Yom Kippur Roundup

Watch this space: the latest History CarnivalIS HERE, at Scott Eric Kaufman's suddenly very popularAcephalous.

For those of you who didn't experience the Holiest of Holies, or for those of you who did and need to catch up on your blog-reading, here's a rundown.

Kol Nidre, when we ask God not to take us too seriously, while we take ourselves too seriously.

The first night sermon, when we are reminded of things that we should already be thinking about -- a"quick splash of Guilt" to start off our meditations. If you're lucky, the Rabbi's jokes aren't stolen from the internet; or at least, they're stolen from something you haven't read a million times. Usually this is when the Rabbi invites the president of the congregation to make an appeal for funds mostly for the building fund and for our co-religionists elswhere.

Morning Service: The people who show up early are the ones who know what they're doing, religiously; we're the ones who answer questions and kibbitz the sermon.

The Rabbi's sermon in the morning is usually more focused on the meaning of the day, liturgy, readings, but sometimes the sermon the night before had to be about something else, so the dangers of sectarianism, overzealousness and secessionism are highlighted here. Usually there's a bit of Jewish history in there, a distinguished forefather, or something.

Towards the end of the Musaf ("Additional" or midday) service is my least favorite section of the liturgy: the Martyrology. Don't get me wrong: I have the greatest respect for those who've given their lives for faith, particularly my own. But it's a jarring note in the liturgy for me: in the middle of an already-intense day focused on God -- King, Judge, Father -- and on our own sins, we shift gears to focus on the historical wrongs done to us as a community, atrocities and tragedies which befell those who deserved much better. Perhaps it's supposed to be jarring, but I don't"get it." Anyway, there's this section where we talk about things like Kristallnacht and its analogues, genocide, that sort of thing.

With regard to the latter, a long delayed comment: the artistic project to create illuminated manuscripts in honor of the civilizations which have experienced genocidal attacks, binding them together with both art and the Mourner's Kaddish prayer, seems to me somewhat off the mark. It's not just placing the Jewish experience at the center -- arguably the Jews have been targetted for extinction as much as any other group on the planet -- but the uncomplicated beauty of the manuscripts. Not uncomplicated in the sense of simplistic, but aside from the text -- which is unreadable to most viewers -- these are beautiful works which in no way betray the vicious histories they are intended to display. Maybe I'm too literal, but the conceptual tension in the work is not visible enough for me to grasp it.

Afternoon Torah Reading: sexual transgressions in holy space and in family relations. When my brother and I were young, my mother used to subtly delay our arrival at the afternoon service so we missed the Torah reading. This year, we sat with our almost-four year-old and read him the story of Jonah. He understood the action, but the meaning will take more time.

The end of Yom Kippur is a tough, precious time."The Gates are closing"... the time when God listens most closely to us, and when we speak most heartfully to God, is coming to an end, and after twenty-four hours of full fasting and the repetition of prayers (identical, or very similar, prayers appear in each of the five services of the holiday, mostly in the silent amidah readings) brings you to a meditative place, a place of visceral prayer. One of my favorite prayers, one that has always brought me joy, is the Thirteen Attributes of God. Rachel Barenblatt, whose Jewish Renewal Yom Kippur was very creative, reports:

During the late afternoon service I was struck by the English rendition of the Thirteen Attributes, which are a part of every Yom Kippur service. Each time they appear in the liturgy it's traditional to chant them thrice; here we did them once in Hebrew, once in English, and once in Hebrew again. I'd never chanted them in English before, and I liked it a lot."Adonai, Adonai, Compassion and tenderness,/ Patience, forbearance, kindness, awareness/ Bearing love from age to age/ Cleaning guilt and mistakes and making us free --" Again, scans just like the Hebrew, which makes it sing-able. This is something I really dig about Renewal davvening.

I can't conclude a blog post with a shofar blast, or a bagel break-fast, so I'll just hope that everyone had an easy fast, a good holiday, and that your Halloween planning is proceeding apace!