How can one say "arrr" with no voice left?

[theyellowhobbit]

I just went over high holiday stuff with cynarrrrrrra_linnaea. (Hence my current lack of voice.) I just learned the Torah reading today, but I have it mostly down. Normally I would just go through and learn it, but perseus_remus recorded everything for us, and his trop is way cooler than mine, so I wanted to learn it his way. Plus I don't know pazer or tlisha (gedolah and katana) in high holiday trop.

The problem is that I'm leading psukei d'zimrah for both days of Rosh Hashana, and there's nothing cool in psukei. No high holiday nusach. I would love to do a desh style psukei, but the gabbaiot want me to stick with stuff everyone knows, especially since services are long.

So no "אילו פיצנו" and no "אוזי" and no "אלך" which are like the awesomest songs ever.

My one hurrah is that I can do psalm 146 to "Halelujah." But that's it.

At least I get to lead YK mincha, which has the cool nuisach and isn't too long. But my guess is that sim shalom omits all the piyutim.

Oh, and Sim Shalom machzorim don't have the squares that tell you where the chazzan should start. So thus I must draw them in pre chag.

I'd better be leading a kabbalat shabbat soon (Shabbas Shuva perhaps?) to make up for the unfunness of double psukei.

And what's the plural of psukei? Psukei?

Comments

[desh]

I can teach you something good to do for hallel gadol that's very high holidays appropriate. If they'll let you, that is. And there's also a HH psukei nusach, but I don't know it.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

OOOOh! Can you call me tonight (whenever) and teach me?

[desh]

Um, oops. Maybe tomorrow. IM me to remind me.

[desh]

And the SS mahzor omits more than just piyyutim for YK mincha. The al cheit section is pathetic.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Gah. Stupid Sim Shalom!!!!

[masteraleph.livejournal.com]

Assuming that it's the same one we've used in the past, I usually call it the "Harlow" machzor, as it's not really part of the sim shalom series. To be honest, the "old" Conservative machzor (Silverman from '48) is far, far, far better, and it's a shanda that the Conservative movement didn't stick with it.

Also, does it strike anyone else as odd calling something the "SS Machzor"?

[(Anonymous)]

Silverman also makes a few weird decisions (relative to "traditional" machzorim), though probably not as many as Harlow (which I've never used, only heard about).

Although Silverman is/was common in Conservative congregations, it was never officially published by the Conservative movement.

[masteraleph.livejournal.com]

True, but R' Silverman got his smicha at JTS, was a Rabbi at a Conservative synagogue, and includes acknowledgements to Max Arzt and Robert Gordis, both of whom were faculty at JTS at the time. Furthermore, R' Silverman edited the initial Sabbath and Festival Prayerbook (along with R' Gordis), as well as the USCJ Weekday Prayerbook (the RA one was edited by Hadas and Harlow about 5 years later). The association may not have been official, but I'd call it pretty securely Conservative.

Oops

[bz-mahrabu.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to post anonymously, that was me.

[arctic-alpine.livejournal.com]

count your blessings before you complain about the harlow. at UMD we're using the Silverman, published in 1951, and it is nice for the ten people or so with enough hebrew and jewish fluency to understand the piyutim, but otherwise sucks. the language is all "thy majesty art holy" we're making a supplemental booklet to make up for it, drawing on readings from, among other places, the harlow.

[desh]

The Silverman, I think, is the one that I sort of like. You're not going to get a modern-sounding translation out of anything that old, and it's otherwise good. I think.

The C movement is working on a new one now. Last year I saw a proof of what they've got for Kol Nidre so far, and as long as they don't make the Harlow mistake of leaving out way too much, it looks like it'll be quite good. When they finish in 2032.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Will it have Marei Cohen in it??

(That was the whole reason I went to OCP morning services...)

[desh]

No idea.

[masteraleph.livejournal.com]

I have to kind of agree with Desh. I rather like the language in the Silverman, and the English reading about the blasts of the shofar before the first blowing of it is really quite nice (I'm referring to the 3 paragraphs that end "the blast that is blown, oh my people." And I'd rather have "thy majesty art holy" than "O incognito God" and an English alphabetical acrostic for Vidui that includes "we are xenophobic" and "we are zealots for bad causes."

[bz-mahrabu.livejournal.com]

You want to talk about English alphabetical acrostics?

Ay, 'tis thus / Evil us / hath in bond;
By Thy grace / guilt efface / and respond,
"Forgiven!"

etc.

(Silverman, p.233)

[arctic-alpine.livejournal.com]

i think id repressed the memory of that acrostic.

[arctic-alpine.livejournal.com]

if it were for my won personal use, i'd be dissatisfied with both the silverman for being archaic and the harlow from cutting out too much. but organizing high holiday services for 200 people, most with minimal hebrew and jewish literacy means we've decided to cut out most of the piyutim anyway. Both books are flawed, but the Harlow suits our community's needs significantly better.
I've been having prblems personally with the traditonal liturgy for RH, which focuses a lot on God as king, which is a metaphor I dont relate to well. wish id had time to sit by the lake and figure out a response to this, but have more work to do with organizing services. grr

[masteraleph.livejournal.com]

I mean, I'm davening at a new place this year for RH, and I'm not really sure what they use, but my current plan is to use the Koren for davening and whatever they're using (or if they're using the Silverman, which I doubt, but is possible) to figure out where we are.

As for your other bit...that's probably the reason I never really wanted to be gabbai at Penn, nor plan Yamim Noraim services. Even when I wasn't paticularly observant, I generally wanted to smack anyone who was coming to daven for the first time in a year, mouthing words, and not carrying through on any of them. Probably explains why I like smaller minyanim better these days.

[bz-mahrabu.livejournal.com]

but my current plan is to use the Koren for davening and whatever they're using (or if they're using the Silverman, which I doubt, but is possible) to figure out where we are.

That's exactly what I've done in past years at Hadar on Yom Kippur, sometimes with profound results (http://mahrabu.blogspot.com/2005/06/613.html).