My rabbi was away this Shabbat and last, and the associate rabbi (formerly known here as "the third rabbi" or "the educator rabbi") said he'd like to include lay people in services instead of just doing everything himself (yay!). I'm now the head of the Neshama Center (um, is complicated -- not just a worship committee but go ahead and think of it that way for now), so he asked me to invite some people from our group. Since I got to do a service myself in July under similar circumstances I deferred to others this time. Then this Thursday at the board meeting the cantorial soloist told me that one of the people for this week was sick and she wanted me to fill in. People told me it looked very smooth, as if this set of people was used to working together. Nifty. :-) (The cantorial soloist and I, and my rabbi for that matter, have worked together enough to be able to sort of read each others' minds on the bimah. Glad to see it works with the other rabbi too.)

This spirit of inclusiveness extended to the morning bar-mitzvah service in one way. (This is the sanctuary service with family-centric attendance, not the regular morning minyan with a steady community. We're talking about ways to fix that but it's a hard problem endemic to the Reform movement.) Obviously the associate rabbi can read torah -- you won't graduate rabbinic school without demonstrating capability there -- but instead he invited another lay reader and me to read for these two bar-mitzvah services. The other one did last week and I did this week, each of reading everything except the part that the student read. Mine went very well, I thought -- I made two mistakes requiring correction, one of which was accidentally over-shooting an aliya boundary (I realized it at the same time as the rabbi). The bar mitzvah chanted very well; afterward I whispered to him that he was welcome to come back and read for us any time. :-) (Articulate, on key, and it was clear that he understood what the text he was reading meant.) I hope we'll see more of him.

The typical Reform bar-mitzvah service is somewhat tedious (to those outside the family) in some respects; there's a reason the president of the URJ once called it "king for a day". Yesterday's was a little better than I'm used to in some ways; I suspect that's the handiwork of the associate rabbi, and if so I'll be interested to see where this goes. Other aspects still require a lot of work, but I'm glad to have good relationships with both our rabbis such that I can talk with them about these things.

This rabbi was originally hired to focus on education and not be on the bimah much; with the (planned) departure of another associate rabbi earlier this summer, we are back down to two. So roles have shuffled around somewhat and he'll be on the bimah more. Between his service-leading skills, his excellent sermon-craft, and his interest in involving lay people more, I'm looking forward to this.

One of the many fences created by the rabbis is that of muktzah. This is a class of object that you're not even supposed to handle on Shabbat, because the primary use of that object involves activities that are forbidden on Shabbat. So, for example, you aren't supposed to handle writing utensils, your gardening equipment, the TV's remote control, etc.

Recently, while contemplating the logistics of a pot-luck break-fast for Yom Kippur, I found myself wondering: since Yom Kippur is Shabbat Shabbaton (the Shabbat of Shabbats), and it's a fast day -- on that day is food mutkzah?

I don't actually have anything riding on the answer to this (if I did I'd ask my rabbi); I'll take my contribution over before the holiday starts, most likely. But I do find myself wondering about the principles involved. Torah law doesn't need to follow consistent principles -- it is what it is -- but rabbinic law does.

In the comments I learned that food isn't muktzeh on Yom Kippur because there is a sizable class of people who need (or might need) to eat on Yom Kippur. I would still need to deliver the food before Yom Kippur because we don't prepare on any Shabbat or festival for the next day. This led to a discussion of eruv tavshilin, which is more complicated than I thought. Also, there are four classes of muktzeh. There is always more to learn. (Archived comments)

The last of the burning-bush midrash:

(1) "And this rod take in your hand" -- the rod that was created at twilight (lit: between the suns) was transmitted [a] to Adam Rishon (the first man) in the garden of Eden, (2) and Adam transmitted it to Chanok, and Chanok transmitted it to Shem, and Shem to Avraham, and Avraham to Yitzchak, and Yitzchak to Yaakov, (3) and Yaakov took it to Egypt and he gave it to Yosef his son. (4) And when Yosef died

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he bequeathed it to his house and it was given into the palace of Paro, (5) and Yitro was one of the magicians of Egypt, and he saw the rod and the signs upon it he coveted it in his heart, and he took it to his place [b] and he planted it in the midst of the garden of his house, (6) and there was not a man who could draw near upon it [c], until Moshe came to the land of Midian, and he entered the midst of the garden of his [Yitro's] house, and he saw the rod, and read the signs on it, and sent forth his hand to take it. (7) This in the future will redeem Yisrael from Egypt, therefore he gave to him his daughter Tzipporah for a wife.

It doesn't actually say "Yitro saw this and said "this will redeem...", but that's the only way this part makes sense.

Why Yosef, who had sons, would have let the rod go to Paro's palace instead of to his family is not explained. I mean, the plain text says "his house", which you'd think means his own family, but then it goes on to say that something else happened.

The transmission at the beginning is interesting; Chanok (Enoch) is in the seventh generation but yes, lifespans were long enough that Adam was still alive. Chanok must have given the rod to Shem before the flood (though I hadn't thought he lived that long; Chanok got short-changed compared to the others), and I guess it's possible that Shem was still alive in Avraham's time. While trying to look that up without actually doing the math I came across this family tree that looks potentially useful. (No dates/ages, though.)

[a] The root here is mem-samekh-reish, the same root as "mesorah", a tradition passed down from generation to generation.

[b] Not makom and not beito (his house); I'm taking someone else's word for this one.

[c] Better, less-literal translation: No man could draw near it.

See comments for some corrections.