Saturday, December 8, 2018

Shabbat morning at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers: During the Torah reading, I see something I've never experienced before. As always, the reader chants from the Torah scroll itself. It has only the letters of the text, without vowels, punctuation, or musical cues. Usually, this requires a daunting amount of memorization. Here, however, there is a prompter: the reader's brother stands next to him with a conventional, fully notated text. He sings sotto voce, slightly ahead of the reader. With his free hand, he signals the music of the chant. It's akin to the Kodaly signals used in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but each gesture signifies a phrase or type of melodic motion, rather than just a pitch. An upward sweep (if I recall correctly later) gives the standard start to a verse. Waving repeatedly right to left continues as usual. A chop with the palm held vertically gives a mid-verse pause with its particular phrasing; with the palm down, it ends the verse. Other phrases are triggered by sharp pointing, wiggling the hand in midair, or a sort of diagonal. The brothers are both quite large, and their backs are to the congregation, so most of the people don't see it. Called up to give the blessings, I have to keep from laughing with glee as I watch them do this. This is the way things are in worship here. There rarely is a need for a rabbi. People know how to do things themselves. In the afternoon prayers at my office, any of the men (there are undeniable gender issues) can lead the service. One of three people usually does, but it seems, unless I'm missing planning or signals, to be whichever one starts up as soon as we have a quorum. Different people use slightly different liturgies. People know when to pause to let those who are saying more words catch up. Left to my own, I usually wouldn't be involved in praying. There's no problem in declining to join. Some of the men at work stay at their desks and don't participate. That's OK. I feel like it's a sort of team activity, like offices elsewhere that do Tai Chi together. Ten minutes of fervent low-key group mumbling, supporting mourners and others, then it's back to our desks (usually after a stop through the kitchen for even more coffee). When this Shabbat service ends, people pack up what they need to and gather just outside the hall for wine and cake. Most return upstairs. I walk home, heat up some cholent that I'd made and frozen before as a solid lunch, then take a much-needed nap.