Ava, use this page 3-4 times each week to prepare for your Bat Mitzvah. To ensure simcha success, please use the tools and downloadable items provided here to learn and practice your training assignments between lessons. For questions, e-mail me at cantor@kehillatbethisrael.com or call/text me at 613-327-3984. It is your responsibility to check this page to ensure it’s working properly right after each lesson, and let me know if there’s a problem right away.
VERY IMPORTANT – MUST READ: KBI B’nei Mitzvah Handbook ONLINE
Click here to confirm you’ve read the entire handbook (required).
| DATE/TIME | GOALS | HOMEWORK ASSIGNED |
| We, Oct 11, 2023
In person |
Intro to B’nei Mitzvah Process
Intro to Webpage Goal Setting Lesson Time |
STUDY METHOD (always have your printouts/pages in front of you)
1. In your first homework session, Listen to the assigned audio files (or assigned part thereof) at least 15 times in a row. Let it sink in! Best practice is to listen a couple more times in a second sitting before trying to sing along. 2. Sing along with the audio files many times until it is identical, smooth and confident. If there are glitches, use the slider to “rewind” and review a word or two at a time until identical. You’ll know you’re ready for step 3 when the audio recording feels too slow or is ‘holding you back’. 3. Sing the whole assignment without the audio file (as you will in your next lesson). Use this approach every week, and knock my socks off with how well you know it! AND, 4. every week, you MUST review at least once, everything learned to date, and FIX any glitches. |
| We, Oct. 25
4:20-4:40pm |
Write name, phone number, and email address on BM folder (provided)
Prepare Blessing Before and After Torah reading |
Print and Learn Blessings Before and After Torah Reading (PDF | MP3 – Before | MP3 – After) |
| We, Nov 1
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Torah Blessings | Smooth out Blessings before and after Torah reading |
| We, Nov 8
4:20-4:40pm |
|
Instead of touching up the Torah reading from last week, we’re going to shift gears back to learning the Torah Trope Sheet. It was my mistake for trying to skip that step for time, but it seems it would be more helpful to learn it!
SO: Learn Torah Trope sheet, first half (up to first sof pasuk). Learn it like a song, but as you get better at singing it, start to look at the trope symbols, rather than the words. We want to associate the musical sounds with the shape of the tropes (not the names) (PDF | Torah Trope) |
| We, Nov. 15
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Torah Trope 1st half
Prepare Torah Trope 2nd half |
NO LESSON – CJG ILL
|
| We, Nov 22 | NO LESSON – CJG VACATION | |
| We, Nov 29
4:20-4:40 |
Review Torah Trope
Review Torah blessings |
|
| We, Dec 6
4:20-4:40pm ZOOM (CJG ILL) |
Review Torah Trope
Prepare Maftir B’chukotai 27:32 and 27:33 up to y’mirenu |
Learn Maftir B’chukotai 27:32 and 27:33 up to y’mirenu |
| We, Dec 13
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Maftir to date
Prepare Maftir rest-of-27:33 and 27:34 |
Smooth out the entire Maftir by following the homework technique in the top box of this column — 1. LISTEN many times to the whole aliya; 2. SING ALONG many times with the audio file; 3. Sing the whole thing without the audio file.
The goal is to be able to sing it so the words roll of your tongue – you should be so familiar with the words and tune that you don’t have to think much about what is coming up next. |
| We, Dec 20
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Maftir (all)
Prepare Haftara Trope |
Touch up the melody of v34 in your maftir. Use the audio file.
Learn Haftara Trope sheet. Try without writing in the transliteration – you can always refer to your Torah trope sheet for pronunciations. You have two weeks to do today’s assigned homework. |
| Dec. 27 | NO LESSON – CJG VACATION | Keep learning Haftara Trope sheet and smoothing out Maftir |
| We, Jan 3
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Maftir (partic. last verse)
Review Haftara Trope Sheet Prepare Blessing before the Haftara |
First, Learn Blessing before Haftara
THEN, Go back to the maftir and make it identical to the recording (particularly the notes). Circle any words that aren’t coming out quite right or confidently, spend 2-4 minutes on each of those, listening and repeating a bunch of times until they’re correct. Make sure you can sing the whole maftir aliya smoothly and confidently. You have two weeks to do these two assignments |
| We, Dec 10 | NO LESSON – CJG at CONFERENCE | |
| We, Jan 17
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Blessing before Haftara
Prepare Haftara 16:19 up to v’yom’ru |
Finish learning blessing before Haftara. Make sure you can sing it smoothly and confidently. |
| We, Jan 24
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Blessing before Haftara
Prepare Haftara rest-of-16:19 and 16:20 |
1 – Learn Haftara rest-of-16:19 and 16:20. Concentrate hard on make “Elohim” not start with a ‘h’ sound. It needs a clean “Eh” starting sound, called a ‘glottal stop’
2 – Smooth out (repeat more) the blessing before the Haftara |
| We, Jan 31
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Blessing before Haftara
Review Haftara to date Review maftir from righthand side |
Changing gears! We’re going to put the haftara ON HOLD, and focus on Torah (maftir, and possibly another short reading), and the Torah service prayers.
Really make your maftir smooth! Only when it’s smooth and confident will we be able to move to reading it from the TORAH side (righthand side). That’s the goal for this week. Particularly, fix the melody (trope) of v’haya hu ut-murato and et Moshe el b’nei Yisrael. Listen to the audio file at those moments a bunch of times to get it clear in your mind. Sign up for World Wide Wrap morning of T’filin education and wrapping, Sunday morning, Feb. 11, 8:30-10:30am, with a buffet breakfast – www.kehillatbethisrael.com/wwwrap24. |
| We, Feb 7
4:20-4:40pm |
Review maftir from the LEFTHAND side
Review Haftara to date (17:1) Prepare Haftara 17:2-3 |
BACK TO HAFTARA! WELL-CAUGHT-UP!!! Keep that up! Great studying this week!
Learn Haftara 17:2-3. If you finish that and want to do more, you can go on in the audio file into verse 4. |
| We, Feb 14
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Haftara to date
Ava already learn 17:4 Prepare Haftara 17:5-6 |
Touch up 17:4
Learn Haftara 17:5-6 (if you have lots of extra time, you can add 17:7, but no pressure!) |
| We, Feb 21
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Haftara to date
Prepare Haftara 17:7-8 |
Learn Haftara 17:7-8
Keep smoothing out haftara before that point. |
| We, Feb 28 | NO LESSSON – AVA IN THE BAHAMAS! | If you so desire and have the time, you can always do another line or two! |
| We, Mar 6
4:20-4:40pm |
Ava wasn’t able to learn 17:8. Retake that today.
Review Haftara to date Prepare Haftara 17:8-9 (and possibly 10) |
Learn Haftara 17:8-9, and if you do that really well and have time to do 17:10, go for it! |
| We, Mar 13 | NO LESSON (CJG VACATION), but please continue with the homework at right ===> | Learn Haftara 17:10-11 |
| We, Mar 20
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Haftara to date
Prepare Haftara 17:11-12 Review Maftir |
Learn Haftara 17:11-12
Practice maftir with the audio file a few times so that you get the Torah tropes in your head and not switch to haftara tropes. |
| We, Mar 27
4:37-4:4opm* Traffic! |
Review Haftara to date
Prepare Haftara 17:13 Review Maftir (for correct, Torah, tropes) |
Learn Haftara 17:13 |
| We, Apr 3
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Haftara to date
Prepare Haftara 17:14 |
Re-smooth out blessing before Haftara
Learn Haftara 17:14 (last verse!) Smooth out / focus on Haftara 17:11 to the end |
| We, Apr 10
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Haftara (entire, with blessing before)
Prepare 1st half of blessing 1 after Haftara |
Smooth out Haftara, verse 10 to the end
Learn Blessing 1 after Haftara, first half, up to emet vatzedek |
| We, Apr 17
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Haftara, last two pages
Review Blessing 1 after Haftara first half Prepare 2nd half of Blessing 1 after haftara |
Learn 2nd half of Blessing 1 after haftara
Spend more time smoothing out Haftara, last 2 pages |
| We, Apr 24 | NO LESSON, but please do homework at right ===> | Learn Blessing 2 after haftara |
| We, May 1
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Haftara last 2 pages for smoothness
Review Blessings after Haftara 1-2 Prepare Blessing 3 after haftara, up to nish-bata lo, AND if you do a great job with that, see if you can finish blessing 3 (ie. up to Magein David) Review Maftir |
Smooth out haftara from verse 10
|
| We, May 8
4:20-4:40pm |
Review Haftara from v9
Review Blessings 1-3 after haftara Hopefully prepare first half of blessing 4 after the haftara |
|
| _____________ | ____________________ |
Torah/Haftara Trope Sheet (PDF | Torah Trope | Haftara Trope)
Blessings Before and After Torah Reading (PDF | MP3 – Before | MP3 – After)
Maftir B’chukotai (PDF | MP3) – All in Lev., Ch 27
| 32 – 0:00 | 33 – 0:19 | 34 – 0:47 |
Blessing before Haftara (PDF | MP3)
Haftara B’chukotai (PDF | MP3) – Jeremiah, Chapters 16 & 17
| 16:19 – 0:00 | 20 – 0:36 | 21 – 0:49 | 17:1 – 1:13 | 2 – 1:41 | 3 – 2:01 | 4 – 2:22 |
| 5 – 3:01 | 6 – 3:29 | 7 – 3:56 | 8 – 4:12 | 9 – 4:59 | 10 – 5:14 | 11 – 5:38 |
| 12 – 6:05 | 13 – 6:20 | 14 – 6:48 |
Blessings after Haftara (PDF | Audio: Blessing 1 | 2 | 3 | 4)
Torah Service (PDF | MP3 folder)
Blessings before and after Torah reading – DONE
Torah Trope – DONE
Maftir aliya – DONE, INCLUDE FROM TORAH SIDE
Probably skip Haftara Trope for time
Blessing before Haftara
Haftara –
Blessings after Haftara –
D’var Torah (with Rabbi ???) –
Other items as time allows: Torah Processional; Torah Recessional; Conclusion of Services, Other Torah aliyot…