The Yom Kippur Follies

“On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by wild beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning.” – The U’Netaneh Tokef Prayer (I don’t know how to correctly cite biblical stuff, though).

U’Netaneh Tokef is a prayer Jews recite on Yom Kippur, our day of repentance.  For me, the prayer has little significance.  Still, I have fond memories of Cantor Simon’s rendition back home in New Jersey.  He would riff for about thirty minutes, and the congregation would (not really) listen to his obnoxiously loud and quasi-operatic voice.  His falsetto was to die for, and after a half-day of fasting or fake fasting, it really hit the spot. 

I would usually spend part of that half-hour drearily reading through the prayer’s English translation—which, in general, is never a good idea—and wondering what “perishing by wild beast” would be like.  Really, you’d think the author would have the foresight to include car crashes and cancer in the U’Netaneh Tokef.  I don’t think many people are mauled by lions or stoned to death anymore.

Anyway, the prayer is especially pertinent to us spending Yom Kippur in Ethiopia, since there are quite a few hyenas living in the country.  And they can go to town on humans.  Perishing by wild beast is a real possibility here, so I made sure to pray extra hard this Yom Kippur…PSYCHE!  I still just sort of sat and let my thoughts wonder in an attempt to ward off boredom.

This Yom Kippur was definitely unique.  I went to a service led by Israelis and a few Adenite Jews (who have roots in what is now Yemen) at a very small synagogue in Addis Ababa.  It’s an Orthodox service that’s entirely in Hebrew, so I naturally felt even more out of place than I usually do.  At the Kol Nidre service on Tuesday night there were probably around 35 people packed inside.  But on Wednesday there was hardly a minyan—defined by most of the dudes there as a group of ten Jewish men—so I felt a bit obliged to stay there for a good chunk of time. 

The synagogue is next door to a huge mosque, so we (or really, the people who actually knew how to read the prayers and text) sometimes had to compete with the blaring call to prayer—which I thought was neat.  And the synagogue’s bathroom consists of a hole in the ground.  So those were both firsts for me.

The service itself featured of a bunch personal mishaps and Sam Lewin-esque obliviousness, which sometimes rubbed off on the rest of the congregation.  Here is list of those mishaps and other meditations (that’s one of my first times using the word “meditations” in this context; how did I do?) on my first Yom Kippur in Addis:

1.     I bought a big water bottle before going to shul.  Since I drink water all the time, I brought the bottle with me.  So I walked into the Kol Nidre (Yom Kippur eve) service with a huge bottle of water.  This is a big no-no, since probably almost everybody else at the synagogue was fasting, which includes not drinking.  But I only realized my error when halfway through the service I picked up my water bottle to take a drink.  I spent the remainder of that service trying to hide the bottle behind my legs.  When everyone left, I tried to slyly take the bottle with me.  I don’t think I was so sly.

2.     I never knew where we were in the service…ever.  I usually do okay when the rabbi reads page numbers, but at this service everyone had different books, and congregants were expected to know how to perform basic service tasks—like praying and following along.  Yet everybody still repeatedly glanced over their neighbor’s shoulder, trying to figure out which prayer to haphazardly mumble the words to.  Few people had the courage to admit that they really just had no idea.  I ended up using my default opening the book to some random page and then flipping it periodically technique, which I supplemented with occasional vague mouth movements.

But while the Hebrew-ness of the service made it nearly impossible to follow, I can’t say that I miss responsive English readings—i.e. the hallmark of Reform and some Conservative services in the U.S.  Maybe if responsive readings were even remotely poetic and meaningful it would be okay, but usually they are just verbatim translations of prayers and songs.  So the English is biblical, archaic and ugly.

Which brings me to…

3.     When I got bored—like most of the time—I would try to slowly read through the Hebrew.  Upon remembering that I can’t really read or understand Hebrew, I would look at the English translations of prayers, chuckle at their ridiculousness, and then daydream.  Or something…like going outside and playing snake on my phone.  (I never had a phone in middle school, so I missed out on all of the cool simple games.  Now that I’m rocking a retro Nokia, I play snake to pass the time all the time).  I also silently—and sometimes not-so-silently—practiced different drum things on my legs.

4.     I still don’t know how to wear a big tallit (a Jewish prayer shawl).  I can do okay with the small ones, but the big tallitot require all kinds of throwing them over your shoulder.  When someone hands me a tallit, I’m always scared it will be big.

5.     When there were only nine other people in the service, someone asked me to carry the torah.  I’m terrified to carry torahs because they’re awkwardly-shaped and heavy—and, most importantly, if you drop a torah you’re supposed to fast for 40 days and 40 nights.  (I think.  My Hebrew School fun-facts could use some brushing up).  That’s a pretty straightforward utility calculation for me.  Costs: Carrying an awkwardly-shaped and heavy object; possibly dropping it and fasting for 40 days and 40 nights.  Benefits: Some possible, non-immediate and unidentifiable spiritual gratification.  Needless to say, I pawned off the honor on some sucker.

6.     Someone also asked me to go up to the bimah (the front podium part of a synagogue) for an aliyah—which is when you say the prayers before and after someone reads from the torah.  This is considered a big honor.  After much trembling and internal-debating about not wanting to make a fool out of myself, I went up and stumbled through the prayers.  The two more learned (make sure you pronounce this as learn-ed) Jews at the bimah fed me the words.  The text wasn’t up there—as it is in many American synagogues—since the congregants at this synagogue probably assume that everyone knows simple, fundamental prayers.  But not me.  I don’t think I’ve had an aliyah since my Bar Mitzvah nine years ago.  And I went to a not-very-Jewish school for the past four years, where I attended maybe four services.

Anyway, after recovering from my humiliation, I listened to other people recite the prayers before and after reading from the torah, and I realized…

7.     I miss Jews with thick Long Island accents.  Virtually every Jew living in the Northeast has at least one grandparent from Long Island or New York, at the very least.  And I don’t think it’s possible to be a Jewish grandparent from Long Island who doesn’t have a thick accent. 

Whenever Jews have Bar or Bat Mitzvahs, they invite their Long Island grandparents up for aliyahs.  So growing up in a Northeast synagogue, you always hear aliyahs being chanted in thick accents.  Which I think hilarious.  My favorite is the way Long Islanders pronounce adonai, the Hebrew word for god, as adoonoooy.  It gets me every time, and now I miss it.

8.     There were times when over half of the people at this service were asleep.  Do services need to last the whole day if everybody is too tired to actually focus on repentance?

9.     Israelis like Crocs too much.

10.   I still don’t know when to sit down and when to stand up.  Silent prayers are especially tricky, since you can usually sit when you’re done.  I usually just wait for someone who looks more religious than me to sit down.  The trick, though, is that no one else knows when to sit down either, so if you sit down first others will follow suit.  But if they don’t, you’ll look like a secular jerk.  Which you are, of course…at least if you’re me.  

….

On Yom Kippur, God is supposed to seal the book of life, which I guess contains everybody’s fate—like whether they’ll live or die.  I wonder if he uses Excel spreadsheets…

My brother and I have a running joke that if god has a book of life, he must also have a book of death.  And that, in a slightly twisted way, is a hilarious image to me.  So, may you all not be inscribed in the book of death.  Peace.