Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Yom Kippur: The women's section of the small synagogue within the House of a Hundred Grandmothers is packed. We're still waiting, though, for a tenth man to complete the quorum for prayer. The young cantor and his two brothers come in, a few minutes late, their sandals and sneakers slapping against the tile floor. The Yom Kippur service begins, without pomp, but with appropriate ceremony. There is no Rabbi (from what I can tell), no sermon, no tickets, no nervous dressing up to prove to others once a year that we do, indeed, care about being Jewish. The Kol Nidre prayer has a different melody than the one I know. The text is also different. All the same words are there, but the order has changed. The cantor sings the prayer three times. Each time, a couple of men and many of the women echo his singing, with a staggered delay. It sounds as if we are in a far larger room that rings with the upper frequencies of its reverberations. The service ends after an hour. Most of the congregation walks and rolls upstairs. I head home.