Shanah tovah

It's not dark yet, so in Cincinnati it's still Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. The blog title means "[have a] good year," and is the traditional greeting. Jonathan, Xander and I went to Richmond, Indiana for services, and it was wonderful! I was nervous, of course - new people, new place, my Hebrew isn't stellar, it's public speaking, I was working with a cantor (singer)... but the cantorial soloist and I clicked, and they liked my sermons and how I led the service. Hooray!

The only down note was that the morning service was 10-12, right during Xander's naptime, and he was so cranky that Jonathan took him out 5 minutes in and then he never came back (Xander fell asleep on his shoulder, but would have woken up in a minute had he heard my voice or people singing, not to mention the shofar.) A college student from the local university blew the shofar, a really long Sephardic one like on the Wikipedia page, and her tekiah gadolah, the very last call which lasts as long as she can, must have been almost a full minute. She turned beet red. It was very impressive.

We go back Friday night for Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (Day of Repentence), then again on Sunday/Monday for Yom Kippur itself. It will be a busy week of writing for me.

At some point though, I WILL take a break and download over three weeks of pictures. Mom, your complaints are being heard. :)

Oh, and one last thing - my grandmother forwarded a NY Times article called "A Soldier's Voice Rediscovered," about a Jewish service held during WWII. It's pretty interesting, and has a link to the audio broadcast. You can even hear the artillery shells going off as they sing.