Hashmini et Kolech [the long lost Lecha Dodi]

Once upon a time I was in Israel, and was at Yikar for Friday night services. There isn't anything in particular that I remember about this Shabbat, except that they used this beautiful tune for Lecha Dodi that I had never heard before. I learned it enough to sing along, and I wanted to remember it, but by the end of Shabbat I had forgotten it entirely. All I knew was that there was a pentatonic scale in the chorus [specifically on the words "p'nei shabbat."]

When I got back to Penn, and asked people whether or not they knew the Lecha Dodi with the pentatonic scale in the chorus, they either said no, or had no clue what a pentatonic scale was (in which case I would best explain a pentatonic scale [one which goes 1235321, used in Chinese music] and then they still didn't know the Lecha Dodi.)

I actually asked some people on Friday night a JITW if they knew it, figuring that in a group this musical someone would have to know it, but alas, no one I asked knew what I was talking about.

Then on Saturday morning, we were singing Kel Adon, which I wasn't paying so much attention to since I was leining and had to look over my hobbity aliyah (4 pasookim), and all of a sudden I heard the pentatonic scale! I continued paying attention now, and I was pretty sure that this was the Lecha Dodi tune I had heard.

I talked to Adam L, the guy who had led shacharit afterwards, and told him about the long lost Lecha Dodi. Then when he sang Lecha Dodi to that tune for me, I was sure that this was the long lost Lecha Dodi. I was estatic!

Unfortunately, by Saturday night I was having trouble remembering the tune. So I talked to Adam again, and he told me he had a recording of his friend singing it on his computer at home. So I gave him my e-mail address.

On Sunday afternoon, while I was baking the cake and deli-rolls, I got an e-mail from Adam, which had the song attached. The real name of the song is "Hashmini et Kolech" ("Let Me Hear Your Voice"). I think it's from Song of Songs. If anyone wants to hear it, so you can know what the heck I'm talking about, send me an e-mail and I'll e-mail you bakc with the song attached.

Next time I lead a kabbalat shabbat, or maybe even at the next tisch, I'm singing that song!

The cheat is another kippah

I finished the cheat kippah last night. It's ginormous. I didn't realize until last night, but it's bigger than Yosef's kippah, which is also ginormous. [Thus I said "my kippah can eat your kippah."] stone_, if you could send me your address so I can mail you the kippah, that would be most excellent.

And now an update from your local hobbit

Maybe I'm not your local Hobbit, now that I think about it. There are probably hobbits outside of Penn. Like at Brandeis.

Jews in the Woods. There was sooooooooooooooooo much singing. desh gave me a ride because he's the awesomest person in the world. When I got there Josh S-M, who was at Pardes with me, was there, and I totally did not expect him. I hadn't seen him since Pardes! And a bunch of people who I did expect were there, such as alanscottevil and rachinisrael.

And then there were the people who I thought were going to be there but weren't, such as arctic_alpine and her crew of UMD people.

I got a phone call from her, asking if they could stay in my apartment. They had gotten a flat tire and were stranded in Philly [at that point Shabbat was in less than 1/2 hour]. So of course I said yes, provided that if they slept on any sheets to tell me so I could wash them. The guys had sleeping bags and arctic_alpine slept in my bed, which I didn't really mind.

I tried to get them meals but it was too close to Shabbat. But they ended up being ok in the end. They came up on Saturday Night. And thus, I hosted "Jews in the Urban Jungle."

There was an insane amount of singing. While we were waiting for people to arrive between candlelighting and when we started kabbalat shabbat we sang a bunch of nigguns. Kabbalat shabbat and maariv combined lasted 3 hours [usually it's 1 hour]. After services we were singing before dinner [aaaaah, give me food! I haven't eaten since 1pm!!!] and after dinner.

The next morning I was about an hour late for davening, maybe a little less, and they were only halfway through psukei d'zimrah [usually we'd be up to the shmoneh esrei]. Services went until 1pm, and they started by 9:30 [desh would actually know when services started]. And then there was the long lost lecha dodi!

I leined the 3rd aliyah, and other than messing up the pronunciation of 2 words [I had practiced incorrectly] I did a pretty good job. According to alanscottevil I have a cool munach caton trop. I forgot that I had previously decided to steal that one from cynara_linnaea after trying out some other ones and liking hers the best. I actually had to step out during the haftarah and get more food, despite the fact that I had eaten breakfast, because my stomach was in pain. I had a banana and felt a little better, but again before lunch actually started, I was in pain. And between when we got into the dining hall and when we actually did motzei there was a huge gap of time.

In the afternoon there was more singing and then people either learned, hiked, or chilled. desh taught me and some other people how to play Puerto Rico, this awesomely awesome game that is perhaps awesomer than settlers of catan. We played on Saturday night.

Towards the end of shabbat I taught people the tune that I then used for havdallah. It's a really pretty one that no one knows, but Aliza and Gershon use it, so maybe jtersesk would know it.

Saturday night the Jews in the Urban Jungle joined us, and 2 of them- Nick and Jonah, brought their guitars, which they played simultaneously with harmonicas. I then brought down my guitar, but had trouble keeping up with them. I looked at Jonah to see what cords he was doing, but he didn't always keep up with Nick. We did sing Elias, though. Elias!

And then people sang happy birthday to me, and I was given a small shot of rum, which I didn't finish because it tasted awful.

Sunday morning we had a closing circle, and then drove home.
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I'll write about my birthday in more detail later.
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And now for today:

On my way to lunch at Hillel I saw Ben Porter walking and he stopped to say hi, and asked about my weekend. "I was at a thing called Jews in the Woods. There were Jews, and there was woods." And also told him about how I turned 21.

I was late to Anth 001, which is a bad habit of mine. I always take too long eating lunch, and today I had a chevruTa [there is no 's' in "chevruta"] with Orit. So my lunch runneth over.

When I got there, I saw Professor Saboloff sitting in the back where I entered, and I'm pretty sure he saw me and my lateness. Jordan (f), one of the TAs was lecturing for the lesson. Usually Mike M, [who was a TA in my anth 003, and is also now in my anth 170] sits where Saboloff was, and he always notices me being late, but he doesn't care. So I started taking notes. At one point they were talking about how hunting and gathering is actually more efficient for getting calories than agriculture, and the nutrition of hunting and gathering also was better. And they were more healthy. [There's this whole thing analyzing animal bones and the bone marrow in them, which I don't feel like typing out.] So why did we move to agriculture? So I asked "do they take into account the fact that the dwellings the agricultural society had were permanent, and therefore more stable? [offering better protection from the elements, etc.]" She said no. And professor Saboloff looked at me as Jordan was explaining more about that study.

After class he came up to me and said that I asked a really good question, and that that's why ethnoarchaeology is so important, etc. So I'm thinking like an archaeologist now! Shiny!

In Primates we got our midterms back, which I had been dreading ever since we re-looked at the multiple choice questions on Wednesday. I knew I had gotten 10 points off the multiple choice.

Surprisingly I got everything else right! Which gave me a 90!!!

In Ben's class we were talking about evidence for David and Solomon [or lack thereof, depending how you interpret things], and there again I asked a bunch of questions. Sometimes I think I might be interrupting a bit too much, but then again he wants us to ask questions and think about the given assumptions we have.