The High Holy Days and childhood nostalgia

• Author: BRENDA KATTEN
• Published date: 30 September 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Normally I am a regular shul-goer, but since corona – with its inevitable restrictions – there were too many occasions when I just did not feel like going. Our shul has a dynamic chairperson who has done her very best to encourage shul participation despite the ghastly pandemic that refuses to end. Congregants are rightly expected to wear masks for indoor prayer, and the service is curtailed. Yet much of what I particularly enjoy is removed.

One example is the fast reading – in place of singing – of the prayer for the State of Israel, Avinu Shebeshamayim, a stirring prayer reminding us of how favored we are to have returned to the land of our fathers. We pray that God will bless Israel; strengthen the hand of those who defend us, and encourage our brethren, wherever they reside, to return home. It is a melodious beautiful prayer that we should sing together, for by so doing – as I have discovered – we become part of the prayer itself.

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The liturgy of the synagogue resonates with me, and I enjoy singing along with whoever is leading the service, but mask-wearing is not exactly conducive to the singing that brings me close to my Judaism.

Perhaps my love of the liturgy is not strange, as I grew up with a father who took me every Friday night and Shabbat to shul, where I would happily sing along with the hazan and the choir.

My Booba and Zayde (grandmother and grandfather) lived close by. Zayde originated from Bialystok, and blessed with a strong and melodious voice, he often led the service at the Biala Rabbi's shteibel. Sometimes I would go with Zayde to his shteibel.

My Booba was considered to be the first "chairwoman" in the family, because she would sit on a chair in the hallway, in between two adjoining rooms – one that served the men, the other the women – with a solid wall that divided the two. Booba's role was to watch when the men stood, and then to tell the women – in Yiddish – to do likewise.

Zayde enjoyed hazanut, or cantorial music, and collected His Master's Voice recordings of famous cantors such as Moshe Koussevitzky and Yoselle Rosenblatt. It was always a great pleasure sitting with Zayde – often turning the handle of his gramophone – as we listened together to his amazing collection of 78 RPM records of these great cantors. It was here that I began to appreciate the liturgy associated with the various...