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

[cellio]

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.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Okay. That makes sense.

You're only encouraging them, though.