cellio | Yom Kippur (short)

One sermon both interesting and frustrating (maybe more later). Organ broken, so even late (more-formal) services got piano instead (improvement in my opinion).

Went to early morning service. This left about 2.5 hours to occupy before afternoon service; sweet-talked the key-holder into letting me into library. Spent quality time with talmud investigating a question a friend emailed about on Wednesday (oven of Akhnai, Bava Metzia 59). On the way, studied some about ona'ah (causing people distress); this provided some material to think about before discussing sermon, so on-topic for Yom Kippur after all. Study time briefly interrupted when a congregant who had some sort of seizure was brought in to lie down; seems ok now, but paramedics took her away to be sure. (95 years old.)

Headache began around hour 20. Noticed dehydration around hour 22 (pretty good!), hunger around hour 23.5. Complete sentences departed around hour 24. :-)

Ne'ilah uplifting; Yizkor tedious. May re-evaluate the latter next year. (This is my problem, not the rabbis'.)

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I'm not sure how much of ne'ilah and ma'arive you do at your shul, but it's inspiring to hear that you were able to maintain interest after most of the fast had gone by. I still can't perfect that so well without constant visual references to the clock by the time the fast is almost over. This year I killed my voice singing in my shul's choir both during the night and day time. I felt a tad afraid near the end that if i didn't get water soon, then my voice would be gone permanently :P Other than that, I found that hunger isn't as big of an issue as the lack of water. It made me feel pretty weak near the end. At 7:20, when the fast was officially over here, I skipped down to my shul's basement and drank from their water fountain. Wow what a difference that made!

My voice is still in the process of recovery though, please pray for it!

What was your Rabbi's serman about?

- Inkhorn
http://intellectualization.blogspot.com

We do yizkor at the end of the day, immediately followed by ne'ilah (not ma'ariv). So it was more like "recover interest after the yizkor tedium", rather than "maintain interest", but I'll take it. :-)

Voice: I really wonder how our cantor does it -- "on" all day and double services besides, while fasting.

Our services ended a bit before the fast ended, which was just enough time for me to walk to the house where I'd been invited to break the fast. I walked in the door, looked at my watch, and commenced the caffeine download. (Yes, I know to also drink water.)

Sermon was about involvement in the congregation and demographics and related. It tied into some stuff I wrote about before Yom Kippur (coincidence; didn't know what he'd be talking about). And that probably helped fuel my reaction, but I think we don't focus enough on congregants who aren't part of conventional nuclear families and he didn't address that at all. So I have complicated thoughts, and a previously-scheduled appointment next week before which I will distill them down into something I can say to him in a few minutes.

How long does your yizkor last? Ours is ten minutes, tops - kel mole for the Holocaust and for the IDF, then everyone with both parents leaves and there's five minutes (maybe) for the private yizkor, and then everyone comes back in for kel moles for Rav Kook and Rav Soleveitchek. And that's that.

Yeah, ours is about the length of yours, if not shorter. I'm always amazed at how the people have just finished going out when they have to turn around and come back in.

Wow. Ten minutes? That would be great!

Ours is about 45-50 minutes. There are all of these "mood-setting" readings in our machzor -- never mind that we just did the martyrology a few hours ago -- and we have music, and the rabbi speaks (for about 5 minutes, so that's not where the time goes), and we spend a couple minutes reading the names of children who died in the Shoah (sigh... why don't adults rate? but that's another rant), and it just all adds up.

The other times during the year when we do Yizkor, it's tacked onto the morning service and it's about 15 minutes (maybe 20? don't remember; ask again in a couple weeks :-) ). But at Yom Kippur it's its own service, something that people who left after shacharit come back for and feel is important, and I guess the length is a response to that. But really, at the end of the day, shouldn't the focus be on ne'ilah instead? That's the "cap" to Yom Kippur, and it's unique.

Huh. Why do you have it then instead of in the normal "tacked onto" shacharit position?

To get people there for ne'ilah. Yizkor has a real following, apparently. If we put it at the end of shacharit then all those people would blow off mincha, the beit midrash (how we spend the next couple hours), and ne'ilah; if we put it at the end then they might come for some of that.

I'm not sure how I feel about placing things to goad people into coming, versus placing them where they make sense and not worrying if ne'ilah is small. Both positions have merit.

Okay. That makes sense.

You're only encouraging them, though.

Yom Kippur (short)

Maintaining Interest

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