Us and Them

In honor of the Jewish holiday season which is now upon us, I would like to regale you with a story of how the Waldmans regularly celebrated the highest holy day of the Jewish year.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is a day of fasting and prayer. Jews must repent for their sins of the previous year with solemnity and certain prohibitions. These include eating and drinking, the wearing of leather shoes, bathing and washing, wearing perfumes and lotions, and sex.

I have no recollection of doing this when my dad was alive, but after he had died, this became our routine:

On the morning of Yom Kippur, my grandparents would arrive at our house. We'd be preening and primming in our dresses, pantyhose and fancy shoes. Since we didn't belong to a synagogue, it was decided that we would attend the closest one to our house, Young Israel, which was an ultra-conservative shul a few blocks away. I've always gathered that people are not supposed to drive on Yom Kippur, since everyone seemed to converge on the shul on foot, but we piled into our car, drove almost all the way there, parked down the street, and walked the rest of the way, blending in (well, kind of) with the others. The only differences between us and them were that we had had dinner the night before and breakfast that morning (plus we were already planning our post-service lunch), we all wore leather shoes, we had showered that very morning, someone in the group had surely sprayed on some perfume and well, I can't vouch for the last one.

Then the standing around began. We were there to say a pray for our deceased relatives, for my sister and I that was our father. In order to attend the whole service, you needed a ticket, which we never had; we just waited until they let in anyone and everyone for that prayer and we stood in the back. But until the doors opened, the observers and us would stand in the large hallway waiting. I noticed that they all wore canvas gym shoes. Once I asked where the drinking fountain was and I was hushed by my mother. One year my Bubbie forgot herself and asked loudly where we were planning on eating afterward.

When it was our turn to pray, we entered the sanctuary. Bubbie pulled prayer books out of her purse and handed them around. The prayer was in Hebrew, written phonetically, and I said it, every year - to this day I haven't the faintest idea what in the world I ever said.

The sanctuary was beautiful. The way it seemed steeped in centuries of ritual and tradition made my breath catch in my throat. The men and women were separated by a rope - men on the left, women on the right. Mumbled chants and songs filled the room, men dovened in the pews. I felt like an outsider - and I was.

When the prayer time ended, we left. Starving, we raced back to the "hidden" car and drove straight to a restaurant.

Although I was raised Jewish, my upbringing was purely secular. We lit the Hanukkah candles and gave presents, we had matzo in the house on Passover. (Passover was one of my favorite holidays because it meant we'd go to Bubbie and Papa's for dinner and Bubbie would serve her best meal of the year - chicken soup with matzo balls, meat loaf made from veal with tomato sauce on top, and a special bundt cake made with matzo meal. We never had a full-blown Seder, but we'd recognize why we sat together on that day. There'd be a special toast - usually with grape juice, but one year Bubbie decided to buy wine and when we all took a sip and nearly spit it out, she checked the bottle and realized that she had mistakenly poured us all glasses of vermouth!) I have since made the decision to be a Christian, and that is how we are raising Madeleine. But the call of my heritage always makes me bring out the menorah in December. I love the Jewish culture and miss being around Jewish people.

So, happy holidays to my Jewish friends and family!