Just A Little Unorthodox

I'm sure some of you can relate to this. Sometimes, when you get stressed out or are doing something brand new you get this annoying twitch in your eyelid and you think to yourself that it must be the most noticeably awkward thing ever and that everyone must think you're giving them the "stink eye". Well, I don't have that. Instead I've had this weird week-long muscle spasm situation in my left tricep. I'm not going to say that it's directly tied to working in excel several hours a day, but I'm also not going to say that it's not at all related.

The city really emptied out last weekend. I stayed in Manhattan though and attended Rosh Hashanah services on Saturday morning with my sister. Since we are unaffiliated we attended a free service down near NYU. I attended free services a few times back at Penn and a few times at Michigan. You really get a mixed bag of experiences when you attend these free services. I remember one time at Penn there was some new age rabbi who insisted up adding the suffix "he or she" after every time she said the word "God". I'm pretty open-minded but that shtick got a little old after a while. Services last Saturday were led by an elderly female rabbi who you could tell was really relishing the opportunity to be up at the mic. She was part Gloria Steinem, part Coffee Talk with Linda Richman, part Estelle Getty. In fact, she even told us to feel free to "tawk amongst ya'selves while the service is taking place". That was a new one. Anyway, for a free service I thought it was going pretty well. People seemed to be engaged, which is I guess all you can really ask for if you are running a free service.

So we get to the haftorah, which for the gentiles... (from wikipedia) The Haftarah reading follows the Torah reading on each Sabbath and on Jewish festivals and fast days. Typically, the haftarah is thematically linked to the parasha (Torah portion) that precedes it. The haftarah may be sung in Cantillation (known as "trop" in Yiddish or "trope" in English). Related blessings precede and follow the Haftarah reading.

I'd like you to focus on the cantillation part, which for those not in the know and not sure about tropes, is kind of like a set of directions regarding the tone in which the haftorah is chanted. Man, this is hard to describe. Regardless, a woman came up to read the haftorah and like most other parts of any service I've ever been to, I don't have the slightest idea what is actually being said because it's in Hebrew. But lo and behold, this woman had translated this haftorah into English and was still applying the appropriate cantillation. Well, I immediately started giggling, which is horrible news for me since once I start laughing in temple it's basically impossible to stop, especially if I'm sitting next to my sister. Oh, and I'm 27 years old. I'd just never even heard of such a thing before. Of all my days as a 12 and 13 year old on the bar mitzvah circuit I had never come across anyone doing this. I realize this woman was just trying to make the haftorah and its lessons and teachings more accessible to all those in the room, and I really can appreciate that, but it was a little blasphemous, like, just a little. It was like she was just telling some random story but adding a musical twist to it. It was kind of like this...and please improvise your favorite cantillation to go along with this..

So this one time, I was walking up in Harlem.
It was very hot.
I saw this fellow and he was selling little sno-cones.
He said his name was Moses.
I said "Moses, what you do with sno-cones is delightful".
He said "buddy, I know this guy up in Yonkers,
He turns water into wine".
I said, "Jee-ee-ee-sus!"
He said, "no man, over there they pronounce it 'hey-sus'".

It was like that. Almost as absurd. However absurd though I'm glad that I went to services. Needless to say that after the haftorah was read I got up and left and went over to the East Village for some delicious ramen. Amen.