Yom Kipur

Shalom,

Yom Kipur in Jerusalem was truly awesome, in the truest sense of the word, באמת. [Kudo's if you get the silly play on words there.]  ; )

Though my plans (or lack thereof) were pretty haphazard and I was not sure where to go when, by God's grace I got to the right places at the right times to experience, witness, and participate in some amazing things.

Tuesday night I went to the "Great Synagogue" in downtown Jerusalem. I actually got there a half hour before the service began and was even able to get a seat. The building is incredibly beautiful, and it was emotionally overwhelming from the moment I sat down. I was very pleasantly surprised that Kol Nidrey was sung by the Chazan (the best I have ever heard) accompanied by a 24-piece mens chorus (which was also quite good). As it turned out, aside from a short sermon delivered by a very charismatic rabbi with an enormous white beard, the entire service was conducted by the Chazan and the chorus. Also, though I am not sure if I could see them all from where I was sitting, I am pretty sure they had 18 Torah scrolls.

I felt it would have been very rude to take any pictures while actually inside the synagogue, but I did take some of the outside. Here are those and some of the inside that I found online:

It was very neat to see how still the streets were. There were almost no cars driving anywhere the whole time, and every traffic light in the whole city was temporarily switched to a constant flashing yellow.

There were some people driving on the main highway though, and on the way back I'm pretty sure I got cursed out by some guy who drove by me, presumably because he could tell I was Jewish from my white clothes and kipah. It was unpleasany of course, and sad to see that happening, but it also felt good to be identified with my people to be cursed by its enemies.

On Wednesday I went to the Western Wall. I actually hadn't made it there yet, but it was very special to be there for the very first time on Yom Kippur. After praying at the Kotel for a while, I decided to try to find my way back to the Great Synagogue. I made it in time for most of Neilah and to hear the shofar, though it was standing room only and all the machzorim had already been taken by the time I got there. So, I was a bit lost in terms of the service, but it was still great to be there. Everyone joined together singing Avinu Malkenu towards the end, which was very neat and I of course sang along with that. After the service concluded, the chorus led all present in "HaTikvah" which I participated in as well. This was actually the first time I had sung or heard the national anthem since arriving in Israel - no better time than in the Great Synagogue at the close of Yom Kippur!

I can't remember ever being as sad about Yom Kipur ending as I was Wednesday night when, on my way back, I saw all of the traffic lights return to the regular, tri-colored operations.


Rosh HaShanah

I realize I did not make an actual blog post about Rosh HaShanah here. I got a good mix of different experiences. The Kehilah had their Rosh HaShanah inservance, a full Torah service and shofar service, on the Shabat prior to the chag. On Erev Rosh HaShanah, I attended a nice Conservative synagogue just a bit down the road from the Student Village. The next day I accidentally slept in (which was probably for the best, as I needed the sleep), went to friends' big family dinner, and stayed overnight at one of their homes. I didn't really get any pictures of all that, but I know that some pictures from the family dinner were posted by others on Facebook.

I did get this beautiful round chalah for in the Shuk, just because I couldn't resist: