Turns out that seven days of non-stop listeneing to my Torah portion paid off. I got to my lesson this morning and surprised myself with how well I have learned my second aliyah. I’m just reading two portions, but still have a few prayers to perfect and a sermon to write, so I guess I’ll let myself off the hook for just doing two. (For non-Jews in the audience, I’ll be chanting about seven verses from Exodus in Hebrew.)
Today was also the first time I’ve seen friends post-invitation mailing. It has been getting thumbs up from everyone, so I guess Invitation Consultants chose the right layout. A number of people have also complimented my choice to include both my hebrew name and my english name.
Huh? For people who are born Jewish, they have a hebrew name that is NAME daughter of FATHER’S NAME and MOTHER’s NAME. Mine is Leah Meira bat Avraham v’Sarah. That means Leah Meira daughter of Abraham and Sarah. It’s the name converts get since they are the original Jewish parents. So the bat mitzvah portion of my card is that name and the birthday part of it says “Leah Jones, daughter of Larry and Linda.”
Anyway my lesson wound up being in the social hall during Shabbatatot–our toddler and parent shabbat service. It’s really quite lovely if you live in Chicago and want to celebrate shabbat with a 2-5 year old AND meet other parents. So with toddlers dancing around me, I chanted torah and survived. My cantor said that if I can chant under those circumstances, I should be able to handle a quiet sanctuary.
Today I’m half cleaning, half studying Torah, half getting closer to writing my d’var. I chatted with my rabbi earlier this week and have some ideas… of course they are totally different than what I expected to be writing about. Sigh. That’s the glory of the Torah, there are a million ways to interpret every verse.
BTW if you read my blog and live in Chicago, you can come to my bat mitzvah, just shoot me an email and I’ll get the details to you. Morning of March 17 at 11:00AM sharp. I’m trying to convince some friends to find reasons for business trips into Chicago that happen to line up with the celebration. (Cough, cough. Steve.)
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