High-Holiday Tickets

By: Yochanan Gordon

Within the last six months, my wife met with a local proprietor to put some items on hold, which he said he could do for up to six months after which the price would increase.

My wife attempted to reach the proprietor a number of times, to no avail. The other day, she went back to the store, and the owner denied the six-month cutoff and informed her that he could not honor the lower price that he had said he would.

I was taught that the customer is always right. However, the reality is that there are times when a successful business owner can choose whom he or she wants to work with and whom not. For some reason the said proprietor decided that it wasn’t worth his while to act courteously to us.

I decided to begin with this anecdote because it leads seamlessly to another story that a client of mine shared with me a number of years back. I told him at the time that I wanted to record this story in a Yom Kippur issue of the paper, but he didn’t want me to. I figured without divulging the identity of the person or the business it would be okay for me to refer to this story.

There’s a tradition of shuls selling seats to its congregants for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This practice is still in force, and it is understood that since shuls operate with large operating expenses this is one way they are able to sustain themselves throughout the year. However, my sense is that it is more acceptable these days to enter a shul without a seat and chances are you’d be able to get a seat in the back perhaps without a table.

There was a time though that getting into shul for the high holidays without a ticket would be like trying to get into Madison Square Garden without Knicks or Rangers tickets. This store owner, who wasn’t particularly observant, told me that his grandfather was devoutly religious and lived during the Roaring Twenties in Far Rockaway and was very successful and an active participant in his shul until the stock market crash in 1929.

After the crash he lost his life savings and was so indigent that he couldn’t even afford seats in his longtime shul for the high holidays. When he showed up on Yom Kippur without a ticket, he was denied entry into the synagogue and as a result the ensuing generations of that once prestigious family ceased being religious and they remain that way until today.

My guess is, like the proprietor in the opening anecdote, the shul was a successful one that thought that it was okay to turn away a congregant who could not afford to pay his dues. The fact that this congregant was once an active congregant who fell from success and was reliant on the magnanimity of others was one detail that was difficult for me to wrap my brain around. How cold and apathetic can a person be to the tragic plight of someone who once tasted success and suddenly lost it all?

There is a verse that states, “Not on account of your multitudinousness does G-d desire you [the Jewish people] for you are the smallest from among the nations.” Now, while it’s true that the Jewish people are quantitatively the smallest from among the nations, the verse is not referring to numbers alone. The commentators explain that Jews have a sense of being able to humble themselves and that is a virtue in G-d’s eyes.

When a gentile seeks to convert to Judaism, the rabbis, in trying to dissuade the would-be convert, talk at great length about how the Jewish people are despised by the nations and how difficult life as a Jew could be, just to test the resolve of this convert.

Although there are certainly many virtues that Jews can boast about, the posture that is desirable to G-d is one of humility. When Judaism becomes a business where success breeds contempt then it’s a sure indication that the soul is missing. Thankfully I’m fairly certain that this story would not happen in today’s day and age, nonetheless it’s a lesson for us in our religious lives and in our business lives, which should be consistent with our overall values.

I remember being on a kosher cruise a number of years ago when due to the fact that Jews would join the cruise through the cruise liner at a sharply discounted rate than what the kosher company was selling at, they made rules that only people with wristbands could join the minyanim and participate in the kosher meals.

I remember talking to one of the scholars in residence, a Chabad rabbi, who expressed an extreme discomfort with telling a Jew, “We better not catch you praying” and while I totally understand where they were coming from, still the precedent of denying a Jew the right to pray with a minyan is a funny one.

We begin the prayers of Yom Kippur with the declaration, “We are permitted to pray with the sinners.” This is the type of inclusivity and unconditional love that G-d yearns to see in his children and it’s this type of conduct that will ensure a positive verdict for us all individually and collectively in the hopes of delivering us from this exile. 

Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.