YK 5767

[magid]

• Being late in the morning is not ideal from the davening point of view, but much easier on my feet.
  
• The pre-fast meal didn't agree with me, er, at all. Strangely, this didn't have any noticeable effect the next day on how the fast went.
  
• Davening upstairs in the little balcony crammed with unused furniture kept me from the distractions of having people around me, but there was more to look at outside.
  
• I know how much Y.K. [a person, not the holiday] loves to daven musaf on the Yomim Noraim. I wonder how weird it is for him, a kohen, to stand there during birkat kohanim? (Note: there are other solutions used in other minyanim, but here the ruling has been that when a kohen leads davening with birkat kohanim in it, someone else leads that part, and he's silent, not joining his fellow kohanim in giving the blessing. I don't know whether he answers, though.)
  
• As usual, kriyat ha'Torah at mincha is annoying. This year, at least, it was only that, not inspiring something closer to hot anger that on this day, of all days, the reading is so obviously directed at men only. (The ervahs are important, sure, but.)
  
• I find myself less likely to chat on YK. I don't always have enough kavanah, but there's still an odd headspace peculiar to YK (and not just the floatiness from fasting) that makes me not want small talk.
  
• The intensity of the repeated phrases at the end always gets me. And the amazing single tekiah that just kept going was the perfect cap to it.
  
• Neilah is always slow and fast, rushing headlong through the last moments of the day's repentance time as the clock crawls to the end of the fast.
  
• Walking home during the break was a good thing, giving me time to walk the soreness of standing out, and to feel the wind and sun on my face. Much better than attempting to nap at the law school.

Comments

[dancingdeer.livejournal.com]

It was good to see you; even if I'm just sitting and davening (and it's much easier for me to do that when I'm not sitting next to someone familiar), it's comfortable to know at least a few others in the room.
What I've always learned, since my whole family are kohanim (I'm a bat kohen, obviously), is that if you're not doing the birkat kohanim, you have to just leave the room; my brothers did this until they were comfortable going up too. I suppose that if you're leading the davening, you don't have that option. Very odd to think about, yes. I'm always a little bit torn about this personally. Since I'm equally comfortable in an orthodox service as well as an egalitarian conservative service, I feel as if I *should* count as a kohen for this. But I've never been to any service other than an orthodox one which even does birkat kohanim in the first place, so this has never been tested.

Maybe not unfortunately, I arrived about two seconds after the mincha Torah reading ended.

Someone stole my book during the few minutes I was talking to you in the break between mincha and neilah. Darnit. I had to fight back to the back of the room and get another one.

[magid.livejournal.com]

It was definitely good to see you. And it makes a difference to me to have known people around, too. It's a smaller percentage than in years past, which makes me a little sad (perhaps I'll change that this year), but knowing a number of the daveners et al means it's still home-ish.

It makes sense, leaving the room (though I'd be sad missing it, myself). I've heard that in at least one other place, the kohen/baal tefillah would wash before going up to the amud (not sure about shoes), then the other kohanim would join him at the appropriate time, with someone else leading. (Small technical issue: he'd definitely have to move his feet, so maybe he'd wear shoes until then?)

I had the impression that the egal minyan at Harvard has had birkat kohanim. Not sure if that was a once-off or regular thing, though. Would it be odd doing this for the first time as an adult, d'you think? Is it something you'd like to do someday?

I don't know why I can't seem to let go about mincha Torah reading, but it bothers me each time.

Phooey for people assuming machzorim are available when on a chair (rather than at the back). (I assumed that's what it was when I saw you take the long way around.)

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Ditto on the not-wanting-to-chat feeling, the fast-slow nature of neilah and the final tekiah.

[fetteredwolf.livejournal.com]

Since I was in the men's section of a Chabad shul for YK, I definitely felt odd during the Torah reading at Mincha. Because I felt like I wasn't a normal guy, and since they have no frame of reference for these things, I think they thought I was gay. And the reader made a big point of the passuk in question. Ew.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I keep wanting to be able to focus better during neilah, not checking the time, but it never seems to happen that way. Next year, perhaps, when we're in Jerusalem :-).

[magid.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about mechitza minyanim and how that would work (counting in a minyan, getting an aliya). (OK, and now that I'm thinking of it, the bracha "she asani kirtzono" v. the other one.)

And ew, for emphasizing that pasuk in particular. YK is not the day to be throwing ben adam l'chavero stones, as it were. Plus I've seen different readings of that pasuk.
(And really, even if someone is gay, I hardly think that even in the Chabad universe that should be seen as so much worse than someone who cheats in business or abuses a position of power/respect. I don't understand why there's always so much finger-pointing over the things that are essentially victimless 'transgressions' (what people eat, what they wear), when there are so many more serious issues.)

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Amen to that.

I also waver back and forth between focusing and checking the time/pages remaining. I suspect it has to do with being distracted by aching feet and/or acoustic issues.

[cellio]

The Reform movement reads Lev 19 for Yom Kippur mincha. That feels much more appropriate to me.

The intensity of the repeated phrases at the end always gets me.

Me too. Most of ne'ilah is intense for me, but that part especially.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Leviticus 19's pretty nice.

Here's my dilemma: I really dislike the ervahs being the YK mincha reading, and yet when I think of changing it, I have difficulties with that, too. Which feels stupid, to feel both.

End of neilah: a lot of the rest of the YK davening has lots of fancy poetical Hebrew in addition to the more familiar parts, which is more intellectual to me, but this is distilled down to the essence, something everyone understands and can let ring clear and true through their hearts.

[cellio]

Here's my dilemma: I really dislike the ervahs being the YK mincha reading, and yet when I think of changing it, I have difficulties with that, too. Which feels stupid, to feel both.

Not stupid. You feel strongly about tradition in the abstract but dislike this particular case of it.

but this is distilled down to the essence, something everyone understands and can let ring clear and true through their hearts.

Yes. This is pure, accessible, and simple; it resonates.

[magid.livejournal.com]

You feel strongly about tradition in the abstract but dislike this particular case of it.
Yes, that's it.
It's just that I see myself as being more absolute about things like this than I'd like, and it's problematic sometimes. More flexibility would be a good thing.