That Time Of Year

By: Larry Gordon

It’s almost here. Selichos. The cooking and related preparations are underway. Most of Rosh Hashanah is an interplay between your heart and mind. We know the nusach, the songs, the liturgy, etc.

But where are you sitting in shul? Did you take care of that yet? Where are your wife and children going to sit? Yes, the kids need seats, though they rarely just sit.

So, what are you doing for yom tov? When is your sukkah going up? Better question: When is your sukkah coming down? Even better: Are you putting up a sukkah at all?

Sandwiched in between all this is Yom Kippur on Sunday night. I hope I don’t hear any stories about people who went to the Jets game against the Packers on Sunday, erev Yom Kippur just to make it back on time to shower, eat, and go to Kol Nidrei.

This year, the first days of Rosh Hashanah and Sukkos fall on Shabbos, which means we don’t blow the shofar on that first day of Tishrei. And on that first day of Sukkos, we do not use or make a berachah on our lulav and esrog.

There is a letter in this issue on page 36 where the writer poses several ideas and theories as to what it means when the zechus of Shabbos replaces the mitzvah of shofar-blowing, and when Shabbos substitutes for our lulav and esrog on Sukkos. More than anything, it’s about the possibility of carrying on Shabbos, which is not allowed unless there’s an eruv.

While many of our communities today have eruvs, the fact is that not all communities have one and a rabbinic decree like this cannot be subject to picking and choosing, as in here you blow the shofar and there you don’t.

Elul is here and has been here for a while. How can you not be inspired by watching the early morning Selichos gatherings at the Kotel? While it is Sephardic custom to say Selichos each morning throughout Elul, the 50,000 people who gathered there before sunrise are from all walks of Jewish life. One of my grandsons, who is in yeshiva in Israel, called me excitedly one morning to share with me that he was there.

I have a friend who always reminds me after all these years not to forget to write about what it was like to daven at “770” all those years ago. I know he wants me to describe what our exclusive minyan was like on the second floor of that iconic and historic building. He wants to read about how my brother and I jockeyed to get our chairs into position before Rosh Hashanah to ensure our place in that minyan.

Let me just add as I have in the past that my dad was the ba’al tefillah and ba’al koreh up there in the room that was the library of the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson, zt’l. At the same time, I can’t overlook the fact that we began davening on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at 10:30 a.m. and concluded at around 2:30 p.m. We also had about a half hour break to go down to the main shul to hear the Rebbe blowing the shofar.

But let’s get back to our original subject: preparing for yom tov. Regardless of where you live, it’s impossible to avoid the volume and variety of shoppers filling our main streets. I observed people pushing wagons out of supermarkets that looked like they were going to build a monument rather than just doing a little food prep and cooking.

Then there’s the shopping for clothing. The tailors here in Cedarhurst have lines of men and women waiting to see the seamstress or tailor to repair their outfits for the chag. They’re working overtime trying to get it all done before yom tov.

Now that September is here, it’s not just a matter of summer coming to an end and school beginning. Some of the kids are not very pleased because, well, you know—school is school. But they’ll get used to it as they always do. For many of them, the yomim tovim are an island in time in between the beginning of school, homework, and class assignments. Suddenly, like a miracle, they have almost three weeks of vacation before they have to go back again.

Then there are those who are planning on spending either part or all of the chagim in Israel. Today we know how precious and memorable it is to spend the holidays in Eretz Yisrael. Many of us who have successfully incorporated Israel into our lives now understand that there’s a risk associated with it and we never know when some kind of hardship will occur.

I mean, we dealt with the Covid issue, when getting into Israel was an obstacle course of sorts. We took three injections just to pass through immigration five or six years ago. One of the shots was a booster that I begged the person giving it to just be brave and shoot whatever it was onto the floor. He wouldn’t do it and I was sick like a dog for almost three days.

I never mentioned this before, but this is as good a time as any. I had a friend in Jerusalem (and still do) whose brother knew someone in the Israeli Health Ministry who was issuing entry visas for a few dollars. Not a huge amount of money, but not too little either. I got into the country once using his services.

At the time, I mentioned about this possibility to a few people and word got around to a limited circle of friends pretty quickly, and before you knew it, he was dealing with a dozen people that I knew, facilitating their entry into Israel during that period.

If I recall correctly, the height of his visa-entry service was at this time of year, when people wanted to be with their kids who were in yeshiva or seminary in Israel. The rules for entry were always changing. Sometimes they were stricter than others. For example, if you had siblings who lived in Israel, it was easier to get an entry permit. If you didn’t, he would “create” family members for you, and he did this for a few people I know who now have a large extended family they never knew existed.

Of course, there are occasionally other obstacles placed in our paths when we yearn for something that is otherwise relatively simple to obtain, such as going to Israel. Prior to Pesach last year, two of my grandsons who were studying in yeshiva in Israel came back to New York for the yom tov on an Egypt Air flight that left from Cairo. It’s always something!

El Al is completely sold out. Don’t even try to change the time of your flight or move your seat. The answer is—no. Oh, you haven’t booked yet? That’s funny.

This is a very busy article and that may be because this is a very busy time of year for us. Next week, I will wish you all a happy and healthy New Year. In the meantime: Shanah tovah u’metukah. 

Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.