I love the high holidays, not because I get to repent for sins and feel even worse after repenting because God knows I lied, and not because of all the girls I pick up at Yizkor and not even because of all the brisket I force down my throat, but because of this…
Reasons why I love the High Holidays:
Kaparos: It never ceases to amaze me how PETA brings up the same issue every year and every year people express “shock” at the inhumane practice of swinging chickens over our heads. They obviously don’t realize that the real inhumanity is due to the fact that these chickens are taking all of our sins, kind of like the Jewish version of Jesus – I know he’s Jewish, but you know – these Jesus Chickens died for our sins. I also bet PETA never got to see how much fun it is to watch a short Sephardic dude running down the street after a headless Jesus Chicken because of some extreme rigor mortis. I myself have never done kaparos, but it sure is fun to watch.
Yom Kippur davening: I bet you didn’t think I appreciated such a horrible painful affair as Yom Kippur davening, but the truth is I really appreciate it, when its over darn it, because you really appreciate every other davening when you realize that Yom Kippur is so damned long, although I do always wonder how those modern orthodox shuls that always end shabbos shachris after 12pm manage to end Yom Kippur on time, you would think their “lets sing every song slowly like we did in NCSY attitude” would make them end the davening much later.
Yom Kippur musaf: Did you ever realize how much longer Rosh Hashanah Musaf is? Once you do you will come to love Yom Kippur musaf, because lets be honest, shuckeling and davening is not half as fun as seeing how fast you get through the clopping sections.
Dipping the apple in the honey:Well really I just love how everything sticks to everything after a round of challah and honey, and how no Jew has figured out how to make the apple in honey experience any less sticky. What about those folks, including me who makes eating apple in honey pornographic?
Shofar: Did you hear the one about Limo drivers that love Rosh Hashanah? Because they blow the shofar…Seriously, the amount of sexual jokes that run around the dinner table or shul is great, brings me back to the days when fart jokes were funny, oh wait. I also learned this year that contrary to what I was brought up with, you don’t actually have to hear all 100 blowings (smirks) and you can talk between them – blew me away (no pun intended) I learned that you should hear a set of 27 to be yotze. All those years of trying not to talk for all 100 and never making it…
Chest clopping: think of all the pick up lines…
Nesane Tokef: Nothing funny to say, I just like the mood it puts me in – scared shitless!!!
Tzimis with meat: I had to wait until yesterday to have some tzimis, and they had it with meat, it was bomb and got me thinking about how most people just do carrots and maybe some yellow raisins, but rarely meat – please people – make your tzimis with meat.
New Fruit: my buddy bought a Durian this year at the Asian market in Baltimore, it stunk up the fridge and cost 10 bucks but he viewed it as a worthwhile investment. The Durian is a spikey Asian fruit that smells like rotting garbage, and apparently tastes worse, because it wasn’t too well received at the meal. Which makes me wonder, if its the new year every fruit is new so why do people need to buy star fruits and prickly pears if they can say shechyanu on anything? I like watching people try new fruits and wonder how to politely get it out of their mouths, some do the napkin under the plate, or the spit into their tissue, some choke it down.
No leather shoes: It seems that crocs are dying out as the number one yom kippur shoe, I only base this on my observations from Tisha B’av in which there was no rulling shoe. It used to be converse, then it was sandals and flips flops and most recently crocs. But it seems crocs blend in too much and that people want to be more noticed, especially Rabbis. Part of the fun for Rabbis on Yom Kippur was get the dorkiest looking shoes for the holiday so they could stand out.
Wait did we just skip that: This item should really be at the top of the list, but one of my favorite things about the high holidays is when your looking in the siddur and realize that the chazzan, since different shuls omit different things, just skipped a whole chunk of pages – causing you to recant your page counts.
Page counting: Ever notice that half way through musaf everyone is counting how many pages are left, I love this practice because its always so disappointing yet we always do it.
In shul auctions: I can’t understand why there is so much hate pointed at what seems to be minhag klal yisrael, to auction off shul jobs and aliyot? Part of why people come to shul is to show off their bidding skills, and watch on and speculate as to who excactly just bough sheni - wait was that Mr Katz? It kind of like a live ad journal, I just never understood how the auctioneer who does that smaten mol (what does this mean anyway?)thing real fast (it appears that the guys who do auctions at shul are the same guys who announce the kavod brachos at frummie weddings – you can never understand what they are saying) can actually see who’s bidding? Can women bid?
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
nice!
i think it’s tzveyten mol, which means second time. you know, like going once, going twice. but in yiddish.
Do they do it like that in modern shuls too
OMG, i ate a durian for the first time this year too! If you can tolerate the odor, it’s actually quite delicious.
Yes, women can bid and give the kavod to a male family member. I’ve seen it done, but not on YK though.
Hesh
Thats awsome dude, love the post.Thanks for consoling me I thought I was the only one that did page counting.
I’ve always wondered why they do the auctions in yiddish.Everyone who has money talks English and doesn’t understand yiddish. And you always have token bal teshuva asking “where’s it at now?”which even wastes more time to an already very very long service.
I once asked a gabbai in the shul why the auction in Yiddish?He told me that it was to minhag to auction in Yiddish for the past 100+ years so that’s the way it will remain.Not the brightest business-savvy-decision, but I guess I can go with that.If he realized how many potential fat-wallet -bidders feel isolated from the process because it is in yiddish I’m sure he would do it in English
Great post! I definitely feel better now about page counting.
A Durian is the botanical version of every horrible sin you’ve ever committed.
I used to begin dreading next YK from about mincha of the current YK. I counted pages (remeber to divide in 2 if you are using one with english translation), and I also counted hours left on the clock, and I also had an algorithm for combining page count with hour count to get an overall accu -eather “misery time” left count.
I also particulalrly enjoyed the bad breath that lent a delicious picque to the shul beginning at about 4pm.
Gotta love the kiddush levana at the end of YK for one final f u , u r not going home yet, moment.
Course now that I am an adult, things r a little different.
Yes, the old kiddush levana finale.
No thanks, I am on a diet and it requires that I eat…NOW!!!!!!
Yes but kiddush levana can be said for a week or so
You need to hear 9 blasts to be yotzei – 3 teruahs, each with a tekiah before and after. And it doesn’t matter what you do for the teruah — either what we call the teruah, or the shevarim, or the shevarim-teruah — they are all valid as the teruah described in the Torah. And if you do all three option, then you hear 30 blasts total, but again you only need to hear 9. I have no idea where you got the number 27 from.
During YK today it occurred to me how much repetition there is in the service. Something like 14 versions of the Amida, each just slightly different from the last? Hyper extended Avenu Malkenu how many times? etc etc etc. At least the occasional Ledor Vador would keep me from completely drifting. The way I figure it, basically doing the same bits many many times over is either to keep us all from going out and breaking the fast early or that the sages just ran out of ideas.
BTW does it seem to anyone else that the Birnbaum Machzor is printed like their was cat hair or dirt on all the printing litho films?