It seems a bit absurd to write about how Yom Kippur was for me this year, yet I cannot help but write. As a child, I only remember this about Yom Kippur: My parents would buy tickets for services. In those years, the synagogue was still small and there was not enough room inside for everyone who wanted high holiday tickets, so they would erect a huge tent that seated maybe 200 people, maybe more, and my parents would attend good chunks of the service leaving us outside to our own devices. I didn’t want to enter because I didn’t understand anything anyway and inside the tent, it was invariably boiling hot.
Late in the afternoon, my parents and I would ride about a half hour to my grandparents’ synagogue and arrive just in time for Neila, the last service of the day. My mother would walk with us up the stairs of the synagogue into the women’s section. The women’s section was populated with women of my grandmother’s age, all elderly (in their 50’s!) immigrant women who spoke with heavy Eastern European accents. My grandmother was always really happy to see us when we showed up. My cousins and their mothers too would arrive and always there was discussion as to which of the huge flower arrangements my mother and her siblings had bought for the synagogue in honor of their mother.
After the service, we would return to my grandparents’ home with the flowers. They always consisted of a large percentage of chrysanthemums and the smell of chrysanthemums usually reminds me of my grandmother.
I am now older than my grandmother ever was.
I am lucky enough to be living in Israel where on Yom Kippur, the entire country stops. There are no Israeli television channels broadcasting and no radio. Aside from one police car, I saw no cars on the roads. In the evening, the park was filled with adults and children. It is amazing!
This year, at services in our bursting-at-the-seams synagogue, I was privileged to have 16 of my grandchildren. I pretty much was bursting with happiness seeing all of their beautiful faces. The older ones, serious about their prayers, remained inside for large parts of the services and some, notably, for all of them. The younger children, happily wandered in and out. The youngest were held in their mothers’ or fathers’ or siblings’ arms. The language we prayed in was the language they live. The synagogue held familiar people. The melodies were ones the older children had sung many times before.
And the service… I don’t think it was my imagination. Our congregation has been going for about 13 years. I think it has come of age. The singing of large parts of the service was no less than inspiring. Just as we repented in group fashion as one people, we sang in one voice and if the heavens were open, I can’t imagine more sincere petitions or more beautiful sounds of praise entering the holy gates.
The family, unretouched, missing three children
May all of you have a healthy, happy, prosperous New Year!
