Hi, Beth Am Israel!
Below is short piece I wrote based on an actual text I sent that led me to some interesting and unexpected places as I get ready for Yom Kippur.
G’mar Hatimah Tovah to everyone! Praying for goodness and silliness, and love and laughter and great music in the year to come.
-Hazzan Harold
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It was a simple missed keystroke.
About a month ago I was texting a friend. I wrote out the word, “Kol Nidre,” and before I could catch my mistake, the tiny guy inside my iPhone changed it and “corrected” it.
I sent the note, and then noticed the auto-incorrect, I smiled and thought, “That’s kinda funny.”
(I can picture the tiny guy inside my iPhone, all pleased with himself, probably wearing a bowtie with a pocket protector, and dork glasses frantically going from iPhone to iPhone to iPhone correcting mistakes, and wiping his brow, thinking to his tiny self, “Phew! Glad I caught THAT one! He almost wrote Kol Nidre, when he obviously meant Lol Nidre.”)
Oh, and by all means, don’t correct the word “Nidre”, because obviously, everyone knows what a ‘Nidre’ is.
The world feels particularly unfunny right about now, so thank you ‘tiny auto-correct guy in my iPhone’, for offering up a different way of thinking about this BIG IMPORTANT DAY OF PRAYER.
Praying can have this weight, and the heaviest of all days (starting Friday night), is Yom Kippur. It’s soooo heavy. Sooo many words. And more words, and more and more.
Schlepping all these heavy words around for 25 hours.
Heavy with associations, melodies that evoke, melodies that trigger, melodies that conjure scents, and place, and childhoods. Heavy with guilt, sin, misdeeds, terrible behavior, really abhorrent thoughts, collective punishment, chest-beating, brow-beating, soul searching, soul-bearing, body swaying, food and water deprivation, bagel and whitefish fantasies abounding (starting around 4 pm EST).
It’s so heavy.
Lol Nidre. All those silly vows. Which we annul. Annually.
An annual annulment. Null and avoid.
This led me to think not just about LOL, but about how good it feels to actually LOL. It feels great. I want to keep doing that and doing it as often as possible.
And LOL leads me to SOL or Sing out loud. Need that.
And so, my singular vow, which I hope not only to not annul next year, but auto-renew, is to LOL, and SOL, surround myself with people, and seek out people who want to do the same.
And would I leave you without a song? Of course not.
Today, Earth Wind and Fire (the band, and I suppose, the elements themselves) were on my mind, specifically their song, “That’s the Way of the World.” It is essentially a funkier version of a key line from the High Holiday liturgy “Hayom Ha’rat Olam”, (“This is the day the world was born”).
Charles Stepney, Maurice, and Verdine White sing:
Hearts afire creates love desire
Take you high and higher to the world you belong
Hearts afire creates love desire
High and higher to your place on the throne
We come together on this special day
Sing our message loud and clear
Looking back, we’ve touched on sorrowful days (well)
Future, past, they disappear
You will find (you will find) peace of mind (yeah)
If you look way down in your heart and soul
Don’t hesitate ’cause the world seems cold
Stay young at heart
Ah, ’cause you’re never, never old at heart
That’s the way (that’s the way)
Of the world (of the world)
Plant your flower (gonna plant your flower)
And you grow a pearl
Child is born with a heart of gold
Way of the world (gonna plant your flower)
Makes his heart so cold
