I have been sick with a slow moving cold since right after Rosh HaShanah. Like everyone else, I have friends with real and serious illnesses. It's just a cold but I stayed home all of Yom Kippur because I wasn't feeling well enough to be at services.
I love the high holiday liturgy. I love the prayers that build on a theme of God as the one who listens, or forgives and follows that thread through biblical history and down to the widows and orphans sitting along side of us. But as much as I love the liturgy and coming back to those same texts year after year one of the most profound parts of the season isn't in the prayer books at all.
I have been attending high holiday services in the same synagogue since 1982. I have been sitting in the same seats since probably 1986. As I sit through the long days of prayer there are people some of whom I know well, some of whom i know only by name and others that I know only by face and year after year, decade after decade I experience the cycle of the High Holidays along with them.
Women are pregnant, they give birth and corral little ones through the long services. Parents get grayer and more frail and their seats are filled with new people. The babies that played on the floor are teens trying on personas with their clothing and then return with their beloved and have children of their own.
I check every year to see my friend Erwin and his wife Ellen in their place the balcony knowing that they died several years ago. Several of us refer to a particular seat as being Herta's seat even though she died a few years back. But in our mind's eye she is there every Yom Kippur wearing a white silky blouse, a blue skirt and blue canvas shoes.
While I think about the people who fill my eyes each High Holiday season, I don't usually think of how i might be part of someone else's synagogue landscape.
After Yom Kippur, our doorbell rang. My neighbor brought me this beautiful bouquet.
She said that seeing me in my seat each year, a few rows ahead of her place, is an important part of her holiday experienced. I was so touched, and also I totally got it.
I was always told that it is important to have a makom kavua a regular spot at services. My friends's gift reminded me that a makom kavua matters not just for the individual but for the entire community.
These beautiful flowers have made our house more lovely for Sukkot and made me reflect of the nature of community.
I love the high holiday liturgy. I love the prayers that build on a theme of God as the one who listens, or forgives and follows that thread through biblical history and down to the widows and orphans sitting along side of us. But as much as I love the liturgy and coming back to those same texts year after year one of the most profound parts of the season isn't in the prayer books at all.
I have been attending high holiday services in the same synagogue since 1982. I have been sitting in the same seats since probably 1986. As I sit through the long days of prayer there are people some of whom I know well, some of whom i know only by name and others that I know only by face and year after year, decade after decade I experience the cycle of the High Holidays along with them.
Women are pregnant, they give birth and corral little ones through the long services. Parents get grayer and more frail and their seats are filled with new people. The babies that played on the floor are teens trying on personas with their clothing and then return with their beloved and have children of their own.
I check every year to see my friend Erwin and his wife Ellen in their place the balcony knowing that they died several years ago. Several of us refer to a particular seat as being Herta's seat even though she died a few years back. But in our mind's eye she is there every Yom Kippur wearing a white silky blouse, a blue skirt and blue canvas shoes.
While I think about the people who fill my eyes each High Holiday season, I don't usually think of how i might be part of someone else's synagogue landscape.
After Yom Kippur, our doorbell rang. My neighbor brought me this beautiful bouquet.
I was always told that it is important to have a makom kavua a regular spot at services. My friends's gift reminded me that a makom kavua matters not just for the individual but for the entire community.
These beautiful flowers have made our house more lovely for Sukkot and made me reflect of the nature of community.
OMG Sarah. I love you! This is Susan by the way!
ReplyDeleteBack at you Susan!!! You got me thinking about the experience of shul through the eyes of the community members.
ReplyDelete