Yom Kippur (short)

[cellio]

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'.)

Comments

Maintaining Interest

[(Anonymous)]

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

Re: Maintaining Interest

[cellio]

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.