A Very Suburban Succot: Part II

For forty years after our ancestors escaped from their Egyptian enslavement, they traveled the Sinai desert. The Torah tells us that, in a divine miracle, our people were surrounded with "clouds of glory" as they walked. These clouds protected them from the harsh elements of the desert, and provided an element of safety as they made their way to the promise land.

Tonight begins the holiday that commemorates that miracle and those years. The holiday of Succot.

For the past week or so, Jewish people all over the world have been hard at work constructing their Succahs, temporary outdoor huts that become our "home" for the duration of the holiday. For seven days we eat all of our meals and snacks in the huts, and there is even a custom to sleep in them, something I don't do now, but did when I was younger, back when huddling outside with snacks and sleeping bags on a freezing cold Pittsburgh fall night with my sisters and friends was an excellent adventure.

It is a time of fun and a time of celebration, and it has always been my favorite holiday on the very full and rich Jewish calendar.

During my nearly eight years of living in Manhattan we obviously couldn't build a succah of our own, what with our 23rd floor apartment on one of the busiest streets on the Upper West Side, so we often decamped to one of our families to celebrate the holiday the way that it is meant to be celebrated. But once we moved to the suburbs, building a succah was one of our first projects.

Last year's was a lot of fun, but this year I think we may have outdone ourselves. See, we have a bit of a theme going on in various parts of our house these days, so nothing would do but that we follow that theme with this year's succah. 

So here, for your viewing pleasure, is where we will be spending much of the next week.

Chag sameach, one and all.

C3PO Lights

Yoda lights

Storm Trooper lights

R2 Lights

A Very Suburban Succot: Part I

Succot, 2014.

Part I.

The Year Behind Us, and the One to Come

Even as the sun rose this morning, we began counting down. We have filled bottles with water to hydrate throughout the day, and we have planned our meals with the precision of a five star army general in preparation for the 25 hour fast ahead. And we have begun to think about the minutes and hours that we will spend in our synagogues, prayer books in hand, reflecting on the year behind us and the one that is to come.

Today is the day before Yom Kippur, the holiest and most awe-inspiring day on the Jewish calendar. Tonight, just before the sun sets, we will gather together in the place where we will spend much of the next day, and we will ask forgiveness for things we have done, explore the things we have done right, and ask for the kind of future days we want, as the calendar turns from one year to the next.

I wrote a post last year on this very same day that I am reposting below. More than anything else, it expresses the thoughts and feelings I have about this day and the one ahead.

"Let Us Tell How Holy This Day Is" 

There is a prayer, midway through the morning service on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, that gives me chills. That gives everyone chills.  

The ark opens so that the Torah scrolls are visible. The congregation stands. For a second there is silence, and then one voice rises from the front of the sanctuary as the chazzan - the leader of the service - begins to chant the prayer. No matter what synagogue you are in around the world the melody is the same. Slow. Haunting. Timeless.  

The prayer is called "U'Netaneh Tokef Kedushat Hayom," loosely translated as "Let Us Tell How Holy This Day Is."  

It begins by recalling the power of the ten days that encompass Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the holiest days in the Jewish calendar. Because it is in these days, our rabbis tell us, that each Jewish person is judged. It is during these days where all of the events of the year ahead are decided. We learn that on Rosh Hashanah, our fate for the coming year is written down, and on Yom Kippur, it is sealed. And the days in between the two holidays are days of repentance, where we have a unique opportunity to change our fate.  

Even the customary greetings we give each other during these holidays reflect the power of this time of year. On Rosh Hashanah we say, "ketiva ve-chatima tova," meaning "may you be written and inscribed for good." But as Yom Kippur draws closer, the greeting changes to "g'mar chatima tova," meaning, "may you be sealed for good.  

U'Netaneh Tokef continues with a recitation of a litany of possible destinies that could befall us in the year to come. The chazzan recites the paragraph slowly, the ancient words explaining that on this day God will decide, among other things, "how many will pass from the earth and how many will be born into it," "who will live and who will die," "who will rest and who will wander," "who will be impoverished and who will be enriched," and "who will be degraded and who will be exalted."  

It is solemn and scary and powerful. But it is ultimately uplifting.  

Because the climax of the prayer is not the listing of all the gruesome ways in which we might meet our fates over the coming year, but instead when the entire congregation joins their voices together and declares "but repentance, prayer and charity remove the evil of the decree."  

Ultimately, the message of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is that we are masters of our own destiny. That there is a God who may inscribe us for a certain kind of year, but that we have the ability to control what inscription is sealed for us. The idea that we may transgress, but that we can - and will - be forgiven. By ourselves. By each other. By God.   

Even Yom Kippur, a day of fasting and prayer, has an undertone of joy in the spirituality of the day and the confidence that we will be sealed for a year of goodness and prosperity.  

As the beginning of Yom Kippur draws near, I find myself comforted by the thought of the 25 hours ahead. Hours where I will sit in my synagogue with my community and immerse myself in ancient prayers. Hours where I will think about the year ahead, and my wishes for myself and for my family.  

And tomorrow night when the sky darkens, the final prayer is said, and the single blast from the shofar is sounded indicating the end of the fast and the beginning of a clean slate, I will walk home lighter, happier, and hopeful for what is in store for all of us in the coming year.  

Wishing all who are celebrating a g'mar chatima tova. May you and your families be sealed for only the very best.

"But then fall comes..."

 

“But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.” 
― Stephen King, 'Salem's Lot

Fancy-Pants

A Wedding, A Toast, and Thirty-One Years of Friendship

On Saturday night, my oldest friend got married.

We have been friends for every minute of our thirty-one years, and this was a big day.

All day on Saturday we sat in a massive suite in a beautiful hotel and we did the things that girls do on the day of a wedding. We donned robes with our initials on them and there was hair and makeup and cocktails and special cake that you can only find in one particular bakery in one particular Pittsburgh neighborhood. And there was laughing and fun and heels and a big white dress and four navy dresses and an aisle to walk down and a big party to go to and a room filled with people who have known me and who have known her for all of our lives.

And somewhere in the middle of that party the DJ called me up to make my speech. 

And this is what I said:

Rachel:

I am sitting cross-legged on the floor looking through old pictures. Turning pages of photo albums, some yellowed with age, the pictures curled at the sides from years and years of handling, and some brand new, the pictures printed and delivered to my house only days ago.

And as it sometimes happens, the past and present seem to collapse together and in that moment I see us both as we were and as we are. As baby girls and as grown women.

And these are the pictures that tell our story.

We’re newborn babies, sitting in strollers in my back-yard, pushed side-by-side by my mom and yours.

We’re two. We are eating popcorn and holding hands and running through Storybook Forest wearing raincoats with the hoods pulled up, mine blue and green, yours pink and purple.

We’re five, and we dragged those itchy yellow lounge chairs into the pool at Parkway like we always did even though the lifeguards got mad. And then the whistle blew for adult swim and we sat on dry chairs, wrapped in towels, eating French fries from the snack bar and I know that yours were probably the only parents there that day because mine never let me eat French fries from the snack bar at Parkway.

We’re nine and sitting on the floor of your room surrounded by magazines while Michael Jackson’s Bad blares from the record player. Your mom yells up the stairs asking us what we want for lunch and Ben tries to get in but you slam the door shut and yell that we’re having girl time and we fall into fits of hysterical laughter and leap up to jump on the bed as Smooth Criminal starts playing.

We’re twelve and we buy dresses together for my bat mitzvah. Mine is a sailor suit and yours is white with red flowers and they come with hats and for some inexplicable reason we think hats are a smashing idea. And the weekend of the big event we sprawl on the floor of my bathroom and we shave our legs together for the first time with pink razors and men’s shaving cream and we make a huge mess because that’s just what you do when you’re twelve and it’s bat mitzvah season.

We’re almost thirteen and we’re sitting cross-legged on your bed and in between us is the brochure for my fancy new school in Florida because that’s where my family is moving at the end of the year. And your mom talks and talks about all the amazing things the school has, like two swimming pools and ceramics classes, because I’m sure that’s what my mom told her to do. But we look at each other and we know it’s really not that amazing at all.

We’re sixteen and I’m back in Pittsburgh for a visit. We get hot chocolate and we meet up with more friends and we go upstreet and walk around like we own the place because we kind of do.

We’re twenty-four and on the very same early morning study schedule for the New York bar exam so we start our days with a 6am g-chat about criminal law, New York practice, our respective early morning trips to Dunkin Donuts, the size of our coffees (large), the kind of donuts we picked (usually with sprinkles), and what we’ll do when it’s all finally over.

We’re twenty-six and we’re New York City girls and our weeks consist of work, e-mails about work, Steeler bars on Sundays, and dinner and Dancing With the Stars on Monday nights at your 50^th Street apartment while we talk about whether people at your office know that you and Brian are dating and when we think David will propose.

We’re twenty-seven and when David does propose late one Thursday night I call and wake you up out of a sound sleep with the news. And seven months later you’re standing next to me when I get married in the very same room where we danced at your bat mitzvah fourteen years before.

We’re twenty-eight and I force you to train for a half-marathon with me and you show how good of a friend you are by not actually killing me when I end up with a stress fracture and you end up having to run the whole thing by yourself.

We’re thirty and we go to Tiffany so you can try on engagement rings and we follow that up with celebratory pizza. And a few weeks later when my phone rings and I see that it’s you I know exactly what you are calling to tell me.

And today.

Today we are thirty-one. Today is thirty-one years, six months, and ten days of friendship. Today starts a new chapter in our story that started way back at a BBYO convention when our moms were twelve. And today, it’s an exquisite privilege to watch my best friend, my forever friend, start a brand new beginning and step into a future of possibility with the one who has filled her life with love.

So here’s to you, and here’s to us. To all the years that are behind us, and to the ones – maybe the very best ones - that still lie ahead.

Back when our moms pushed us in strollers