After Yom Kippur

 We ate the last of the challot I had made before Rosh haShanah last night during our break-fast. The filled challot were a hit.

Tonight is Shabbat and yet more challot needed to be baked. I decided to make more of the filled challot. The filling is a mix of apple butter, date spread, and pomegranate
molasses.

The flavor is both dark and bright.

I think I had seen this method of creating a filled braided-looking loaf on one of those junky food YouTube channels. I rolled dough into a rough rectangle

Then I added a line of filling with a spoon.

Then I made cuts around the dough.

You fold the top flap down over the filling and then alternate pulling the strips over the dough first from the right side and then from the left until y.ou run out of strips..

You can see that I turned up the bottom flap before I finished braiding.

This is the loaf before baking. I got a little fancy with this loaf and twisted the dough before placing it over the filling.

Here it is baked with a sprinkle of poppy seeds.

I made two trays of challot. One tray came out cuter than the other. 

This is the less cute tray. Below is the cuter tray.

And now a few words about Yom Kippur. We were actually at services in our actual synagogue that was filled to 1/3 capacity. Our intrepid clergy managed to do this by running two seatings of each service except Neila which had an outdoor component. Services were edited down but I am amazed that the clergy could stand up at the end of the day of hard, hard work all done twice.

Being in a room filled with people was lovely and terrifying. I am not sure if it was better or worse to have a taste of what an actual High Holiday service in a room full of people ( sort of, kind of, with all of the safety restrictions in place).

Usually for me, as moved as I am by the actual text of theYom Kippur service is another piece of the power of the day is the dynamic among the people in the room. A big part of my Rosh ha Shanah and Yom Kippur are the non-liturgical parts of the day.  I am likely to sit down on the floor in the back of the room and play with toddlers or spend some of the services sitting next to a friend and just catching up. I might have a conversation with someone while waiting online for the bathroom where a friend and I will just in the course of a few moments lay out both the pain and the joy currently in our lives. 

Yesterday I had one such deep and moving encounter with a dear friend and it all took place without words. Because of Covid only people who had reserved tickets and had sent in their proof of vaccination before the holiday were allowed into the building. That in itself is a hard thing to think about because our synagogue is proud of its tradition of never turning anyone away.

When I showed up for Musaf, my friend Vivian was checking people's tickets against her master list. She pulled at my left hand and looked at my bracelets.

Vivian's mother and mine died the same year. We are Kaddish buddies. We both attended morning services together that whole year. I often led services. Partway through the year, Vivian asked me to coach her so she too could lead services. We met a couple of times and  after that Vivian often led services as her year of mourning continued. She gave me a bracelet that had belonged to her mother as a thank you gift. I don't even have the words to describe how meaningful that gift was to me.

I wear the bracelet often but I wasn't wearing it when I went to Musaf.  I felt bad as if I had let Vivian down.

When I came back for Neila, the final service I made sure to wear the bracelet. During the service, I sat down next to Vivian and extended my arm towards her. Vivian began to run her finger along the bracelet just as she probably used to when her mother wore it and Vivian was just a little girl. The two of us sat next to each other and we both teared up.

Vivian's mom's bracelet is the striking one with the linked circles.

Often on the High Holidays, I will wear a piece of jewelry that belonged to my mother as a way to bring her to services. This year I didn't. This year I brought Vivian's mother with me.

Perhaps another year we can all gather together unmasked in a full complete service with all of the written text being chanted and sung and all of the unwritten text of community interaction all happening again.