You know how I can tell the high holiday season is upon us?
Besides for the fact that I just clopped my chest a million times asking forgiveness for sins that I don’t even know the meaning to. What the heck is sinning scornfully anyway? No its not really that, clopping your chest is a daily thing, its more to do with the fact that the second I got into slichos or slichot for you modern orthodox readers, I started counting the pages till the end. That’s right, I know you all do it, I even noticed the chazzan throw a little peek to see how far he had to go. In fact half of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippor davening is spent counting pages and groaning about how long the thing is. My advice is to use only a Hebrew siddur because then its half as long, or you can read the old English and pretend you are a pastor giving a fire and brimstone speech during the times of the Great Awakening or something. To tell the truth, I was sitting and reading the English tonight of my slichos and noticed that there were way too many these, thous and thy’s, and what the heck does “art” mean anyway? Not art as in Monet, but art as in “Thou art harken to our commandments and cleave to me.” Then of course my mind starts wandering from the Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell- esque speeches at stadium churches to cleavage, hmm…is that what cleave to me means? Hmm…I wonder if reading in English is really better then Hebrew because I just pounded my chest for all the cleavage I thought about during cleaving to arts and thou’s.
Back to the point of this post, basically the high holiday season- I know its sounds like an ad at JC Penny, come and get an extra 30% off during the high holidays, but seriously during this time I do lots of searching, yes I do soul searching, but mostly for the right page. Take slichos for instance, I can never figure out where we are, I am getting down with hastening to the Lord and trying to get my sins out and all the sudden smack in the middle of one of those long ass paragraphs that have no indentations, the chazzan busts out some “Vyavor el punuv” and suddenly I am scrambling through pages and pages text to get to the important stuff. Important in my mind because I like the tune and I can actually know we are making progress. That’s one of my main issues with things like slichos or kinos, not only do you never figure out exactly where you are unless they throw down some reader then congregation lines, but you never know if they are making progress because you never recognize any of the obscure passages unless you are 80 years old and can say this stuff by heart.
So I’m usually doing my own thing during slichos, tonight that involved imagining a shul saying the Birnbaum slichos in English and having people think they were in a really heavy church, and thinking of this post. I was kind of pissed that the yetzer harah had the gall to distract me from counting the pages till the end. It’s the same thing during megilas esther, lots of counting and wondering where you are and all the sudden they are in that whole ten sons in one breath gig and you know its almost done.
Speaking of being lost in davening, what about hoshanos, I can do a thesis on the craziness of hoshanos, the whole sukkos is pure insanity, and my favorite holiday- unless I get stuck with one of those ridiculously large esrogim that no one on earth can hold with a lulav in the same hand- hey does anyone know why Lubavitchers like such large esrogim? I’m serious, I am not trying to input some sexual innuendo to the conversation. They also like them without pitoms, but we know why that is, because they saw what happened to their hats (all crushed) so you know the pitom aint gonna last long.
So anyway before my ADHD goes any further with these tangents let me tell you why hoshanos is so crazy. Because after the first day of hoshanos, you know the “even shesiya” I have no idea what’s flying after that, try going to a shul with a bunch of know it alls. Halachic arguments in the middle hoshanos when you have no idea where they are anyway are the worst, then of course there is some guy poking you with his lulav to keep moving and your trying to get the last word of the last hoshana so you can join in the chorus, because I love saying “Hoshana lemancha boreinu” really loud in chassidish accent- because it just sounds so holy.
I really should save this for another post, but hoshanos is like wedding dancing. Your walking around sandwiched between two sweaty men and instead of having their hands in your back, your back is posseling their lulav tips as they poke you to keep moving. Suddenly, just like at a wedding, the line ends and you are thrust out of the bima area into plain old pews. Try and get back in grasping your palm and lemon and see what happens, you have to go star wars on them, if only lulavs had the power of light sticks, oh man, imagine one of those lulav holder things that lit up the entire lulav- kind of like a light show. Big pimping lulav, you wouldn’t even need one of those long green cases that are the pimpest of all lulav holders.
May you all be zoche in the upcoming year to be able to find your place and keep it easier.
-->
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Maybe we should make a modern translation of the prayers and delete all those thous.
Even after all thise years, I prefer English translation for prayers I’m not familiar with, like RH and YK and the parsha etc.
And one more thing. The dovening in our little Shiloh shul is the most gorgeous, nothing fancy, but there’s a certain magic.
Gmar Chatima Tova
You’re mind will cease its wandering if you Farbreng hard prior to Selichos, like Lubavitch does. There’s nothing like saying 4 Lchaims to really focus the mind.
Sorry ’bout that misplaced apostrophe-I guess that Lchaim hasn’t worn off yet.
Do you really have ADHD? So do I. My family keeps nagging me to take my meds. Some days I do, and some days I don’t. They keep telling me that I act inappropriately if I don’t take them. I don’t think so. What do you think?
You know there was a time a couple hundred years ago when the am haartzim were the ones that “only” knew tehillim baal peh.
You know there was a time a couple hundred years ago when the am haartzim were the ones that “only” knew tehillim baal peh.
I admire that you keep going back every year and talking about the same problems you keep having. I am not as motivated and gave up after the first year. Now I’m 20, damn it’s been a long time. Why bother?
“I can never figure out where we are”
Welcome to how I feel every time I go to shul not being able to read a lick of Hebrew and not yet accustomed to the routine. I get lost all the time and it doesnt help that repeats are not indicated in the siddur…
This is gonna be my first high holiday season and even though I’ve been reading up on this stuff I feel just like I did in school when I didnt study for a test except in this case I really do wish I’d gone to the right classes. My rabbi is a good teacher and knows now to explain things to us. Unfortunately the classes on the holy days was the semester before we started studying.
Oh Hesh maybe you can address this since you are a big eater. I’ve got a really fast metabolism and I’ve never tried to not eat or drink for a whole day, how hard is this to do?
Check out Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks’ new siddur. The English translation is stunningly clear and beautiful. It is as though it were written … in English!
If you see it in a bookstore, check out the translation to shir hakavod/Anim zmerot. It reads like the poetry that it is in Hebrew. It even rhymes in English (but in a beautiful, clear and accurate way, not forced.)
It also has the komatz hagadol, and a very clear font.
The only thing it’s missing is blog fodder. Unless you can work something up for the Prayer for the Queen/Monarch.
(Now we just have to wait for Rabbi Sacks to write a set of machzorim.)
chris, why not give it a test run (minus being in shul all day, but wear nice clothes, if you want)?
and they’re sabers, heshy, light sabers. gevaldik not star wars dorkish blogman. lol
Chris, the secret is orange juice. You should always drink at least 2 glasses of orange juice with your meal before a fast. Don’t have food that is too salty. They say chicken and noodles is the best thing to eat.
Try not to exercise too much on the day of the fast. If you don’t live near the synagogue, find someone who will let you sleep over.
Opinionated orange juice is one of the worst things to have before a fast. You start burping it up in the middle of Kol Nidrei and it makes your mouth all full of mucas.
Water- just drink tons of water, and don’t think about it. The reason why people have so much trouble with Yom Kippor is because its so boring- shul is so long and dragged on.
Juggling Frogs,
Thanks, I’ll look on Amazon for that. The only Judaica books available retail here in Tokyo is either about Judas or Khabalah. We use Siddur Hadash which has some stuff transliterated but honestly not enough for us beginners. Even with the transliterated parts I stumble on the pronunciation.
Opinionated,
I’m gonna go with Hesh on the OJ thing. I’m a heavy smoker and two gulps of OJ and I feel like I got a mouthfull of damp play-doh. Might see if anyone lives nearby the synagogue who could host me and the wife since we live several kilometers away.
s(b.),
Its worth a shot to try. I usually eat four small meals a day, sometimes five plus snacks. You wouldnt know it though because I avoided the middle age pot belly so far.
My own experience has always been that it’s much harder to go without water than without food (though I so notice the hunger by sometime in the afternoon). Drink gallons of water the day before the fast., and avoid salty food like the plague.
Some people swear by eating starchy food before a fast, as marathon runners do before a race. It could be argued that a 26-hour fast is a different kind of marathon.
Here’s advice that I heard years ago for avoiding a headache on a fast day: Wean yourself off of all caffeine (coffee, tea, chocolate, and anything else that I forgot) beginning three days before a fast, so that, if you’re going to get a caffeine-withdrawal headache, you’ll get it *before* the fast day. You really do *not* want a headache on top of an empty-tummy ache–one at a time, please.
Hesh, you’re not the only one who gets lost in the Shlichot and Hoshanot. Oy. Thank goodness for translations–the Hoshanot, particularly, are way beyond my Hebrew comprehension (such as it is).
I seem to remember having posted something about the lulav and etrog that might interest you. Let me go look, and I’ll be back with either a link or a long-winded comment.
Chris, you practice on Tzom Gedalia the day after Rosh Hashannah. It’s a shorter fast and you should be nauseous from overeating and sitting too much on Rosh Hashannah.
On Yom Kippur try tuning into the chazan’s voice and tune out from the noise around you. If you can’t read, being too hungry and tired, just listen.
I can’t believe I never posted a certain particular thought about the lulav and etrog. It’s a bit early to be discussing Sukkot, but you get to see this before I even post it on my own blog: You walk around a room carrying a long object with a round object held next to it, making a circle. Well, under the proper circumstances, doesn’t one put a long “object” with a round “object” (or two) next to it into a circular “object”? (Seriously, I can’t think of a more delicately way to say that.) I’m of the opinion that the Hoshanot ritual may be the closest that Judaism ever gets to a fertility rite.
Shira- my latest video talks about shaking your lulavs and penis envy.
As I was saying, Hesh, um , about all that shaking your lulav and beating your aravot . . .
I’d better stop while I’m ahead, or this comment might get censored.
Another reason why Sephardi selihot are superior: They’re the same every day, and you NEVER get lost!
Now if you’re only willing to do them for 5 weeks…
What I never can get over (and why I occasionally swear off slichot) is how fast they (supposedly) read them! With most hebrew prayers I usually explain my slowness as a result of the congregation saying the prayers more frequently than me…but slichot?? Even if you’ve been saying them for 20 years, you only say them at most 10 times a year! And this yr I decided to read the english…and couldn’t keep up in that either!! Do they have any idea of the meaning of what they’re saying? Do they ever take a breath?
Nope!!!
I am all about the English- but if I get something published in ye olde english- I can’t help but think about church, and I aint ever been to church.