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Once a Year Congregants 10-1-2000
North Miami Beach, Florida 10-1- 2000 Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
ONCE A YEAR CONGREGANTS
I hope I don't sound self-righteous. I go to our Temple because it mostly
pleases Carol and, of course, it pleases me. I enjoy singing the up-lifting
music of the ancient and modern rituals of Judaism. My preference is modern
Reform of an ancient Hebrew formulation of worship of One God. I have never
had a one-to-one experience with this God - but, I get by.
We get to the Rosh Hashanah (New Year) services early for we have to don
gowns and compose ourselves for turning pages for new music we hope to get
right. This leaves a lot of time to see how the Sanctuary fills up. Friday
night was rather sparsely attended. Saturday Morning was filling up nicely
and it provided an interesting look at once a year congregants.
I have given up wearing the woolen Talit (prayer shawl) purchased by us on
my only trip to Israel. It will be too hot for us now residing in Florida;
but on rethinking, it might be just right in an overly cooled room. I do
not choose to wear a kipa (skullcap) or a hat as a sign of (what?)
customarily showing respect before the Lord in or out of a house of worship
or a house where worship is all the time.
All of this un-self-righteous commentary is overture to sketching out what
I saw yesterday morning. There was only one man whose ear was attending to
a cell phone message before the services started. But there were successful
and important people and exquisitely and expensively adorned males and
females who were upright and in clumps greeting others like themselves.
Many wore elaborately decorated kipot (plural of kipa) and there were those
who studiously unfolded (the folds visible from infrequent use) beautiful
talitot (plural) and positioning them about necks, just so. It seemed to me
there was a lot of self-important strutting going on. Only a few came in to
sit and study the prayer book.
As an enthusiastic singer of music used in services I know most of the
words of the ritual and say and sing them with love and affection. I know
what these words mean for the translations are either below or to the side
on the same page. The special holiday music we sang yesterday was
unfamiliar to most in the hall so most did not sing or mouth the words,
which would be familiar. One person was watching his wrist shortly after we
began. I noticed that when I automatically looked at mine it was because my
system knew it was noon and time for ME to eat. I didn't get to eat until
2:00 P.M. - and I survived. Next week we will sing for the whole day and
will have fasted since dinner the night before.
Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.
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