By Sandy Eller

Eve of 11 Tishrei 5774–Today I was an angel. Not for the whole day, maybe not even for an entire hour, but there were moments today when I managed to somehow rise to a level that I didn’t even know existed. It was easier today than most days, because today was Yom Kippur.

I confess that while there are people who look forward to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, those days fill me with dread. I am working on that–I know it isn’t a good thing. I don’t mind the long hours in shul, the davening that sometimes seem endless. I mind having to take responsibility for the countless times over the past 12 months when I have messed up, whether intentionally or totally by accident. I wish I could pretend that I were a better person and that those misdeeds never occurred, but it just isn’t true.

Yet a funny thing happens when Rosh Hashanah rolls around. You are standing in shul, and if you are lucky, you are listening to a great ba’al tefillah who really gets you to connect with the words you are saying. Suddenly, you aren’t uttering words while thinking something completely different. Your mind and your mouth are working together and, with the help of a really beautiful niggun, everything clicks. There is nothing in your head except the davening and the words you are saying, and for just an instant, the world drops away and you realize that your body and your neshamah are totally in tune with each other.

I was struck by an epiphany on Rosh Hashanah this year, one that seems so obvious, I don’t know why it took me so many years to figure it out. Standing in shul, holding my two-week-old grandson, it struck me that I was singing a niggun that my grandparents probably sang in Europe as well, and here I was, singing it to their great-great-grandson. It should come to me as no surprise that I am a link in a very long chain that is baruch Hashem continuing to grow; but at that moment, I really understood for the first time how all that we do and all that we are is centuries old, and we continue to pass that on to the next generation, so that one day they can transmit that same mesorah to their grandkids.

In another awesome moment, I got to be the first person to whisper the words “Yehei Shmei Rabbah” in my grandson’s ears. He will hear those words innumerable times throughout his life, but the first time he heard them was from me. Call me crazy, but as long as they are clean and well-behaved, I believe in bringing babies to shul. Let them hear the words of Kaddish and Kedushah from their earliest days so that it becomes part of who they are. Handing my new grandson to my son-in-law so that he could take the baby under his tallis during duchaning for the first time in his life as a father? Also a moment that ranks up there as something I don’t ever want to forget.

I woke up erev Yom Kippur with a sense of dread. This is it. No more stalling. No more playing around. It’s time to face the music.

But when the music came, in the form of Kol Nidrei and all the other tefillos, I discovered something incredible. The opportunity to take responsibility for our actions on an annual basis–to check in with G‑d, ask his forgiveness, reevaluate our priorities, beg for mercy, place our requests, and think about what we are going to do to become a better person–is an incredible gift. The idea that once a year, we get to stop, take responsibility for our misdeeds, learn from them, and then start fresh may be frightening and may leave some pages in my Machzor slightly damp, but it gives us the chance to leave everything behind and really connect with the One Above.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that while davening normally doesn’t come easily to me and concentration is beyond elusive, on Yom Kippur it is effortless. We are intensely focused on only one thing: connecting with G‑d. And in those moments, when we alternate between asking for forgiveness, acknowledging the majesty of Hashem, and davening for ourselves, our family members, our friends, relatives, and even total strangers, there is nothing between us and our Siddurim. We are completely and totally in sync. By the time we were midway through Ne’ilah, reciting the Yud Gimmel Middos again and again, I could have sworn that, much like when Dorothy’s house is lifted by the twister in the Wizard of Oz, our entire shul was no longer tethered to the ground but was airborne, making its way higher and higher in the heavenly realms as we chanted the age-old words again and again.

I know that when I pick up my Siddur to daven tomorrow, marshaling my thoughts in the right direction is going to be a challenge, one I have yet to conquer.

But today, just for a few hours, buoyed by the kedushah of the holiest day of the year, I was an angel. v

Sandy Eller is a freelance writer who writes for numerous websites, newspapers, magazines, and private clients. She can be contacted at sandyeller1@gmail.com.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here