a new year

[calimac]

At Rosh Hashanah, we pray for a good year to come. Last year we - my mother and I, who always attended services together - didn't get one. That was just about the time she began getting ill, though she wasn't to be diagnosed for some months to come. Now was the first time I've gone to High Holy Days at our home congregation without her. It felt very different, only in part because I sat in a different place. I went with friends whose daughter is in the chorus, so we sat up front on the left to be near them, whereas my mother preferred to be in back on the right, to be near the ladies' room, always her favorite vicinity in any venue. In place of the usual young male assistant rabbi who begins his sermons by talking about sports, this year we had a young male assistant rabbi who began his sermon by talking about Apple - it takes all kinds - before executing this vertiginous, but typically clerical, segue, from personally faunching after the latest iphone to saying how wonderful it would be if we'd faunch after nurturing our souls instead.

I also decided to attend this year Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as that is when the plaques on our memorial wall are annually dedicated. My mother's plaque is already there, as is that of her (and my) friend who died not long afterwards. Their names were read, and they came adjacent alphabetically. They were read by the rabbi whom we'd made the funeral arrangements with, and I spoke with her briefly afterwards.

In secular matters - we're watching season 2 of Orphan Black on DVD. You know, having a character left for dead suddenly turn out not only to be alive, but stalking for vengeance, is not a trick you should pull twice in the same episode.

And I've been reading through the memoirs of J.C.C. Davidson, an obscure but entertaining politician who really gives the underside view of British politics in the 1910s-30s. For instance, do you know how the British government officially informed its colonies that they were at war in 1914? A rather important message, you'd think. The ultimatum to Germany expired at 11 p.m. The Colonial Secretary had gone home to bed, leaving Davidson, then the chief clerk, in charge with instructions not to do anything without checking with the Foreign Office first. So at 11, Davidson walked over to the Foreign Office and confirmed with their chief clerk that nothing had been heard from the Germans, so he then proceeded down Whitehall, threading through the crowds gathered for news, to the post office, where he handed over a sheaf of telegrams to the clerk, who took them without a word. Then he headed back to the Colonial Office to wait for the replies to come in. It wouldn't make much of a dramatic scene in a movie.

Comments

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you sat in a different place at synagogue - don't know whether you are aware that during the year of mourning, regular synagogue attendees are actually supposed to sit in a place other than their accustomed seat so as to indicate some change in their personal status.

As for the memorial plaques, don't know whether your synagogue has the lightbulbs next to them that are lit on a yahrtzeit as some synagogues do, but one of my favorite anecdotes ever was a rabbi friend of mine who took a group of non-Jewish teenagers on a tour of his synagogue for a class they were taking. When he showed them the memorial plaques with the lights next to them, he asked them what they thought it was. One of them guessed that perhaps it was a switchboard :->

May your mother's memory continue to be for a blessing.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Didn't know that.

Didn't know that, either. Our plaques are on an outside wall, so some lights might have been a good idea, especially as it was dark by the time we went outside. (It always is: I've been to this before.) It was the regular order of Shabbat service, until time came for Kaddish, at which point we all went outside and resumed in front of the plaques.

Thank you - and oh, I have some news related to that. Later, though.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Yet another reminder that one shouldn't make assumptions: when I was growing up, most shuls had a yahrzeit memorial board where you bought an individual plaque and when it was the person's yahrzeit, the shul would light the bulb next to the plaque. On holidays with Yizkor, the whole board would be lit.