Shelter-in-Place Journal, Day Sixty-Eight

Our synagogue, Congregation Shir Hadash, has a lay-led service (Shir Shabbat) on most Shabbat mornings from just after Simchat Torah until just before Shavuot, and Diane and I are regular attendees. And from time to time, we take a role in making the service happen. We’d volunteered to do that for today’s service, the last of the season – I would lead and she would chant Torah.

That, of course, was back in February. Things changed, but this morning, I led the service from home via Zoom and Diane chanted her portion (sadly, not from the Torah scroll, since we don’t have one at home); the Cantorial Soloist sang from her home. I was also projecting the prayer book from my Kindle app, and once or twice I forgot to scroll up because I was too busy listening, and I think I muted the Cantorial Soloist for a couple of seconds at one point, but things mostly went smoothly. I think. At least no lighting bolts descended from heaven!

This evening, we watched Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s presentation of Tales from the Edge of the Bard – ghost stories inspired by Shakespeare. It was a fun way to spend an hour; we’re going to watch the previous episodes in the series sometime.