YK 2020

YK 2020

SINGING WITH MY EYES CLOSED

There was a very particular time in my life when the idea of a person singing with their eyes closed was particularly repellent. “Singing with your eyes closed” was a phrase synonymous with a kind of earnestness I loathed and it became a sort of joke - “oh you know, she’s the sort of girl who sings with her eyes closed” and every one knew what I meant. Ok, I was in my 30s. And then my 40s. Now, in my 50s, that which was repellent has become a badge of honor as I have become, from time to time, a person who sings with my eyes closed. Its not that I’m no longer a cynic or have lost any sort of edge. Its just that I’m no longer afraid to feel things, or show that I’m feeling them. And nothing conveys feeling more than singing with your eyes closed.

Maybe that’s why I love the high holy days. The prayers I love best are set to melody. Praying is often singing. And singing feels like celebration and the opening of heart and soul. Singing with my eyes closed is no longer embarrassing or horrifyingly vulnerable. Or maybe it still is horrifyingly vulnerable but I no longer mind. In part, I no longer mind because, through the years, I found a path to my own Judaism and that path, at least for the last several years, has included some incarnation or other of community. Many of us, in one way or other, have spent these days together, in one Shul or another, maybe just for Kol Nidre, maybe for all 25 hungry hours or maybe just for break fast.

But not this year. This year is not about community - at least not in the traditional sense. This year of medical plague and political pestilence has divided and isolated us from one another more than any time we remember or could have imagined. Already we’ve had more time than we could have imagined for self-reflection and internal examination. We were forced by a pandemic and mandated shutdowns to literally stop and sequester. So this year, it would be strange to act as we normally do, engage as we normally would with our community.

And yet, that is exactly what our tradition demands we do. We are commanded to honor these holy days as we and our forefathers have for tens of hundreds of years before. Certainly there have been hard times - harder than these - for those who have gone before us - years of holocaust and famine, pandemic and plague. Years when our very identity as Jews was our peril.

But this is not the year to worship as a community as we did last year or the year before because…Covid. The degree to which we all stay “Covid safe” depends on personal choice - some of us are almost wholly sequestered, still after six months, and some are more comfortable navigating the world through a mask and gloves. Some rely on testing, some on social distance, some on the safety of a social bubble. But no matter what our choice about how to approach the new normal, none of us can deny the anomaly of the moment. It is sobering and for some of us, a little sad. I will not be standing, with my community, singing with my eyes closed.

So what will I do?

There is nothing in the Torah that says you have to go to shul on Yom Kippur, nothing that mandates attending services. But there are parts of the liturgy - important parts - that require a minyan. And that led to conversations about what constitutes a minyan. Or rather who. Because we agreed pretty quickly that trees and squirrels don’t count. But do women? And even if we could agree (as I certainly feel we should) that women count for a minyan, could we find ten people that felt safe, that maybe agreed to a quarantine and testing protocol that would allow us to daven together? Could we find a lainer who would also adhere to the rules of our bubble? Round and round we went, first one idea, then another, none of them entirely satisfactory but each holding promise. Ultimately, the decision we made, Matti and I, is that we would acknowledge and surrender to the fact that this year is, indeed, different. And we would spend the holiday at home, safe in our bubble of two.

So what does it mean to spend the holiday at home, with nothing but one another and Kavanah? For me, it means that I will read through my Mahzor, say the prayers that I know, remember the melodies to the ones that I miss, reflect on the year that was and the year that will be. And what will I miss most? Besides just being with my community and hearing the sound of voices joined together in song? I will miss the melody of the Kol Nidre, the recitation of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, and the repetition of the Viduii, the Confessional that is said aloud only on this holiday.

What is special about confessing aloud? Its part of daily services on every other day of the year, albeit silent. What’s so special about standing in a group of people beating your chest? Why does it take a minyan to stand and beat our breasts and ask aloud for forgiveness for the things that we have done?

Not surprisingly, the text itself answers the question - not in a literal sense but symbolically. Because both the Al Chet and the Ashamnu are first person plural. We don’t stand and confess what “I” have done. We don’t ask forgiveness for our personal transgressions. And the text doesn’t assume that each of us is guilty for every single transgression listed in an alphabetical acrostic we can all recite from memory but may not stop to really think about. Matti and i use to joke that each strike of our breast and stanza of melody could be substituted with “I am bad, oh so bad”.

But that isn’t true. Because the text is not “I”. The text is “we’”. That we stand and confess together and beg forgiveness together is the ultimate expression of community and of our responsibility for and to one another. We don’t say “I didn’t commit this sin but I did commit that one.” And we don’t say “i didn’t sin in this way but that guy did.” Our tradition and the words of the liturgy suggest that we are not responsible only for our own actions but for the actions of our community. We don’t live in a world of “I” - we live in a world of “we”. And in a world of we, our actions have repercussions, maybe even beyond the small circles we imagine our community to be.

This is where liturgy meets life. Because what has struck me more than anything as we have navigated this virus, as we negotiate a new normal and try to remain vigilant while still moving forward, are the issues of trust and responsibility. More than ever, we are responsible to one another - for our health, for our safety, and for our continued connection to one another despite all obstacles.

Tis the season for platitudes - the time of year when we talk about repenting and renewing, cleansing our souls, making amends, being better. ‘Tis the season for singing with our eyes closed. And one of the beautiful things about singing with your eyes closed is that it allows you to connect not only with your breath and the sound of your own voice, but to hear it blend with those around you, sometimes in harmony and sometimes not. There are so many things dividing us right now - viruses and politics and fear - and I know that I struggle to hear and accept the notes I’m not always used to. But even the off notes are a gentle reminder that we are not alone in our actions and that each of our voices contributes to the collective for better and worse.

So this Yom Kippur, as we daven to zoom or spend time alone or in a small community we feel safe within, let’s think about not just about the cleansing our own souls but also about the deep connection and responsibility we have to one another and to the melody of our lives.

G’mar hatimah tova and I cant wait to sing with you all in person next year.