This old blog is about chanting, which I haven’t written about in… years and years. So a few words to catch up, if just for my own amusement and writing practice (a muscle has been unused for way too long). (And if I want to actually WRITE and maybe publish something before I’m 103 I need to, like, write.) Due to dispiriting circumstances beyond my control, the High Holy Days service-leading journey is over. For a brief while I then flirted with leaving the community, but my friends, the deeply spiritual and music style of prayer, and the overall mission of this great group of people convinced me to stay. And, of course, the opportunity to chant Torah. I’m still learning—I still have so much to learn. I continue to get better at it (I think), and feel more confident and less stage fright-hobbled as a result, and it becomes even more fun. For the last two months I’ve read almost every week, not a whole lot at a time, mostly the same stuff as when this 2nd year of the triennial last came around in the cursed year of 2020 when I was often one of 10 people in an empty, freezing sanctuary, a large camera in my face and the gabbaim on the other side, which seemed to be same distance as across the Red Sea, yelling out corrections as needed and unable to help if I got lost, as once happened to my great distress (I lived to tell the tale).
Although my brain seems to have mostly erased the memory of those actual verses, it’s comforting to see my old markings on the printout and realize that the words and tunes are somewhere in there and helping me re-learn without too much trouble.
