Add this to the plethora of reflections on Rosh Hashana. My Rosh was dissatisfying; sorry if that’s bad karma or something. And it’s my fault. I will now enumerate the reasons why it didn’t live up to Roshes of yesteryear:
This was my first year attempting to observe Rosh Hashana while at school. And now I understand why so many people were headed home Friday afternoon to be with their families. I’ve always heard that a big part of the High Holidays is their ‘elevatedness’. Even more so than Shabbat, RH and YK are days (not to deny that the period of time around them should be special and reflective as well) when one is supposed to dig deep into one’s true self, thereby making the day elevated and distinguished from other days, even other Jewish holidays.
On a more practical level, Rosh Hashana in my family has always been a day to dress up (usually the only time of year I wear a suit), eat really well, and daven in a comfortable setting with re-newed vigor. Also my rabbi gives killer d’vars on the High Holidays, pulling together a crazy number of sources to really wow the regulars and the twice-a-year shul-goers alike with some deep stuff. Now I’m not talking about a dressed-up version of your ordinary High Holidays d’var, i.e. “this year, do the big three: try to be a good person, come to shul more often, and support Israel”, I mean some real wisdom here.
So this year I decided to stay at school, not really sure why. I still didn’t get any work done this weekend. The Hillel service was nice, the food was excellent, and the company lively. I was thoroughly impressed with my Hillel’s ‘production’ of Erev Rosh Hashana this year. However, the evening was not spent in warm conversation with family, but rather I sulked back to my dorm room and tried to think of way to make the evening reflective and calm, without just going to bed at 10:30. I think I ended up starting a problem set.
And Saturday morning, rather than being awoken by one of the ‘rents telling me that we’re late for shul, and I’d better get my nice suit on, I got up to my alarm clock in a drafty dorm room, which smelled of old running shoes. At this point it is worth mentioning that I didn’t bring my suit to school because in late-August, as I packed for another year, I was sure that I’d be heading home for Rosh. So I wore a pair of paint-stained slacks and a striped tie, and still ended up late for shul. Which I got to by taking a van rented from my college. The doors didn’t quite close, so I held them shut for most of the way there.
The synagogue I went to is nice enough, the rabbi gave a perfectly respectable d’var, and there were plenty of reflective English readings throughout. But it just didn’t compare to being at home with the family. Nor was eating lunch (bagel bar!) in the college dining hall that afternoon—that really took the wind out of my sails. What kind of goofball brings a tallis bag into a college dining hall? A walk in the woods and a brief nap in the above-mentioned smelly dorm-room followed. Then more problem set. Then an avant-garde jazz concert—and a really fantastic one at that—but still, do I really want to be doing this right now? was what kept going through my head throughout.
We had a nice Taschlich service Sunday afternoon. I failed in my attempt to blow the shofar. The tekiah gadola refused to come out of the end of the Shofar. How embarrassing. We walked as a group into the wooded property that abuts the college, singing a Judified version of “Down in the River to Pray”. The woods, called “the Crum” by Swarthmore students, used to strike me as one of the more idyllic places I’d seen, back when I first encountered them. Ironically, enjoying the Crum sparked an interest in the outdoors that has led to hiking in some of the most beautiful places in the world (or at least the continental United States), so I am now “nature spoiled” and not longer think of the Crum as anything special.
So I basically squandered all opportunities for an especially elevated Rosh Hashana, 5770. So I’m headed home over the weekend for Kippur, which I hope will let me “get elevated” while enjoying the comforts of home and mom’s (not) home-cooking. ‘Gmar Chatimah Tova’ and have an easy fast!
