When Jewish children are 13, or like me, 12, they typically have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, which can encompass many lovely traditions, and many stressful ones. We lead a synagogue service, to varying degrees and often read a portion of the Torah and/or an excerpt from the prophets (the Haftarah). It is not so much “reading” as it is “chanting” very specific melodic notes to words that we usually do not understand. It is often excruciating for a child. It didn’t bother me that much.
Maybe that is only in hindsight, as it was thirty years ago and frankly, I have no recollection of how nerve-wracking it was. It seemed fine. Oh, I should mention that all this chanting has nothing to do with any standard musical notes, but rather is its own separate selection of sounds. I should also mention that Biblical Hebrew is not always the easiest thing in the world to read, or sing. Especially if, like me, your voice sucks and you are tone deaf. Whatever. But I can, in fact, read Hebrew.
You must be wondering why, after thirty years, I am bringing this up now. Well, for one thing, I didn’t have a blog back then. Or the internet. Hell, we still had Atari, cable boxes, long distance and corded phones. With answering machines. With actual tapes.
But the real reason I bring this up now, is this: thirty years later, I have once again chanted my same Haftarah. It was painfully long back then, when I actually kind of knew what I was doing, and it was painfully long now, when I had to relearn all of the notes. At least I remember how to read Hebrew.
Why now? Why all of a sudden? Well, you see, FKGuy has been in the habit of doing these types of things from time to time. He is a regular participant at synagogue. And every time he is asked to participate, he turns to me, rolls his eyes, and says “Why is it that I am always the one doing these things? Why don’t you ever do it?” Well, you were asked, that is why. Oh, and because it seems perfectly plausible that I could be completely incompetent. So, basically, he shamed me into doing it. But I did, shaky voice and all. (I was completely dehydrated from being sick the day before. Good times.)
I did learn a couple of things in this process. Number one, my voice still sucks. It is just awful, and I couldn’t carry a tune to save my life. Yet on occasion, I do engage in karaoke (which I am confident is Japanese for “white girl can’t sing and tortures us all“). Number two, when people say stupid shit like “How hard can it be? You’ve done it before,” they are idiots and should be punched in the face.
Whatever. It was fine. It was not the hardest thing I have ever done, but now the secret is out and I am guessing I will be roped into participating more often. I am fairly certain, however, that I will not be asked to join the choir.
