Rosh Hashana

[cellio]

I felt kind of rushed going into Rosh Hashana -- not so much physically but definitely spiritually. The holiday helped set things right again.

I'm not real familiar with the more-traditional liturgy (just recently acquired a machzor that will help me with this), so everything I write here is from a Reform perspective. I said I felt unprepared going in, and the evening service didn't really change that for me -- after the opening "hineini" prayer where the service leaders gravely ask not to be accountable for the sins of the congregation and vice-versa, it felt very much like "yay! new year!" and not so much like "season of repentance". We did have an excellent sermon that brought in these things, but the liturgy itself didn't do that for me. It's the same liturgy we use every year; don't know why I didn't notice that before.

No, the theme kicked in fast and furious in the morning service instead. When we proclaimed the day of judgment and read the prayers leading into the Unatana Tokef ("today it is decided...who shall live and who shall die, who shall be comforted and who shall be restless..." etc), I felt it keenly. Even if we cast this as kivhachol, as if it were, and not literally, it is still enough to focus the mind. I assume this is what it is designed to do and it works well.

We have double services on the high holy days (you know, fire codes and all that... it's the only time of year that everyone comes at once), and the two are stylistically different. The later service caters to the "classical reform" model of a choir singing fancy music (for which the congregation can only sit and listen) with an organ. The earlier service is more participatory and less pretentious, while still being serious enough to not seem light and fluffy. You can tell which service I favor, I trust. Timing considerations usually force me to attend the late services on Yom Kippur, but for Rosh Hashana I attended the early ones. But I had been asked to read torah at the late morning service, so I went to my preferred service, then stayed through the torah reading of the next one and then left. (I asked; this was fine with the rabbis and they did not think it would reflect badly.) That exposed me to enough of the late service to remind myself just how off-putting I find it; I felt myself actively disengaging during it, which is bad. So now I am trying to find a way to make Yom Kippur work with the early morning service, at least. (I think Kol Nidrei, the evening service, is still a lost cause.)

The torah reading went well, I thought. I had the climax of the akeidah, when Avraham is about to sacrifice Yitzchak and the angel intercedes. I gave a little dramatic pause between when the angel cries out and when Avraham answers, and the room was silent. Even though most people don't know Hebrew, they can recognize that part. (And I knew what I was reading, word for word, which certainly helps.)

At the second-day service I ended up being more of a functionary -- greeter, redistributor of prayerbooks (we didn't have enough; it's different from first day) so the people sharing were the ones who could more easily do so, etc. This made it harder to actually worship, but I found I didn't mind in that case. I read torah at this service too -- stumbled in a couple places because I didn't get to look at the scroll in advance and it's been a year, but it still went well. (We read creation; I read day six.) Then after Rosh Hashana was Shabbat with its special additions for the season, and I finally feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be. (Even if Shabbat day ended up being decidedly atypical, but more about that in another entry.)

Comments

[cellio]

It's a Reform thing. The traditional readings are Hagar/Yismael on the first day and the Akeidah on the second day. Since, historically, most Reform Jews won't come for a second day, the decision was made long ago to read the Akeidah on the first day. That left the question of what to read on the second day -- going back to Hagar/Yismael seemed kind of anti-climactic and leaves things on an odd note, but hey, Rosh Hashana is also the anniversary of creation, so why not read Creation?

(Actually, there is rabbinic discourse -- who would have thought? :-) -- on whether Rosh Hashana is the day the world was created or the day Adam Rishon was created. Either way, though, B'reishit is a fine choice.)