My Grandfather and Yom Kippur

For Yom Kippur  

  During the Mincha (afternoon) service on Yom Kippur, we read the Book of Jonah. Most assume that we read it because of its theme of repentance, exemplified by the non-Jewish citizens of Nineveh after the warnings from the reluctant prophet Jonah. It has been suggested that this service is an especially poignant moment for having our prayers answered [another theme of Jonah, when God rescues him from the belly of the great fish (Brachot 6a)].  

          For me, this service has special meaning. Many years ago, my grandfather Michael David (aka “Peepa”) joined us at my shul for Yom Kippur. When the Mincha service was ready to begin, the Cantor who was to officiate was too ill to proceed, and the Rabbi asked whether anyone in the congregation was familiar with the special nusach (melody) for the service. My grandfather volunteered, even though he was more than 80 at the time. He davened beautifully, so beautifully in fact, that he was asked to repeat his performance the following year, which he did. He was invited for a third time but unfortunately passed away before he could step up to the bimah again.

            I asked our Cantor, Edwin Gerber, if he would teach me the appropriate nusach so that I could undertake the role of shaliach tzibur like my grandfather had done. For the following several years, I had the honor of leading services as my grandfather had done. My work at other congregations kept me from continuing this annual tradition, but I was able some years later to again take on this honor, an honor I have frequently had since that time.

            For me, standing before the congregation and chanting the words my grandfather had done decades ago brings a deep and satisfying connection not only to him, but with our tradition. In my earliest memories, I recall standing with him at High Holy Day services, playing with the fringes on his tallit. He represented in my childish mind’s eye all of the generations of ancestors spanning the years back to our Jewish origins.

            At this auspicious time, when we are hungry, thirsty, and we are tired of facing down our fears, we might find comfort in the continuity of our tradition, which to me remains joined with memories of my beloved grandfather.  

May we all feel a special connection to our tradition, to our people, to our history and to God at this special time, and may we find in that connection the strength to make our fast meaningful.  

 

Hide and Seek

 Ha’azinu

Deut. 32:1-52

 

Précis: The parasha, the shortest in the Five Books, includes a hymn sung by Moses​, who climbs a mountain to see the Promised Land he will not enter​. This is the last parasha read on Shabbat in the annual cycle: the final parasha (V’zot Habracha) is read on Simchat Torah.

 

Deut. 32:18, “God said: 'I will hide my countenance from them; and see how they fare in the end.'”

As noted by Rabbi Sari Laufer (10 Minutes of Torah, 9/30/24), this parasha is different from all others, since it is essentially a poem. While it is not a love poem, we can sense that it comes from a place of love. She cites a familiar Hasidic teaching of Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch. Once he found a young child crying. “I was playing hide-and-seek with my friends,” the child explained, “and I hid so well that they stopped looking for me and went away.” Dov Ber mused, “This must be how God feels, hiding the Divine countenance from us to the point where some of us stop looking and start living our lives without God.”

This suggests that there is a crack, an opening, for us to “find” a God who remains hidden from us. Reading this parasha between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur on Shabbat Shuvah comes at a theologically difficult time, when we repeatedly encounter God in the liturgy as Ruler and Judge. For many of us, these are not welcome images, given the errors which self-examination brings to light. It is especially difficult for those of us who observe the decidedly troubling world in which we live and wonder why it seems that God has been hiding like the child in the story. 

Part of our task during the Yamim Noraim is to find where our best selves have been hiding, and we do this through introspection, confession and prayer. If we find our “best selves” perhaps we are touching what has been made in the image of God.