Georgia day 4

September 29

Today was the first day of Rosh Hashanah.

We ate breakfast and got ourselves organized for this special Holy Day with anticipation. Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan left in their car shortly after we left in our van. We had our invitation to the services with us and knew the address of the Jewish Community Center where the services would take place. The GPS was already programmed and all was in order. The route we took led us past an orthodox synagogue and we easily identified the people walking along the sidewalk toward it as fellow Jews on their way to praying for atonement on this solemn occasion. We reached the parking lot and waited in line behind the other vehicles; then, when our turn arrived, we presented our invitation and were waved right in. We were pleased to see the level of security at the gate, but a little surprised that we were asked no questions, as we might have been had we been in Israel.

I dropped Razelle off by the entrance and found a parking space in the secondary parking lot because the primary lot was already full. It was a bright sunny autumn day with crispness in the air and a tinge of color in the foliage of the trees. I locked up and secured the van and followed the others walking toward the building to find that Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan were approaching the entrance too. We had brought prayer books with us but inside we found a large stack of them available on the table. We found Razelle waiting for us in the lobby. Uncle Sandy led us all to seats half way to the stage. Most of the closer seats were already occupied. We had arrived in time for the Torah reading, during which the name of own city of residence – Beer Sheva – is mentioned. Every year, my mother at this point in the Torah reading would proudly remark to whoever was sitting beside her, "Beer-Sheva – that's where my son lives."

The sermon was delivered by Rabbi Analia Bortz, who we had met on Tuesday at the Torah study group. It was a rather long sermon, with a powerful message and many, many good points; perhaps too many of them. After the Torah was returned to the ark it was time for the Musaf service and the blowing of the shofar. The man who blew the shofar sounded very competent. His execution was not quite the way I was taught it should be done, but he was perfectly consistent with the way he did it. This congregation does it differently than my congregation in Beer Sheva does it. Halfway through the series of blasts there was a set of responsive prayers, led alternately by each of the rabbis in turn; then the remaining series of shofar blasts were sounded, culminating in a long "tekiya gedola" that was perhaps 15 seconds long. Razelle and I exchanged glances. We couldn't help but compare his shofar blowing to my own. We continued to pray the rest of the service and I expected it to be punctuated with more shofar blasts, as we do it in Beer Sheva, but these were saved to the end and completed with one more final long blast exactly as long as the previous one. Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan excused themselves before the end because the service had gone on far past the scheduled time and guests were expected for lunch at their home. Many others began filtering out by this point and Razelle indicated that she would like to leave too before the end. I went back to the van and drove up to the entrance to collect her.

At my uncle and aunts place we found the table set and soon their three guests arrived. These were our hosts from last night and our hostess's mother, now being hosted in reciprocation by Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy. Once again the food was delicious and the conversation was congenial.

After our guests left we took the opportunity to rest for a while. In the last waning hour of sunlight, Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy and I walked down the street to the bridge over the brook that passes through their community. On this bridge we recited the prayer for the "Tashlich" service; then we tossed bits of bread into the brook below, to symbolically cast away our sins into the water that would take them away. We watched the bits of bread float away on the water's surface, and I remarked that the best kind of bread to use for casting away our sins would ideally be cinnamon ("sin"-amon) bread.

The rest of the evening was spent quietly. It had been a meaningful day of reflection. We were pleased that we could spend it with the congregation we chose to be with for this holy day.