Have you ever heard a Jew exclaim, “Woo hoo! Only four more days to Rosh Hashanah”? Or how about, “Yom Kippur is right around the corner! I haven’t felt this excited since my senior prom”?
Me neither.
According to an unofficial survey conducted four seconds ago in my playroom, three out of three kids would rather attend school than High Holy Days services. Most adults I know prefer work to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As Jewish holidays go, the High Holy Days score low on the fun-o-meter.
Yet, despite the fact that most Jews don’t seem to look forward to High Holy Day services, they attend them in spectacular numbers. Synagogues hire extra parking attendants to handle the huge influx of cars. Double services are the norm. Many congregants maintain expensive synagogue memberships solely for the privilege of attending the services. Those unaffiliated with a temple pay through the nose for tickets (I’ve purchased Madonna concert tickets for less — and had better seats).
For many, attending High Holy Day services is the only Jewish thing that they do all year.
The disconnect between Jews’ professed sentiments about the High Holy Days — too long, too much Hebrew, too much standing, too much fill in the blank — and the fact that they nevertheless attend those services without fail seems incongruous.
So why are two of the least popular Jewish services actually the most popular?
I think that there are four reasons that Jews religiously attend High Holy Day services, and none of them have to do with a burning desire to sit in a synagogue for hours searching their souls for a year’s worth of indiscretions.
Aural fixation: I suspect that that the person who dubbed the High Holy Days the “Days of Awe” was listening to a synagogue choir or to the blast of the shofar at the time. If the Kol Nidre melody doesn’t touch something deep inside your Jewish soul, you should have your veins checked for ice.
There is something comforting about hearing the same melodies and sounds as an adult that you experienced as a child. To never hear another High Holy Day sound would be like never hearing another Beatles’ song. You don’t need to hear “Hey Jude” every week, but you do need to hear it at least once a year.
The importance of being Jewish: It seems that most Jewish people, even the ones who can’t resist plopping their circumcised kid on Santa Claus’ lap for a quick photo, believe that “being Jewish” — whatever that means — is important.
According to a survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee, 88 percent of Jews responded that “being Jewish” was “very” or “fairly” important in their life.
Many of us who are not Orthodox struggle to make peace with a Jewish identity that does not include following all the 613 mitzvahs outlined in the Torah. As the AJC survey suggests, many of us maintain a strong Jewish identity and a sincere desire to feel “part of the Jewish people” even if we don’t participate in many of the traditional aspects of Judaism.
That is, except when it comes to the High Holy Days. Call it guilt, call it obligation, call it whatever you want, but even Jews who need MapQuest to locate their synagogue seem to feel it is crucial to their identity as a Jew to attend High Holy Day services. To stay home would be akin to tearing up one’s Jewish identity card.
The departed: The people whom I have loved and lost always seem to be with me during the High Holy Days. Maybe it is because old men draped in tallits remind me of my grandfathers. Or maybe it is because the best joke that my late grandmother ever told happened to have been whispered to me during a High Holy Day service.
There is something about saying Kaddish with hundreds of other Jews that seems to invoke the presence of friends and relatives who have passed away. Reciting the Kaddish en masse versus alone is the difference between humming along with a song playing on the car radio and singing the same song at the top of your lungs together with thousands of other people at a concert.
The thrill of the crowd: There is something powerful about being part of the mass of Jews that comes together for the High Holy Days.
The fact that we go to temple even though the services are challenging is our collective statement that Judaism still matters. It is a statement on par with man’s first steps on the moon, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
It is a mass declaration that despite Pharaoh, Haman, Hitler and every anti-Semite that tried to get rid of us, we are still standing in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Israel and a heck of a lot of places in between.
Come to think of it, Rosh Hashanah is right around the corner … and I can’t wait.
Wendy Jaffe is a columnist for the L.A. Jewish Journal’s Jewish Family Magazine, where a longer version of this piece previously appeared. She is the author of “Divorce Lawyers’ Guide to Staying Married,” and can be reached at [email protected].