Yom Kippur

[cellio]

Yom Kippur was a good experience this year.

I ended up going to the late service for Kol Nidre, because the alternative was to add about an hour and a half to my fast (not good). I feel for the rabbis -- they don't have a choice.

We had to start doing double services a few years ago (pesky fire code :-) ). Last year we started making them musically different -- the early service has less "grandiose", more accessible music, using just the cantorial soloist (and piano or guitar). The later service is the more traditional (for Reform) music, with a professional choir and an organ and music the congregation is mostly supposed to just listen to. The services are otherwise the same -- same liturgy, same sermons, etc. Yes, both Kol Nidre services get the ten-minute cello piece; apparently that's considered important to a lot of people.

So anyway, I went to the late service and expected to have trouble connecting, but it was still effective for me, largely due to our rabbis and cantorial soloist. When my rabbi went in front of the ark and prayed Hineni at the beginning of the service, I felt the power of the words. When our cantorial soloist sang Avinu Malkeinu at Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, I knew she was praying for us, not performing. During the many passes through Al Cheit on Yom Kippur I felt that we were all in this together. When I said the Kol Nidre ("all vows") declaration I wasn't just saying words -- I meant it.

My rabbi's sermon was on the theme of doing things before it's too late. What rifts do we need to repair, what opportunities have we always managed to put off for some other time, what connections should we be making? He had a list of things he recommended we do in the coming year (it reminded me of a sermon he gave at either Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur several years ago). I don't remember them all, but the past couple years he's been publishing his HHD sermons so I'll post a link when he does.

On the way home from services I saw a small (electrical?) fire at a construction site. (A flood light was spitting out smoke, some flames, and sparks.) It was odd -- I was lost in my own thoughts and then sparks were falling in front of me and I thought "I wonder if anyone has called this in yet". I of course wasn't carrying a cell phone and there didn't seem to be a lot of non-Jews on the street (even on a Friday night), so I called 911 when I got home just in case. From the followup call I got ("where did you say this was?") it sounds like it might have burned itself out. Good.

Saturday I went to the early service. The morning service is longer, and I really wanted the music that I could connect with. It was a good service, but then I was left with three hours to kill while the late service happened. Last year I snuck into the library, but the lighting wasn't so great and I didn't want to do that again. So I went home for a couple hours. That turned out to really be the wrong thing to do -- it was almost like the solemnity of the day was suspended when I walked into my house, even though I was just planning to sit quietly and read a little. I guess I'll just go to the late service next year, though a couple people have also suggested to me (and I agree with this idea) that we should swap the two services on Yom Kippur, so maybe the problem will go away. That's going to be a hard sell, but I'm going to try. (Yes, I can bring non-greedy arguments.)

I really connected with the prayers this year. We don't just confess and ask forgiveness; we also ask for help in doing better. The liturgy recognizes that we are often weak and can't always completely return on our own -- after all, most of us said these same prayers last year and will say them again next year. But I believe that God sometimes guides us if we ask him to, and often butts out if we don't, and some of that sunk in this year. As one of my favorite parts of Pirke Avot says, it is not on us to complete the task, but neither are we exempt from starting. We probably won't make complete teshuvah (repentance, return), but we have to do what we can and ask for help for the rest.

The afternoon service followed the two morning servicces almost immediately. (We only double up Kol Nidre and shacharit; then lots of people leave and the rest fit in the sanctuary.) This is the service where we read Jonah. I think I agree with xiphias; it really does read like a parody in a lot of ways. (See his comments.) I see why we read this on Yom Kippur -- it's about how even an entire city can return to God and be forgiven if they just try -- but the guy is such a whiner! I just can't muster much empathy for Jonah, I fear. He'd rather die than sit out in the desert? Then move! Sheesh.

To fill the time between mincha and the concluding prayers, last year we added a "beit medrash", a set of classes. This was really popular, so we expanded it this year. We had seven or eight different classes, all of which ran twice, and two class sessions. (Ok, one class only ran once, because during the first hour the rabbi who taught it was leading a children's service.) One of the classes I went to was really good. My rabbi brought in some excerpts from a book called The Bintel Brief, a collection of "Dear Abby"-style letters from a Jewish newspaper in New York spanning several decades. (The earliest one we read was from 1908.) Most of the letter-writers were new immigrants (or, later, their children), and it provided an interesting look into the problems they faced. And you know what? They weren't so different from ours -- assimilation, intermarriage, kids who are more religious than their parents, kids who are less religious than their parents but want to honor them, and so on. I must acquire this book.

The discussion around one of the letters was interesting. A person had asked (I think this was the 1908 letter) whether it was appropriate for a "free thinker" (read: Jew who had gone secular/socialist) to pay someone to say kaddish for his mother -- recognizing that he was not, himself, willing to say those words, because he had given up religion, but he wanted to honor his mother's memory. The consensus in the room was "hey, what can it hurt?", and while I agree with that sentiment for the case of kaddish, it then went in the direction of honoring parents' wishes more generally. (Note: the letter didn't indicate that mom had asked for this.) People seemed to still be unified that you have to honor parents' wishes in things like this, but I think people were being distracted by the fact that it was kaddish. My parents do not share my religion and I can imagine that there could be things they would ask me to do to honor their memory that I simply cannot do. This case is different, but it got me thinking. If Christianity had something akin to kaddish, would I arrange for someone to say it for them because (let's assume) I couldn't say it myself? I don't think I would; acts that I do through an agent are still my acts, and if it's wrong for me then it's wrong. But argh, I am not fast during discussions of this sort, so the thought did not fully form in time. (I did mention the first part; I just didn't work it all the way through in real time.)

After the classes we had Yizkor, the memorial prayer said four times a year. (Is it usually done late in the day on Yom Kippur? The rest of the time we do it at the end of shacharit, but not this time.) In most congregations the tradition is that you do not attend Yizkor if your parents are still alive, but at my congregation the tradition is that people don't leave during this. I'd rather leave, personally, but at least so long as I am in a position of leadership in the congregation, I will attend because my rabbi wants us to attend.

The Yizkor service, at least in the Reform machzor (high-holy-day prayer book), contains a lot of readings, in English, that mostly don't touch me. I assume they touch people with more personal losses; I don't know. The yizkor prayer itself is short -- a couple paragraphs -- but there's a lot of stuff around it. Eh. I sat toward the back, and it turned out the lighting wasn't too good and I had to fight off falling asleep -- this was at about hour 24 of the fast, after all.

The day ended with Ne'ilah, the concluding prayers, when the (metaphorical) gates of heaven are about to close. You'd think that at hour 24 of a fast, and right after Yizkor to boot, you'd feel run down and droopy. But I find this part of the service uplifting; I really did leave the synagogue feeling that things are right between me and God and that we're going to work on making 5765 a better year. May it be so.

Services ran later than I expected, so most of my break-fast guests were already at my house when I got home. (Dani let them in.) We made havdalah and had a nice meal and conversation. It was nice to just sit and talk with folks. There were eight of us, so it was a small-enough group that we could just sit and talk.

A couple text notes:

• The text of Kol Nidre (where we ask to be released from certain vows) is, in this machzor, visibly longer in the Hebrew than in the English translation. I thought the English was correct as far as it went, but tonight I asked Dani to tell me what's missing. He read both, laughed, and said "synonyms". Apparently there are some things that are said a few different ways, just to be clear I suppose.
• We have two different editions of the machzor, with the newer one being "gender-sensitive". We're not allowed to call God "Lord" any more, or use the masculine pronoun, it seems. Ok, whatever. They also changed "king" to "sovereign", which weakens the image for me. Then they got silly: they changed the word "kingdom" everywhere it appears. I suppose they don't do that across the Atlantic in the United Soverenity, or whatever. I don't think the word "kingdom" is masculine. (Ditto "history".) Puh-leeze! (This all becomes quite obvious because we have a mix of machzors, so during congregational reading there is sometimes some mumbling in these parts. I'm going to talk with folks about getting enough of one to eliminate that problem.)
• And "hosts". I still don't know what's wrong with "hosts" (like in "hosts of heaven"). I want to see the style guide, particularly if it's annotated, 'cause I'm curious now.

I should stress that these are changes in the English quasi-translations only, not in the Hebrew.

This afternoon I put up the sukkah. Yay new sukkah! I got one surprise, and maybe before next year I'll ask a friend with the right tools to help me. I ordered an 8x8 sukkah frame, the kind with the metal poles (technically "tubing") and connectors that you just hand-tighten (no tools!). I had gotten the impression that it was about 7 feet high, but it's really 8. If I had paid more attention to the packing list I would have figured that out two weeks ago when it came. The problem with an 8-foot-high sukkah is that I'm 5'3". Even standing on a ladder, it was difficult for me to get the s'chach (roofing material) up there. (Ok, it's not a big ladder. I have this thing about ladders. I really want a sukkah I can put up with a step-stool.) I'm hoping that a certain friend of mine has saws that can cut metal, so we can just lop a foot off of the vertical poles. Later -- I got it up for this year. And hey, it meant I didn't have to cut down the lattice I use for the walls this year. :-) (I had the hand-saw ready.)

So now I have a sukkah big enough that we can theoretically have guests more than singly or pair-wise (if friendly), though I still only have the one card table. I may pick up another card table and a couple more folding chairs. (The size increase was a side-effect; the goal was a free-standing sukkah that's easy to put up, and I succeeded there.)

Comments

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

Rabbi Jim talked about why Jonah. I'm doing this from memory. He noted how on Yom Kippur the portions become more grave. YK Morning you have the "choose life", with the Haftorah from Isaiah indicating it is not a meaningless fast that's wanted. Then you have the ten commandments in the afternoon. He noted this is a pretty high bar to achieve.

Then we have Jonah, who hammers home the point that even the lowly among us can achieve good. Here you have someone who tries to abdict all their responsibility, worrying about their name. Yet 5-6 words from him can turn a city around. If he can do it, then why can't we.

I hope I remembered it right.

Yizkor

[magid.livejournal.com]

Is it usually done late in the day on Yom Kippur?
It's done right after Torah reading, before the Ashrei that begins the process of returning the sefer Torah, just like the other times of year. I'm surprised you have it so late in the day, especially if there are more people in the morning.

[juuro.livejournal.com]

Some flavours of Christianity still recognise the Requiem, the Mass for the departed soul, not only as a burial service, but also at prescribed times during mourning and possibly, indefinitely after that.

Being Mass, it is not something one does, like kaddish, though. It requires ordained clergy, and thus, a payment is considered appropriate. A Requiem service that I have paid for is considered as valid whether I am present at the Mass or not.

Not an exact parallel, though.

[goljerp]

Going back to my apartment wasn't really a problem for me this year. I suppose this is one area where it actually helps that I have a studio. See, I have this table which has two wings which fold down. So it can be (and usually is) a bit over 5 feet long and about 3 feet wide, but can fold down to just one foot "long". Since I wasn't using it for Yom Kippur anyhow (Joy and I ate dinner at a restaurant before the fast, and went to a friend's for break-fast), I folded it all the way down... and it made a change in the room. Also, by the time that services ended (around 3:30pm?), we were both so exhausted that we pretty much just collapsed when we got back...

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

>> My parents do not share my religion and I can imagine that there could be things they would ask me to do to honor their memory that I simply cannot do. This case is different, but it got me thinking.

I will have to deal with this eventually. My mother made me the executor of her will, which specifies that she wants to be cremated. I don't know whether I am permitted to do this or, if I'm not, whether I can let someone else do it for me. I've asked the rabbi, but he indicated it would be best to ask again when it was a practical rather than theoretical question.

>> I thought the English was correct as far as it went, but tonight I asked Dani to tell me what's missing. He read both, laughed, and said "synonyms". Apparently there are some things that are said a few different ways, just to be clear I suppose.

I guess they can be described as synonyms in terms of all the words standing for a vow of some sort, but from what I know, they're all different types of vows. I can post the Artscroll commentary on this if you're interested.

>> We're not allowed to call God "Lord" any more, or use the masculine pronoun, it seems. Ok, whatever.

My personal opinion (based on nothing scientific, just my opinion) is that gender designations are a sensitive spot largely because the English language has lost almost all of its gender features. It has natural gender (e.g., calling a female human or animal "she" because, well, it's obvious that she's a she), but not much else -- just a few archaic holdovers, such as calling a ship "she" (which even Lloyd's List has stopped doing within the last few years). English doesn't have masculine and feminine (or neuter) nouns in the way so many other languages (such as Hebrew) do. And because of this, when you say "she" in English, female qualities are assumed. It's not just another type of noun or pronoun; it is assumed to be specifically and necessarily female. This in turn makes it (for some people) politically charged. I personally am not bothered by it, particularly in translations from languages that do have gender, because it seems to me to be more of a function of the language than political commentary. (That's what I get for studying several languages, I guess.)

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

our poles are 7'8" poles, but the top of the pole actually sticks up above the s'chach level by maybe a foot or 3/4 of a foot or so. And it's designed to be that way, which I think is a little odd.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

"acts that I do through an agent are still my acts, and if it's wrong for me then it's wrong."

IANAJ, but it sounds to me like you're conflating two things here, "wrong for me" and "wrong". Also, consider the person on whose behalf the agent is acting. "Wrong for me" but not necessarily "wrong" sounds to me like the gray area in which the Shabbos Goy exists. It's not wrong for a goy to light a fire on Saturday, even though it's wrong for you. I've seen it argued both ways whether it's OK for you to ask (hire) someone to light the fire for you.

Also, it's a (hypothetical) request of your mother's, not for your benefit at all. If your mother really wanted a BLT, and you didn't feel comfortable cooking the bacon, is it wrong of you to buy her a BLT? You shouldn't eat it, and you aren't; you're enabling her to eat it, but it's not forbidden to her. I would consider purchasing a requiem (or other rite for the dead) similarly: it's OK, or possibly even required, for her; it's forbidden for you to accomplish directly; but you pay someone else to perform for your mother the action you can't.

(Sorry if this is disjointed - it's Monday, and my brain is not here.)