For the High Holy Days this year, I tried something new. I celebrated Rosh Hashanah on the bounding main. Robyn and I just got back from a dream vacation, sailing 14 days around the British Isles and stopping at several English, Irish and Scottish ports. We toured a Downton Abbey-like manora in Dorset, downed pints of Guinness in Dublin, rode bikes in Guernsey and trod the purple heather in the Scottish Highlands.
As the Irish would say, it was grand.
I remember a time when I would sneer at old fogeys who took cruises. But today, as a full-on fogey, I get it. Life on the ship was a bobbing universe of fun. Simply put, it felt good to be pampered.
The main truth about a cruise is that you will gorge on the endless supply of food and drink. You will try temperance but you will fail. Instead, you will paraphrase Thomas Dewey’s famous aphorism about democracy and tell yourself, “The solution to the problem of overeating is more overeating.”
Among the many amenities on board was the staff rabbi. We took advantage of that, attending Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah services.
No one knew beforehand how many Jews would be on board. In our case, we formed a small kehilla of a dozen with people from the United States, as well as a few Dutch and Russian Jews.
We met Friday nights in the Stuyvesant Room, ironic in that the Dutch colonist Peter Stuyvesant ordered Jews (“that deceitful race”) out of New Amsterdam in 1654, though the order was later rescinded.
The ship provided out-of-date, decidedly patriarchal siddurs from the 1970s, but the rabbi made the best of it, leading meaningful services as the ship swayed in the English Channel the first Friday night, the North Atlantic the next.
The rebbetzin made sure the ship provided a proper oneg spread of challah, gefilte fish and Manischewitz wine. For Rosh Hashanah, she showed the ship’s baker a photo of a round High Holy Day challah, and voila, we had one, raisins and all.
The rabbi and rebbetzin were as kind as could be (both asked not to be identified). They have worked cruise ships for years, once leading an ad hoc congregation of 135, another time having not a single person show up.
Sometimes the job calls for more than leading prayer. The rabbi said he frequently provides pastoral counseling on board, as it is common for older people, some recently widowed, to take a cruise as a way of “putting their lives back together.”
The rabbi said flexibility is key. Since no fire is permitted, Shabbat candles must be electric. Since voyagers go off on excursions during the day, Rosh Hashanah morning services take place late afternoon.
That’s what we did. After a day of traipsing about the Scottish countryside, we gathered late for Rosh Hashanah. So far from home, I found it comforting to hear the High Holy Day trope and the sound of the shofar.
The rabbi’s sermon was a masterpiece of homiletic minimalism. It was about tikkun olam and how we must strive to make the world better, however small the steps. The rabbi told me later he deliberately writes simple sermons for cruises, as he cannot know in advance the level of Jewish education his ad hoc congregation may have.
I thought he gave the right sermon for that time and place.
If you ever want to feel small, stand on the deck of a ship racing along in the middle of the ocean. A passing seabird may briefly keep you company, but for the most part there is nothing but the sound of the wind and the waves. All you can see is the vastness of the waters.
I felt so small on deck, yet so alive, grateful for the sharp, clean air, glad for the chance to sojourn across the world with Robyn while our vagabond hearts still beat strong.
Grateful for yet another new year inscribed, I hope, in the Book of Life.
Though I’ll never see my floating kehilla again, neither will I ever forget our time together. As the rabbi told me, “People look for community on the ship, and in a short period of time we build community. It works.”
Dan Pine can be reached at [email protected].