Some Yom Kippur thoughts

 Since my last post, I have composed at least three posts in my head but hadn't quite gotten around to committing my thoughts to virtual paper. 

Shabbat was the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Some years I listen to the memorial ceremonies on the radio with the same focus and concentration I give to the Kol Nidre. I read remembrances or will write about my own memories of that day with the same intensity I would give to the UnTaneh Tokef. This year I just couldn't. If the pandemic were something I was viewing through a rearview mirror would have had the mental wherewithal to sit and focus on that day with the bright blue skies. 

We still have a long slog of disease and death ahead of us. My emotional bank account is pretty low so I avoided thinking about that day. Another year I will have the internal resources to look back at that day.

I am getting ready for Yom Kippur.

I rolled out the noodles that will be made into ...

This year I didn't consult a written recipe but just put together the kugel based on what I had in the fridge and intuition. My husband went out to buy the dairy. He got two squares of farmer cheese and a giant tub of ricotta. I had a big log of goat cheese in the fridge. Just as the goat that was sent to Azazel stood in for our sins, the goat cheese stood in for the cream cheese I used less sugar than what my mother's recipe called for. I didn't pre-cook the noodles because the thin and rolled noodles need so little cooking.

The kugel gets topped with spices and baked. We will end our fast with food that tastes exactly like the love a mother has for a small child.

כְּרַחֵ֣ם אָ֭ב עַל־בָּנִ֑ים
  רִחַ֥ם יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה עַל־יְרֵאָֽיו׃

As a father has compassion on his children, so should God have compassion on those who fear him

At the end of Yom Kippur,  at our table, we eat the taste of forgiveness.

This has been a time of isolation. A time of experiencing the deaths of friends. A time of helping dear friends carry their losses of parents, of partners of dear friends.

We end Neila with the very same texts we recite or have recited to us as we die. When I first learned this beautiful tidbit from Tzi Blanchard I thought it was a lovely Zen way to think about that moment. You stand at the end of Yom Kippur at the end of a day of fasting and praying prepared to die---and then you don't die. 

During Covid times I hear Tvi Blanchard's words a bit differently, or perhaps exactly the same way. 

אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ חָתְמֵֽנוּ בְּסֵֽפֶר חַיִּים טוֹבִים:

אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ חָתְמֵֽנוּ בְּסֵֽפֶר זְכֻיּוֹת:

אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ פְּתַח שַׁעֲרֵי שָׁמַֽיִם לִתְפִלָּתֵֽנוּ: