Category: Religion

Commenting on my Rosh Hashanah post, Rabbi Zvi wrote, “Nice wrap up. What about your aliya to the Torah? No mention? Chag Same’ach”

Just what I need: more Jewish guilt.

Well, since you asked . . .

The Days of Awe were a bit rough for me: straight from the shofar to the ER, then a week of work-craziness and anxiety that left me fearing imminent death. At the end of the week (Friday into Saturday), we had Yom Kippur, in which we fast to atone for our sins. (And, as Rabbi Zvi has reminded us the last few years, to become like angels, who neither drink nor eat.)

I had an appointment in NYC on Friday afternoon, which left me stuck in weekend-rush-hour traffic on the way out of the city. By the time I got home, it was just about time for Kol Nidre, the service & prayers that signal the beginning of Yom Kippur. I talked myself out of heading back out to pray, on the grounds that I’m a crap Jew, tired, already starting my fast, and didn’t want to leave the dogs feeling neglected. I can justify virtually anything. I stayed in and wrote about my difficult, mortal week.

The next day, I was supposed to pick up my father for Yizkor, so he could pray for his departed parents’ souls. But that morning, he told me that he was having bad flu-symptoms from his flu-shot a few days earlier. I asked him to zap over his and his parents’ Hebrew names, which I’d need to give someone to make the prayer in his stead.

I’d have said the prayers myself, but you’re supposed to leave the shul during those prayers if both of your parents are living. I can’t recall if I’ve ever asked the rabbi about it, but I think it’s verboten to stay in the shul for Yizkor prayers if your parents are still alive, even if one of them asks you to do it for their parents. Dad asked me to take care of this assignment a year or two ago, when his back/leg pain was too great for him to move. He e-mailed me the names: Abraham Ben Efraim [him], Efraim Ben Abraham [his dad], and Batia Bat Zelig [his mom]. I wrote them down (violating the Sabbath, holiday, and spirit of everything else), dressed nicely but not ostentatiously, picked up my tallis and yarmulke, and headed out.

Yizkor was scheduled for 11:30 a.m.; by JPT, that meant it would be shortly after noon. I left the house with plenty of time to get to the Courtyard Marriott where Chabad was hosting High Holiday services, but I didn’t reckon on an incredible traffic jam at the top of Rt. 287.

One of the key aspects of life in northern NJ is having alternate routes planned in case of traffic/accidents. But no matter how well you plan, you can get trapped sometimes, like when you’re on that eight-mile, exitless stretch of 287 from Oakland to Mahwah.

I crawled along for two miles on the highway, bailed at the 17 S. exit, and had to improvise a route to the Courtyard. I fretted that I would arrive too late for Yizkor. I had left my watch at home and had stowed cell phone and wallet in the glove compartment, so I wouldn’t be carrying all those concerns with me into temple, but the dashboard’s digital clock still taunted me. One voice told me that I shouldn’t be worrying so much, since all that anxiety helped wipe me out this past month. Another voice said, “You watch; this’ll be the one time a congregation sticks to the published schedule.”

I started to hurry once I was on 17, but decided to take it easy once I (safely) passed a speed trap. I realized I would have little chance of talking my way out of a ticket by telling a cop, “I was speeding to get to Chabad so I can pray for the souls of my father’s dead parents!” Perhaps if I pre-emptively put the tallis and yarmulke on, I would have garnered some pity and been let off with a warning. Better not to find out, I thought, trusting that Yizkor would run a little late.

I got to the Courtyard and parked next to a minivan. A gentleman in his 30s was standing at the back of the van, putting on a dark jacket. I thought perhaps he was also headed to pray, another part-time Jew like me. Then I noticed a duffle bag at his feet filled with two cases of Bud Light, and concluded that, no, he was not here for Yizkor. Probably a wedding, definitely a party. Clearly not fasting.

I grabbed my accoutrements, hurried into the building and found the hall that Chabad rented out for the holidays. The room was packed, with several men left standing in the back of the room on the other side of the mechitza, the partition that separates the men’s and women’s sections of a synagogue. The mechitza was wooden, with a lattice at the top. The door to the room was on the women’s (and children’s) side. As I walked in and hurriedly unpacked my tallis, Rabbi Zvi saw me through the lattice and said, “GIL! What’s your father’s Hebrew name?”

“Abraham,” I said idly. I think I’ve described Rabbi Zvi before. If not, here’s a picture:

“GIL BEN ABRAHAM!” he said, thumping the pulpit. I continued to unfold the tallis, making sure I had it oriented correctly. I reached around one of the overflow gentlemen to pick up a copy of the mahzor, the prayer book for the holiday. I looked for a seat, shook a hand or two with congregants and, as Hashem is my witness, was just trying to find somewhere I could creep in without making a scene.

“Gil!” Rabbi Zvi repeated. I looked to the front of the room, where he stood in front of an opened Torah. He gestured at it and said, “It’s your aliyah!”

I was being called up for a blessing of the Torah. That’s why Rabbi Zvi needed my father’s Hebrew name. That’s why everyone in my path was looking at me querulously and/or impatiently. Somehow, I was now the one delaying Yizkor.

I put the mahzor down and strode a few steps up to the Torah. I kissed the corner of my tallis, pressed it to the beginning and end-points of this Torah portion, then read the first blessing (which precedes the rabbi’s reading of that portion), which was written on a laminated page beside the Torah:

Barchu et adonai ham’vorach. (Praise the One to whom our praise is due)

The congregation responded:

Barchu adonai ham’vorach le-olam va’ed (Praised be the One to whom our praise is due, now and for ever)

And then I was like:

Baruch atah adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher bachar banu mikol ha-amim, v’natan lanu et tora-to. Baruch atah adonai, notein ha-Torah. (We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe: You have called us to Your service by giving us the Torah. Wepraise You, O God, Giver of the Torah)

And I actually read them okay. I read from the Hebrew instead of the English transliteration beneath it, as is my prideful wont. Or it’s because I want to absorbe the shame of not being a very good Jew. Or some combo thereof.

Rabbi Zvi read the Torah portion, and then it was my turn to recite the second blessing.

Now, before I go into apologizing for messing this up, I want to offer up the following half-assed excuses:

a) I had a tough week and was still cognitively burned out,

b) I was fasting and hadn’t had coffee in 22 hours, and

c) I hadn’t had time to read along in Hebrew in the mahzor, which would have helped me get back into the annual flow of reading a prayer or two aloud in front of a few dozen people.

I do know exactly where I messed up in the second blessing:

Baruch atah adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher natan lanu torat emet v’chayei olam nata b’tocheinu. Baruch atah adonai, notein ha-Torah. (We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, You have given us a Torah of truth, implanting within us eternallife. We praise You, O God, Giver of the Torah)

And I screwed up on b’tocheinu. It’s got a slightly weird vowel and consonant combo, or at least one that I had so much trouble with in Hebrew school as a kid that I thought I might be slightly dyslexic. And, really, the fasting does make my tongue grow thick and unwieldy. (It’s not the lack of food so much as the water and, to a lesser extent, the caffeine.)

So I blundered my way through that one. Eventually my eyes darted down to the English transliteration so I could see how badly I’d messed up, and then I zoomed through the rest of the blessing, face a-flush with shame. The congregant called up for the aliyah before mine still stood beside the pulpit. I shook his hand, he returned to his seat, and I took his place, standing in front of the packed house. I thought, “Well, Yom Kippur’s not about being comfortable, and if I have to demonstrate my lack of Jewishness in front of a room full of observant Jews, then that’s on me.”

After the next aliyah, when it was my turn to sit down, I had to take a chair right in the front of the room, facing back at the crowd. Not my first choice, but it’s what was there, and abasement is abasement, as it were.

Two seats over from me was Guy, my dad’s Israeli pal. Guy had turned us on to this congregation a few years ago, when Dad told him my story about how our local shul kicked off Rosh Hashanah by opening with a prayer for the Palestinian victims of Israeli aggression. Guy & I chatted for a bit while the services continued.

I should note: this is what Jews do, at least in my experience. Sure, there are some prayers that are solemn, or otherwise performed in silence, or in unison, but during a lot of the time at shul, you’ll hear various conversations going on. Guy asked where Dad was. I told him about the bad reaction to the flu-shot, and he said, “I’ll call him tonight after the holiday. But how are YOU doing? Your father told me you were having problems with your heart.”

I’m starting to think that there are only two things over which my father has ever felt any bond with me: owning dogs and heart issues. I told Guy about the ER trip right after Rosh Hashanah, and we talked for a while more. I’ve perfected the trick of having trouble accepting other people’s concern for my health while also resenting people who don’t show concern. I’m a difficult man.

I asked Guy if he’d be able to say Yizkor for Dad’s parents, since he was going to be staying in to pray. He said he would, and I told him the Hebrew names of all involved.

During the services, both of the shul’s Torahs are held up and presented to the congregation. For the second one, Rabbi Zvi called up one of his regulars. The man was tall, older, powerfully built, with a pitted face and a short white beard (not a Hasidic beard, just a face-hugging one). He wore a large tallis draped over his shoulders like a lion’s pelt. It nearly reached to the floor, and he had to gather it up on his shoulders before he took up the Torah.

He held it aloft by two handles, and I felt a stirring of pride in my heart that nearly moved me to tears. (As I said, I’ve been much closer to my emotions these past weeks.) I looked at this middle-aged Jew in a hotel meeting room in suburban NJ, bearing the scroll that carries the word of the Lord and the history of our tribes. My shame at tripping over the aliyah melted away. I felt this wonderful sense of community, of a bond (okay, a convenant) that has been carrying on for millennia and would continue long after I’m gone.

Of course, it was fleeting. I can’t even keep my own mortality square in my sights, now I’m going to target my soul and the spirit of Judaism?

I stayed at services another hour or two, said goodbye to Guy, and stopped at my father’s on the way home. We sat on his front step and he talked for an hour. He told me about Gene Simmons’ visit to Israel on his reality show, about his new brick driveway and how it may be sloped toward the garage instead of away, about his brothers, about some reality show he’s obsessed with in which people sell their homes and move to foreign lands about which they’ve done zero research, about how part of his family came from Freiburg, where I’ll be spending a day next week, about another reality show featuring Italian-American car mechanics who appear focused on eating themselves to death.

I told him about a fine meal I had at Mario Batali’s Manzo a day earlier. I didn’t talk about Love & Rockets or The Leopard. I wanted to tell him that I love him, which we say sometimes in conversation, but really tell him, tell him that I appreciate his concern for me, that I’m sorry we never learned to talk to each other. I didn’t. I didn’t hug him either, thinking his vaccine-induced flu might be contagious.

Amy was smoking a pork shoulder when I got home. It smelled awfully nice, especially since I was 21 hours into a 25-hour fast. She apologized for being the opposite of kosher, and we watched LSU destroy Florida State for a while. I broke fast with a 10″ pizza from my favorite (local) pizza joint.

It’s Rosh Hashana, so I went out to the Chabad ceremony this morning for the blowing of the shofar. (No jokes, please.) Before they got the horn out, Rabbi Zvi gave a sermon.

He talked about the notion of “haras olam.” It’s a phrase that shows up in a prayer that’s recited multiple times during the day’s prayers, as “ha-yom haras olam,” which means “today is the birthday of the world.” Rabbi Zvi explained that the phrase also comes up in the Bible, although not in the Torah.

In Prophets, Jeremiah has been imprisoned for telling the Jews that they’ve become so debased they’re going to get conquered]. While in prison, he says that his sorrows are so great that he wishes he’d never been born, that his mother had stayed pregnant forever with him. The phrase for “pregnant forever”? It’s also “haras olam.”

So he talked about the difference between those two meanings of the same phrase. Are we born, or are we in a state of eternal pregnancy? Do we stick with possibilities, or become real? You may or may not recall That Damned Hegel Quote that I’ve gone on about over the years, the notion that we need to make decisions to become real, that preserving ourselves in a potential state is lifeless.

Rabbi Zvi illustrated the concept by telling a story about a rabbi who wrote commentaries on the Torah, the Talmud, the Haggadah and others. The story goes that, when the rabbi was a young student, he half-assed it and his parents got pissed. (Note: this is my vernacular, not Rabbi Zvi’s.) He overheard his parents discussing whether they should keep wasting money for him to attend yeshiva, since he could just get to work on their farm and contribute to the household. The youg man panicked, ran in, and begged for one more chance. Which he made the most of.

Years later, at a ceremony for one of his new commentaries, he told the audience this story, and said, “What would happen if I’d become a carpenter? I’m sure I’d have been very good at it. But when I die, the angels would ask, ‘What about your commentary on the Torah? What about your commentary on the Talmud? What about all the books of commentaries you could have written?’

Rabbi Zvi said, “There’s nothing wrong with being a carpenter. But if you have the mind to write on Torah, it’s wrong for you to deprive the world of that!”

Coincidentally, I made a Writing Vow this morning, because it’s a new year, and maybe I can finally discipline myself into regular, unfrivolous writing. I’m not going to tell you about the criteria I’ve set, because I don’t need to disappoint anyone else. But really: I need to be remembered for editing Contract Pharma?

To wrap up, Rabbi Zvi told a story about the Rebbe Schneerson’s father and the need to express one’s Judaism, but before that, he offered up a joke. I’d rather tell the joke.

Two old Jewish ladies haven’t seen each other for years, so they meet for lunch. The first one asks, “How’s your lovely daughter doing?”

“Well,” says the second. “She married a doctor.”

“How wonderful!”

“. . . But they got divorced.”

“Oh, no!”

“But then she married a lawyer!”

“Great!”

“. . . But they got divorced, too.”

“That’s terrible!”

“But then she married a very successful CPA!”

“Ah! So much nachas from one child!”