The Holiest Days of the Year

It seems fitting that as a cantorial student, I should write a post on my High Holiday (henceforth referred to as HHD, since I am too lazy to type the whole thing multiple times) experience. I'm not allowed to take pictures at services, so I will attempt to pepper this post with random pictures of HHD-related objects. Like this apple with this honey:

I spent Erev Rosh Hashanah at HUC, singing in choir. It was a bit weird for me. It was my first time in five years not being at my home congregation. When I was in college, I never came home for the holidays, but it was a bit different. When I was in high school, I didn't really care about Judaism, which meant that I didn't really feel any sort of attachment to my home synagogue at the time, so I was completely open to celebrating the holidays with my new community at Berkeley. In the five years that I was home between college and cantorial school, I did form an attachment to the community at my synagogue, especially the choir, so it was very hard to be away. But it was nice nonetheless. It was awesome seeing my friends lead parts of the service. They all sounded beautiful. As for the sermon, it turns out that Rosh Hashanah is also the new year for vegetables. The rabbi kept mentioning "vegetable love." I think that needs to become a thing.

For the first day of Rosh Hashanah, I went to Shira Hadasha, the feminist Orthodox congregation that I mentioned previously. It was pretty awesome. I didn't get there quite at the beginning of the service, but I got there early enough that they were able to find a seat for me, which is good because if I had gotten there later I probably would have been standing the whole time. It turns out that even in Orthodox communities, HHDs are the most attended services of the year. It was a nice service. It was my first time ever attending an Orthodox HHD service. It was an experience. The service order for some reason made a lot more sense to me than the service order in the current Reform machzor (HHD prayerbook), Gates of Repentance. That may change when the new one comes out. There were several places where the shofar is blown. There was the specific shofar service, where it was blown a bunch of times with some prayers. Then, there were the three different sections that I am familiar with; the Reform movement uses these sections as the shofar service, whereas the Orthodox put them in the Musaf Amidah repetition. After ever section in this part, they sang the cool Chassidic Areshet S'fateinu that we used to sing in my synagogue only after the third section. They also did a bunch of shofar blowing at the end of the service.

I have a lot of respect for the guy blowing the shofar. He had to blow it a lot! In Orthodox services, much of what I consider to be the most interesting liturgy is actually in the repetition of the Musaf Amidah. For example, Unetaneh Tokef, the really scary judgement day one that ends with the "on Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed" thing. Apparently many Israeli congregations do a melody written by Yair Rosenbloom. He's one of the people who wrote my favorite Israeli song, "Shir Lashalom." He wrote this Unetaneh Tokef after the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The melody beautifully illustrates the text. And it seems like EVERY Israeli knows it. I couldn't believe how many people were singing along. In my experience, it's usually been more of a cantor/choir prayer. So powerful. I will admit that while I recognized much of the liturgy, there were some parts of the service that confused me. For example, there were a lot of piyutim within both Amidah repetitions that were done out loud, while much of the text that I grew up thinking was the most important was done either b'lachash (silently) or just chanted quickly by the service leader. That being said, I was able to follow along and participating in a surprisingly large amount of the service. I recognized things like HHD nusach, and most of the Torah service, and "staples" like Avinu Malkeinu. It was overall a wonderful service, and I'm so glad I decided to have a more traditional experience, since I will most likely never have the opportunity to have a traditional HHD experience ever again.

For the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I prayed with a Jewish Renewal congregation called Nava Tehila. My friend was playing mandolin, and I had wanted to pray with them anyway, so this was a great opportunity. This congregation writes much of its own music, and it's very mantra like. And it works. It gives those of us who don't know the melodies an opportunity to catch on. This was good, because I didn't really know any of the melodies, other than the standard nusach and I think maybe Avinu Malkeinu (or another one of those prayers that you just can't get away with not doing the "traditional" melody). The service was held in a tent in the Jerusalem Nature Museum, i.e. outside. Allergies aside, it was a nice atmosphere. For both of the silent Amidahs (Shacharit and Musaf), they basically gave us time to meditate. They sent us to the far reaching corners of the museum and allowed us to either use the words on the page or to just sit and be, which was nice and relaxing. They also gave us a lot of time for reflection and discussion with our neighbors. The also did group aliyot. I wish I could remember what they were, but I did go up for one of them. The rabbi was also really awesome. Everything she said just made me want to take a deep breath and take a look at the world around me. There were a couple motifs throughout the service. One of them had to do with the things you wanted to change about yourself, your community, and the world. The other had to do with present, past, and future (in that order). One of the coolest parts of the service was at the end where they brought everyone into the center of the tent, and we sang this piyut called Hayom (today). It was overall a nice experience, and I was glad that I had the opportunity to do something completely different from what I am used to. There were also plenty of delicious classmate potlucks. So happy to have found a community here.

Before I talk about Yom Kippur, I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention Shabbat Shuvah (the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), since it was my first "official" HUC service (official meaning the first one that counted as one of the services I'm supposed to lead). I led it with a good friend of mine. It was my first time ever leading as Shabbat Shacharit service without guitar, but I was able to incorporate some of the things that I learned both as a camp songleader and from leading minyan at home, and I got to use some awesome new music as well. I had fun leading. I used to get really nervous while leading services. I still do, but now mostly just beforehand. The nerves go away the second I start singing. Which I believe has to do with kavanah and text and all of those things that I as a future cantor think about. And also, since my perception of G-d changes from minute to minute, I'm going to say it has something to do with G-d, like I'm connecting with G-d or something. Also, leading services was something that I always did recreationally, and it finally dawned on me that this is part of what I'm going to be doing for a living. It blows my mind. Wow, that was way too introspective for the interwebs, and this is more of an experience blog than an innermost personal thought blog, so I'm going to just stop here and give you a picture of a delicious round challah.

Yom Kippur in Israel was interesting. For one thing, they just stopped daylight savings time. There's actually a big argument going on in Israeli society about this, which we touched upon in Hebrew class. All of the secular Israelis are against going back to standard time so early because it wastes energy, but many of the more observant Israelis want to change the time before Yom Kippur because the fast ends earlier. I have to agree with the secular Israelis on that one. Yes, the fast ends earlier, but it also starts earlier. My friends and I ate dinner at around 3pm. So early! And, Yom Kippur services start early because Kol Nidrei is basically a legal document, and you can't talk about legal stuff on a holiday, so it ends up being a really long fast anyway.

For Erev Yom Kippur (AKA Kol Nidrei), I was back at HUC. In addition to singing in choir, I got to lead most of the Vidui (confessional) part of the service. Among other things, I got to sing the piece that I auditioned with, so that was nice. It was a prayerful experience. I also got to see some more of my extraordinarily talented classmates lead other parts of the service. I have a great class. After services, a bunch of us went to this street called Emek Refayim for a walk. Apparently, it's a "thing" in Israel. It's normally a very busy street. On Yom Kippur, it is still busy, but with people, not cars. So, that was quite fun. Also, on Yom Kippur in Israel all the secular people ride bicycles, especially the kids, and it's gotten to a point where people have jokingly referred to it as Chag Ha'Ofanayim (Bicycle Holiday). So, we saw a lot of that.

After that, four of us went to the park to play on the swings. I may technically be an adult, but I'm still a kid at heart. Then, three of us went to the intersection of King George and Agron, which is one of the busiest intersections in Jerusalem. It's so busy that crossing the street here adds a good five minutes to my commute to school. I can't speak for all of Israel because I haven't seen it, but in Jerusalem, NO ONE drives on Yom Kippur, not even the secular Israelis. The only cars on the streets that I saw were the occasional ambulance and also special shuttles that went to and from the hospitals (there are no taxis or buses on Yom Kippur, so people need some way to visit their loved ones). So, what did we do? We sat right down in the middle of the intersection and chilled for a while. Yup, just sat right down. It was easily one of the coolest things I've ever done. I most likely feel this way because I am very much a goody-two-shoes, and I guess this had an element of badness to it, but whatever, don't burst my happiness bubble. But it was also cool from a "for the first time in my life I'm living in a country where the majority of the people celebrate the same holidays as I do" perspective.

I was at HUC for the entirety of Yom Kippur, which meant having the chance to see even more classmates lead parts of the service. I'm not going to comment on the services themselves because, honestly, the best part of the services was having the chance to see my classmates lead. There was this one part of the morning service called Zeicher L'musaf (the Reform service does not include musaf. . . I shall have to find out why), and I've never actually looked at the part of Gates of Repentance that they used, so I probably could not tell you what was going on, but it involved a lot of singing awesomeness and insightful classmate speaking awesomeness, and it was pretty much entirely led by HUC students. Let's just say that I am very proud to call these people my classmates.

It didn't feel like all that long of a day, probably because I had many classmates to chill with in between services. It was also a much easier fast than the past couple of years have been. Not sure why. Possibly because I was singing a lot less (even though I did more leading, the choir was not singing for as many services). This whole fasting thing is something that I would like to figure out while I'm in school so that I don't have to worry about it as much later on. I'm extremely uncomfortable with the idea of not fasting and haven't not fasted since I decided I liked Judaism again, but it's hard to be lightheaded while singing. I can deal with it while singing in choir, but my hope is that I will one day get a job as a cantor. There has to be a trick to this. . . I did lead a good chunk of the Ne'ilah service (the last service of the day, means "locking" in Hebrew, a metaphor having to do with the physical manifestation of "gates" of repentance, and also being inscribed in the Book of Life) and felt fine, so maybe it won't be so bad. . .

We pretty much all ran downstairs for our bagel break fast after services were over. I hope that all of my wonderful friends and family also had fabulous HHD experiences.

Pioneers and Repentance

I've been going way too long between posts, and I have such had a lot to say every time I post. But such is the life of an HUC student. The last few weeks have been crazy. First, a trip to Haifa with my friend Dan for my one-week summer break (pictures are on Facebook). Then came the first week of school. I have ten classes this semester, read: at least twice as many classes as I took per semester in college. But I like most of them so far. In my musicianship class, one of the objectives on the syllabus is, "Have fun." And I really like my cantorial workshop too. We are learning weekday nusach, which means that hopefully I'll finally learn how to daven properly. We're going to be learning some awesome stuff this semester. I have the same awesome Hebrew teacher as last semester, and she basically just picked up where she left off, which is good.

I also have what is called Israel Seminar, where I learn about Israel. This past weekend, we went on a study trip up north for this course. I want to talk a bit about this trip. The trip started near the Yam Kineret, or Sea of Galilee in English. It was interesting, to say the least. We went to a lot of different sites that were somehow connected with the pioneers. A couple days ago, a friend told me that my Zionist camp didn't do it's job if I'm not sure whether I'm a Zionist. I don't know if I completely agree with that statement. If Zionism means that I care about Israel, I am definitely a Zionist. If Zionism means that I would make aliyah or work on a kibbutz, or that I would have aligned myself with Herzl back in they day, I don't know that I would call myself a Zionist. Or maybe I'm just unsure of myself because all of the right-wing organizations tell me I'm not a Zionist. Which, come on, anyone who seriously agrees with every single thing that Israel does has never been to the women's side of the Kotel. . . I don't think that makes me anti-Zionist. . . For the record, I criticize the US all the time too, probably more than I criticize Israel, and no one's ever questioned my American-ness. Anyway, if I was confused before, this trip confused me even more. When I was a little kid at Jewish day school, we talked a lot about how the chalutzim (pioneers) came to Israel, drained the swamps, and worked hard to make the land livable. When I was at summer camp, we learned about the Zionist spirit of communal living and helping one another. But here, next to the Kineret, I learned that none of this was like the perfect picture that it had been painted to be. For instance, when we were in the cemetery, we read a story about a woman who was too sick to work, so she was forced out of her g'vutzah (group), and ended up killing herself. Where's the community there? When we were at Tel Chai, an early Zionist settlement in the north, we learned about the shot that was symbolically the start of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It wasn't even clear whose fault it was. Before anyone starts taking sides here, I want to point out the the French actually owned the land at the time. The one thing that was not confusing was that the Kineret is GORGEOUS. We got to go swimming in it. I also got to lead a shacharit service right in front of it with my friend Danny. I need to find a way to spend more time up there. So beautiful.

The next day, we looked at a couple of other places in the area. We went to this town called Kiryat Shmonah and talked to some of the protesters there. Remember the tent cities from last summer? Those protests. The protests were supposedly the inspiration for Occupy Wall Street, but the protests here actually meant something. I am going to get a lot of flack for this, but I was honestly disappointed in Occupy Wall Street. I expected it to be a bunch of people who were sort of like me, people who were working but just could not afford to live. Or people who had lost their jobs due to the economy and  couldn't find new work. Or people who couldn't afford education or health care or even basic needs through no fault of their own. Basically, people who really did feel screwed over by the system. I found a few of those people, but I mostly found hippies in tents who had nothing better to do with their lives. In the case of the protests in Israel, it really was a bunch of Israelis of all different backgrounds (my group spoke with both a secular women and an Orthodox man) who couldn't afford to live and wanted the government to make changes. They've actually been able to make some changes on a local level. However, on a national level, it has been very hard for them. Apparently, when you have a multi-party parliamentary government system, and no one wants to go against any of the parties in their coalition lest the government fall apart, it's really hard to get things passed. And I thought things were bad in the US with politicians wasting our money on meaninglessly blocking legislation from the other side. That night, we stayed on Kibbutz Hanaton, which is a kibbutz with ties to the Masorti (Conservative) movement in Israel, but which is in effect pluralistic. And, from what I saw, it is proof that pluralism works. Maybe Jerusalem could take a hint from them.

That's all I'm going to say about the trip, because I also want to talk about what happened right after, namely Selichot, which can basically be described as a service with the purpose of preparing one for the High Holidays. The word "selichot" literally means "forgivenesses." In Ashkenazi communities, it traditionally happens on the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah, somewhere close to midnight. Several of us from HUC went to the Great Synagogue. This was probably was not the smartest thing that I have ever done, as I was completely dead the next day, but it was totally worth it. I've never been quite sure exactly what the structure of Selichot is in the Reform movement, even though I enjoy going. We sing Hashiveinu three times, much of the Vidui (confessional) section is sung, and my rabbi tells a story. At the Great Synagogue, it was a bit different. They started out with Ashrei (a couple lines followed by psalm 145, traditionally sung in the morning and afternoon services), but this was much more drawn out. Then, there was some davening, and then they sang a piyut (post-Talmudic poem, for those of you who are Jewish the best example I can think of is Adon Olam). Apparently, there is a different piyut for each day of the week leading up to Rosh Hashanah, and this is the motzei Shabbat (end of Shabbat) piyut. If I remember correctly, it had something to do with rest, and also repentance, G-d looking kindly upon us, etc. Then, they do the Vidui section, which does start with Tavo L'fanecha and ends with Shema Koleinu but otherwise looks nothing like a Reform Vidui. . . though maybe the Vidui they actually do on Yom Kippur is closer to what I'm familiar with. . . I shall have to find out. It was, to say the least, amazing. The service was led by the Hazzan and accompanied by the choir. The music was gorgeous. I had never heard any of those settings before, but they were literally music to my ears. I was able to follow along for a large part of the service, but there were parts where it took me a while to find my place because I just didn't know some of the liturgy. I'm supposed to learn more about this stuff in my third year. I can't wait!

On Monday morning, some of us when to a Sephardic synagogue that my Hebrew teacher grew up at. The Sephardic tradition is to do Selichot really early in the morning (read: 5:30am) every weekday (i.e. not Saturday) during the month of Elul, which is the last month of the Jewish calendar. It is a very different service. First of all, the women's balcony has a curtain in front of it. According to my Hebrew teacher, this was a relatively recent development. There was never a curtain there when she was growing up. Sephardic synagogues used to be a lot more egalitarian but have been influenced by the Haredim. I can't comment if this is the case in the US. The rabbi who is the main rabbi for the Year in Israel program used to be the rabbi at a Sephardic congregation in LA, and he was ordained at HUC, but who knows if things have changed. In this case, I was still able to follow the service. It was completely different from the Ashkenazi Selichot. It did start with Ashrei, so that part was the same. There was what looked to be a rabbi leading the service, and he kept pointing to different men to lead different parts. There were a lot of acrostic poems, and in between, there was a line that is sung somewhere in the Yom Kippur service (I forget where), "Adonai, Adonai, el rachum ve'chanun, erech apayim, v'rav chesed v'emet," which means, "G-d, G-d, merciful, and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth." Every time this line was chanted, everyone stood up, and the shofar was blown. I think there was also some sort of Vidui, but I don't really remember because the liturgy was so different. Despite me being groggy for the rest of the day, it was an interesting experience, and I'm so, so glad I went. Afterwards, I went out for breakfast with two friends, and we discussed some very deep Jewish questions. What a way to start my morning!

And on that happy note, I'm off! Shanah tovah, everyone!