Twenty-six hours without food is a long fucking time.
Matzoh balls are little spheres of heaven. And they are only more heavenly when you haven't eaten in 26 hours.
The only thing less fair than having to buy and set out the snacks for the kids at the family service is having to watch them EAT the snacks during a break. The only thing less fair than having to watch them eat the snacks during a break is having to clean up the snack table after the services are over. dumping bowls of nuts and raisins and dried apricots and carrots and celery and tiny tomatoes into baggies and sealing them, even though it seems like each raisin is a tiny mouth screaming, "Eat me! Eat me!"
It's hard not to believe in God somehow when you're in the midst of a prayer about the cleansing of your soul and the heavens open up and the entire WORLD, it seems, is cleansed in the space of about three minutes. Cleansed and, possibly, drowned. But let's focus on the redemptive, shall we?
It's also hard to keep a room full of young children in their seats singing said prayer when said heavens open up.
And it's hard to keep praying while those same children are screaming, "Hey! Check it out! Everything's flooding!" and asking if they can go dance around outside.
But it was OK. It felt...right. And it feels even righter now, in retrospect, with a full belly and the sound of the last shofar blast of this season still ringing in my ears.
1 comment:
Wow. I'm just blown away that you went to temple on Yom Kippur! Where I grew up (LI, NY), you had to buy tickets for seats that were REALLY expensive, so my parents never did. We spent the day at home, inside all day, not allowed to turn on the tv (though my dad would) or go outside at all because that would be "wrong" and "the neighbors would see."
Oh yeah, we also spent the day trying to avoid my dad as he screamed at us, and then for dinner we've have bagels.
Yesterday I went to Borders in the morning, then cleaned, had a friend over, then met a different friend and went to the Apple store, then to dinner. Much better fasting experience as an adult. And after about 4pm, I crossed into the zone of "so hungry I'm not even hungry anymore".
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