I don’t mind dancing around the bimah in Friday night, in fact its nice to see some folks getting their only physical activity in the week, but if your sweaty hand is grabbing me into some Carlebach poser circle around the bimah – do me a favor and keep it up. It bothers me immensely when I am pulled into one these circles at a non-Carlebach style shul trying to be retro and the circle just dies, or turns into one of those butt bumping affairs like at weddings.
You know everyone is going all fast and suddenly someone stops and everyone bumps into each others butts (hate to think about what that would look like naked) and hence the reason why I do the whole hand on the dude in front of me back instead of holding hands, it allows me to brace myself from butt bumping.
The problem with these fake Carlebach circles is that they are always half assed, a couple people start it and pull unwilling people into it with them and quickly deteriorates into one of those outer circles at a wedding, you know the one’s that just end for no reason? It kind of reminds me of hoshanos when the line just peters out and you are left outside the circle, well here you have people who get pulled in and just leave because they were unwilling in the first place.
I think a big determining factor in whether people will allow themselves to be pulled into the circle is what the mood was like before, was it a bumping lecha dodi or was it that lame dying cows ending?
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