 5 hours (I didn't notice exactly), not including Avodah and Eleh Ezkarah which followed after a short break (5 minutes? 10?). For Avodah the rabbi interjected a lot of teaching, and he really encouraged people to try the prostration which was done by the people (not just the kohanim) when this was an actual service in the temple. He taught us how to do it and was very encouraging, so I tried it and am glad I did.

After, I was chatting with someone else who had tried it for the first time, and said that I came from a Reform background and had not expected to connect with the Avodah service until that year during lockdown when my synagogue was closed and I went to an Orthodox synagogue. "But," I said, "there was a song I'd heard a week before that also helped set the stage" and she immediately said "Yishai Ribo". Yes. So we chatted about that for a bit while waiting for classes to start.

For the afternoon haftarah reading (the book of Jonah) they had about a dozen teenagers chanting it, taking it in turns. It's great to see that many teens who are interested.

Hineni is in exactly the spot where it makes sense. (Contrast with my Reform experiences.)

Most of the service leaders were lay people who were very good -- strong voices and able to lead singing, mindful of what they were saying, evoked kavanah. Afterwards someone who knows I'm a new member asked me what I thought about having lay leaders instead of the rabbis (this also happens on Shabbat) and I said this is a positive thing and while our rabbis are great (I've seen both of them lead; they are), it's important to empower other qualified leaders too. Most of the Reform world seems to not agree with that perspective, which might be why the person asked.

By the time we got to the Amidah in Mincha I was ready to be done with the many-times-repeated Vidui sections. I didn't want to not be thinking about wrongs; rather, I wanted to be thinking about different wrongs after going through these ones so many times already. We human beings are very creative, alas, and since some things on the standard list do not resonate for me, it feels like I could be spending that time reflecting on things that do and that aren't on the list. (I ended up just focusing on the ones that seemed more directly to be areas for improvement.) For next year, perhaps I'll look for alternate lists to being with me for when the standard list is no longer sparking the thoughts it was designed to.

This is a placeholder for something I meant to talk about in my Rosh Hashana post too: differences between the individual and public Amidah, public is not just for listening but also has congregational singing parts, and I think Reform threw the baby out with the bath water, realized the tub was empty, and filled it up with other stuff instead of getting some of this goodness back. I will try to come back to this soon.

I joined Beth Shalom in August. I'm still time-sharing Shabbat between there and my minyan, though that's winding down. (Sorry, minyan, I love my friends, but I'm settling into my new religious home.) Beth Shalom's Shabbat services are very comfortable and I'm seeing what I've been missing in the Reform movement. So I looked forward to Rosh Hashana this year.

It was great! Also, uh, long, but still a big win. I noticed that a lot of people drifted in over the course of the morning; there were not many people at the beginning and I could get a good seat, it was filling up by the torah service, and filled up more on the way to the sermon and then Musaf. On Rosh Hashana all the "big action" is in Musaf.

In addition to the Unataneh Tokef prayer, Musaf contains the themes of malchuyot (kingship), zichronot (memory), and shofarot (the shofar's call). For each of these three, the machzor (prayerbook) includes relevant passages from torah and prophets, piyutim (liturgical poems), and the sounding of the shofar. I've presumably heard some of those piyutim before, as I did go to Chabad for Rosh Hashana during the pandemic lockdown, but some of them stood out as if new to me this year. One in particular, Melech Elyon (king on high), stood out with some choreography -- this is sung in front of the open ark, except for one verse that talks, in contrast, about earthly kings, where we close the ark (and then open it again for the next verse). Neat, I thought -- as if to say, we will not trouble the king on high with stuff about mere human kings. And maybe that verse also stood out this year because of what is going on with our would-be earthly king, but I'll have to get a copy of the text before I can say more about that. (I do plan to buy both the siddur and machzor used by my new congregation, but haven't yet.)

The Reform services I have attended do basically none of this. The core part of Unataneh Tokef is sung, some other parts are read in English, and I think some of those biblical passages are included in the machzor. I never knew why they were there, and we usually didn't read them. And of course the shofar was sounded, along with the song after each set of blasts, but again, I didn't really grok the structure. And it wasn't in the Musaf service because Reform doesn't do Musaf; it was spread around in other places. I always thought my lack of connection with Temple Sinai's Rosh Hashana service came from an abundance of fluffy alternative English readings where liturgy should be -- and yes, that too, but not only that, I don't think. This year I felt like there was an integrated whole and that I was coming home to something I hadn't realized I was missing.

I knew that Rosh Hashana morning is the longest service of the year, but was still a little surprised by this one. (I expected four hours; it was more like four and a half.) Nonetheless, I appreciate that when we got to the silent repetition of the Musaf Amidah, they allowed us time to really do it. At other times I can't do the silent Amidah (any of them) in the time they leave for it; I'm just not that fast. But for this, we had space. That made a big difference to me.

During the public repetition (which is what takes up most of the time in Rosh Hashana Musaf), there were places where the congregation sang along, so it wasn't just "stand and listen to the leader". And some of those piyutim had lively, uplifting melodies.

I'm looking forward to Yom Kippur. (And Shabbat before then.)

My synagogue is being acquired [1] and this was the final nudge to find an alternative. This past Shabbat they cancelled our services in favor of the other place, so I went to Beth Shalom, which I last visited during Pesach. Beth Shalom is a large congregation, which is a little challenging for this introvert, but I assume that if I go there regularly I'll gradually meet people and maybe even be able to learn their names.

Their service is uplifting and pretty efficient. They're Conservative, so they include a lot of things that my current (Reform) congregation doesn't do, but it didn't make the service that much longer. I will need to practice the Hebrew in some unfamiliar sections so that I can sing the songs with them; I was kind of singing this time, hitting maybe one word in four and faking the rest. (I know how to read Hebrew; I'm just slow.)

I had not noticed that they had designated this week as Pride Shabbat until the rabbi spoke. I mean yes, I saw some pins and rainbow talitot and stuff, but I saw those the last time I was at Beth Shalom too, so that's just ordinary support/visibility stuff. And there'd been some signs outside, but I hadn't noticed dates. In other words, they integrated the already-welcome queer community into the Shabbat service, honoring people without replacing the whole service with a bunch of creative readings. (Temple Sinai's Pride Shabbat feels more like a poetry slam; Shabbat barely makes an appearance.) I haven't been to a bar or bat mitzvah at Beth Shalom yet, but I imagine it's the same idea there: celebrate together in the context of Shabbat. Conservative and of course Orthodox synagogues tend to prioritize the community, and Shabbat itself, integrating celebrations into the whole instead of carving them off as separate things as Reform is wont to do. It's refreshing.

They have a kiddush lunch every week, which is presumably the best way to meet and get to know people. During Sukkot I went there and ended up in a lunch conversation with another Babylon 5 fan who was explaining the show to a third person. (I haven't seen the fan again yet, alas.) This week I couldn't stay because we had a friend coming, but there'll be a next time and probably soon.

There was a passing comment about the senior rabbi's upcoming sabbatical. I don't know more than that, and I'll want to have a chat with him before, or as part of, joining there, but it's not urgent. There is also an associate rabbi who I like so far; I plan to soon start going to a weekly class he teaches. While exploring their web site I discovered that both rabbis have blogs, which I'm now subscribed to.

Beth Shalom, not unusually, does not publish their dues expectations; you need to have a conversation with someone. Large old congregations with large old buildings tend to have high dues, which I might not be able to afford, especially if they don't have the concept of an individual membership. It can be worked out I'm sure, but it's a little awkward and embarrassing to have that conversation, and I wish I had some data going into it. Oh well; we'll get there. The high holy days (the one time a year when this really matters) are not for a few months yet.

Rodef Shalom (the synagogue Temple Sinai cancelled services for) puts their services on YouTube, so I skimmed that service yesterday. I knew they were having a guest musician, Dan Nichols, as part of celebrating their rabbi's retirement. I knew from a past Dan Nichols visit that he leans toward creative songs and less liturgy (more of a concert than a service), but I was still surprised by what I saw. How do you have a Shabbat morning service that goes almost two hours and not do Kri'at Sh'ma or the T'filah?! By caring I am a minority in the Reform movement, I know, and while this is extreme, it's also a hint of where Rodef Sinai is going. It's time to be elsewhere.

[1] This is not how the leaders characterize it, but I have seen some of the sausage-making and I stand by this description.

About a year and a half ago, the president of my synagogue started a project to merge ours with another synagogue. We were supposed to be exploring other options for our future too, but the leaders were really only investigating this one path. Some of us members had concerns about both that path and how this was being done, but power imbalances are a thing, and yesterday there was a vote.

There've been plenty of irregularities, and also some maligning by leaders of dissenters, and at this point it feels like the damage has been done even if the deal ultimately falls through. I've lost faith in our leaders, am disappointed by the unnecessary discord and condescension, and am saddened by the drop in civility and goodwill affecting people I care about. It is possible for people to disagree constructively and work together to address those differences, but it doesn't feel like that happened here. To me this felt more like a conquest than democracy, but as a member of the minority I'm naturally biased.

Maybe this was the swift kick I've been needing for a while to join a movement more aligned with me. I joined Temple Sinai despite it being Reform, not because of it, but our leaders seem to be more interested in the future of Reform Judaism here than in the future of Temple Sinai. My long-time rabbi retired a few years ago, recent trends have been leftward, and I think I've stayed only for my friends (a pattern in my life, I know). I don't want to lose those friendships, but it's time to go make some new friends too.

Scattered thoughts from Yom Kippur this year:

Yom Kippur, like Rosh Hashana, includes Unataneh Tokef. The most famous part is "who shall live and who shall die, who by fire and who by water, who will be humbled and who exalted, who will be at peace and who pursued..." etc. (A few years ago we all learned the word magefah, plague, from there. Yeah, that was suddenly much more immanent.) Our rabbi suggested viewing this passage more personally: we will all be at peace and we will all be pursued, we will all be humbled and we will all be exalted, we will all be serene and we will all be troubled, So we read it in the first person. Even though some parts don't make sense that way (I will probably not die by a bunch of different ways), the effect was still powerful.

The Reform movement cut a lot of stuff out of its machzor (prayerbook for the high holy days), and congregations then skip stuff within that. I find it frustrating when our leaders skip passages that are specific to these days. This year they were better about leaving time for us to individually complete the amidah, so I could pull those parts back in. But they didn't leave enough time for me to do everything, even if I switched to English for the sake of speed for harder passages. We took steps in the right direction; we're not there yet.

At Kol Nidrei and the morning service I heard more nusach (traditional melodies) and less choral performance than in the past. We've had an ordained cantor for a couple years now and we're taking better advantage of that. Good. (I have always hated that my synagogue hired a professional quartet to sing at these services. Prayer should be led by someone with skin in the game. This year this quartet did not perform on their own, though they were mixed in with our congregational choir.)

But our congregation is really hung up on having a cello rendition of the Kol Nidrei melody, and this year there were two cello performances (the other was a different piece). I assume this was to avoid slighting one of the musicians; we used to have double services for Kol Nidrei with two different cellists, but now we have only one service. But Kol Nidrei isn't a concert hall and I wish we could push back on that. Surely there are other ways to involve both of them.

Yizkor felt different this year. It's not my first Yizkor since my father died, but Yom Kippur feels like the "biggest" of the four occasions during the year when it's said.

The Reform machzor replaced the traditional Avodah section in the afternoon service, because Reform is not into the temple sacrificial system. (A few years ago I went to an Orthodox synagogue for Yom Kippur and was surprised to find that this part actually worked for me as historical connection.) The version in the previous machzor (Gates of Repentance) was dreadful; the version in the current book is merely annoying. (Obviously others disagree, as this made it through editorial review.) This year, to my surprise, we skipped it: our rabbi summarized what is in the traditional text, and then we skipped ahead to Eleh Ezkarah, the ten martyrs.

Well, Reform also changes Eleh Ezkarah, but this year we didn't use the machzor version: someone, I assume our rabbi and cantor, put together a modern Eleh Ezkarah, ten martyrs and heroes from Israel in the past year. It was moving and beautifully done.

To fill the gap between services in the afternoon we have classes. I attended one about revenge in Judaism and it started from an interesting place: the wine we spill out of our cups at the Pesach seder. The rabbi asked the room why we do this and got the usual answers about diminishing our joy on account of the suffering caused by the plagues. This...is apparently recent. An early reason was "so they don't harm us" -- as if the plagues were somehow in the wine and had to be sprinkled out. A similar idea (these all have sources; I might write more about this separately) is "so that they won't harm us and will harm our enemies instead". There was an anecdote about one man who would take his wine cup and wander the neighborhood for an hour during the seder sprinkling wine drops on the houses of evil neighbors. I asked when shfokh hamatkha, "pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know You" entered the haggadah, because that sounds even more vengeful than plague-wine, but the rabbi didn't know. The class ended up being more about this aspect of Pesach than about revenge in general, but that's fine. I mean, I learned interesting stuff -- what's not to like?

There was one theme that showed up a few times over the day (at Kol Nidrei and then in the afternoon) that felt inappropriate to me. Our congregation has a big decision to make, but it's not one we need to make but rather one that some in leadership are pushing, and they used the platform of Yom Kippur, when everyone is there, to kind of push one view of it without allowing space for other views. I have been circumspect about my concerns -- I'm uncommitted, not yet opposed, though stuff like this isn't helping -- raising them to the people in charge and in one town hall but not more publicly, but I told one of the leaders that if this is how we're playing it now, conversations are about to get a lot more open. I'm being vague here while I think about what, and how much, I want to write.

We actually finished Ne'ilah, the concluding prayer, at the right time! This is because the high holy days are late this year and sunset is early, but I'll take it! Some years the sun hasn't even set, let alone getting to dark.

As has been the case for the last few years, I didn't mind the lack of food, was definitely noticing the lack of water despite extra hydration (on top of usual high level of hydration) leading up to Yom Kippur, and my unorthodox caffeine-headache mitigation continued to work.

And now, onward to Sukkot.