Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin

Yom Kippur as Manifest in

an Approaching Dorsal Fin

Yom Kippur

as Manifest in an

Approaching

Dorsal Fin

Adam Byrn Tritt

SMITHCRAFT

P R E S S

Copyright © 2013 by Adam Byrn Tritt. All rights

reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

“Burial,” p. 29, was previously published in the author’s
The Phoenix and the Dragon: Poems of the Alchemical
Transformation
(Smithcraft Press, 2007).

ISBN 978-1-62927-001-2

Smithcraft Press

1921 Michels Drive NE

Palm Bay, FL 32905

www.SmithcraftPress.com

Contents

Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii 3:10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Yom Kippur as Manifest in

an Approaching Dorsal Fin . . . . . . 3

Burial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Funeral, Expurgated . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Passover and the

Industrial Revolution. . . . . . . . . 85

The Harmony of Broken Glass . . . . . 93

Fifty Years. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

Yahrzeit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115

What Do Jews Do on Christmas? . . 147

About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . .151

v

and to my family,

especially the ones who

no longer talk to me,

because it is from them

that I have learned the most.

vii

3:10

It is 3:10 am

And I’m

Wrestling with Hashem

Over matters of love

And propriety,

Over poetry

And the small matter

Of whether he exists.

Hashem states

It is if little consequence

And I say, Hashem,

People fight and die,

Live, love, kill and

Become kind

In your name

And Hashem argues

Atheists do the same

But are, at least,

Honest in their motives.

1

Yom Kippur

as Manifest in an

Approaching

Dorsal Fin

It is Yom Kippur. A Monday. I have taken

the day off work to walk, meditate, think.

I have taken the day off work so I could

go to temple the night before and not worry

about the time, the hour, how late it was get-

ting, when I would need to get up.

We asked our friends to go with us. In our

back yard, playing with clay, our conversa-

tion set on cognates and religion. I men-

tioned the Buddha of compassion, Amitabha,

and the other name for him, Amida. How

the Amidah is the name of a prayer of com-

passion during Yom Kippur. How it relates

to the fruit, almonds, as the ancient Hebrews

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Adam Byrn Tritt

saw the almond as a symbol for watchful-

ness, promises, and redemption. How the

part of the brain which we know to be the

seat of our ability to see things in a global,

compassionate way is called the amygdala,

from the Greek
amugdalē
, meaning almond.

Craig started talking about the Kol Nidre

prayer and, being Craig, translated it for us

and we sat, transfixed, as often we do listen-

ing to Craig. Lee, Evanne, Beth, and I, listen-

ing to Craig.

Of course we listen to Craig. He, translator

of dead languages. He, who juggles biblical

text back and forth from language to lan-

guage, from meaning to meaning as if the pas-

sages are but palm-sized bean bags. He, of

three books of translations. Yes, we listen

when he speaks.

As we talked, we discovered he had never

been to temple, had never actually listened

to the Kol Nidre. Neither had Beth, nor

Evanne—and that, of course, was not a sur-

prise, growing up in the Midwest: Ohio and

Nebraska, Methodist. Right then, we asked

if they’d like to go with us this Yom Kippur,

4

Yom Kippur as Manifest . . .

to the Kol Nidre service: the only one we

go to.

They were surprised. Craig said he was hon-

ored. Evanne agreed with a clear look of shock

on her face. Beth asked if we’re sure it was

OK and told us how special it was to be asked,

how appreciated it was.

That was months ago. We asked the small,

local temple if we could come and bring three

guests. No problem. May we have their

names, and do they have any departed they

would like Yizkor candles for? Yes. We were

set to go.

Erev Yom Kippur arrives. Lee is under the

weather and cannot go. She asks that I go any-

way and I resist but she does not want to dis-

appoint our friends.

Evanne worries whether she should have

her hair covered. Beth is concerned she looks

like “a goy.” Lee tells her, jokingly, that she

should proudly announce she is a shiksa. I

suggest against it and let them know it is an

honor that they are going and the congrega-

tion would be overjoyed they are there.

They are worried. No need to dress well,

not for this congregation. But they do, and

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Adam Byrn Tritt

Beth’s high heels put her so high above me she

has to bend over and I must tip myself up on

my toes to kiss her on the cheek.

Both wear black, notice their shoes are

made of leather, and point out they have worn

black once they discover the color of the holy

day is white. No one will be following all these rules. No one will notice.

Evanne, married, wears a scarf on her head,

long and flowing, tied into her hair, nearly as

long, nearly to her thighs. She could be Golda

and Tevye’s shorter, forgotten daughter. She

could be from the shtetle. No one will guess

she isn’t Jewish. Beth actually looks Jewish

and no one tells her this. How to explain what

that looks like?

Craig fits in perfectly but is wearing shoes

for the first time in, perhaps, more than a year.

I offer him one of my tallit (prayer shawls)

and a kipa I think will fit him well, gold and

silver. He tells me again he is honored to be

invited and I am privileged to give him my

tallis to wear.

We arrive, are greeted, take prayer books,

and I search for a large print version, find one, enter, find a place in the pews close to the

6

Yom Kippur as Manifest . . .

front. Myself, Evanne, Beth, and Craig. I leave

space to my right, where Lee would sit, where

I would be able to see her.

We talk, discuss translation, Craig notices

the Kol Nidre in the prayer book is not trans-

lated literally and, a game of telephone, shows

me the text clues by showing Beth who shows

Evanne who shows me, differences in font,

serif versus sans serif, that tell a careful reader what is a translation and what is a

paraphrase.

This congregation, Mateh Chaim, has as

yet no home. And yet we have been welcomed

even though we swell their ranks and the

available room. Even though there are non-

Jews among us who need not be here. The

congregation is growing and hopes to have a

home, but there is, in thoughtful congrega-

tions, a balance between the need for a build-

ing and the needs of community: the under-

standing that an edifice takes money which

many of the people here tonight don’t have.

It is the only congregation in Palm Bay. It

meets tonight in a Methodist church. Behind

the portable ark, containing the Torah, is a

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Adam Byrn Tritt

twenty-foot cross. It is not the building that

makes a congregation.

I do not mind this so much. We talk, qui-

etly, as we would before any service. Evanne

tells us she is glad to see me misbehaving as

usual as it puts her at ease.

“Misbehaving?” I ask. She answers I have

said “ass” twice since sitting down in the pews.

She says it like this: “You said a-$-$ twice

since sitting your a-$-$ down.” Silly. Anglo

Saxon not allowed for a Methodist?

I think, momentarily, of our Yom Kippur

in North Carolina. We were alone. No one

around us had an understanding. I listened

to Kol Nidre on Internet radio.

Joel Fleishman had a similar experience on

the television program
Northern Exposure
in an episode called “Shofar, So Good” (1994)

when, on Yom Kippur, he was visited by

Rabbi Schulman. Our program opens with

Joel, physician to Cicely, Alaska, carbo-load-

ing in preparation for his day of fasting. He

is attempting to explain Yom Kippur to the

ever-interested residents as they eat at the

Brick, the inn and tavern, and has little suc-

cess. This is mostly because he has only a ten-

8

Yom Kippur as Manifest . . .

uous, superficial understanding himself. He

knows the words, he knows the rules and pro-

scriptions, takes care to keep the fast, not

wash, not to care for personal convenience,

to give the day up to feeling keenly, sharply

one’s place in the world and relationship to

God and our fellows. He sees the holiday as

a noun with a set of rules, not a verb with a

set of tools. To Joel, it is no longer a living tradition, and he does not know what to do with

it. On top of this, he is lonely for those who

know his tradition.

Our Good Doctor Joel, while in the midst

of his fast, was visited by the Good Rabbi

Schulman who, as surprised as Joel, was lifted

by a shaft of light and deposited in Cicely to

help Joel understand what Yom Kippur is

really about, and Dr. Fleishman begins the

process of making amends. It is a journey, a

Hebrew Dickensian vision quest, which starts

with the Good Rabbi occupying the space of

the top head of a totem pole. Jews, after all,

are tribal too.

Not too surprisingly, the characters on the

show who understand Yom Kippur best are

the shamans.

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Adam Byrn Tritt

But I am not alone and I revel in this. Craig

tells us the history of the Kol Nidre. The

actual translation, the “Kol Nidre contro-

versy” surrounding just what the proper place

and ramification of the prayer is.

Kol nidre
means “all vows,” and it absolves us of vows and promises made that we needed

to make to survive but knew were wrong. It

apologizes and gives release from the many

times we said Yes when we wanted to say No,

but did not because our jobs, food on the

table, roofs over our heads, our safety, our

security meant we had to say one thing, do

one thing, when another was what we knew

was proper.

He explains, my teaching middle school is

my Kol Nidre. My giving grades, requiring

students to do what they have no desire to,

that is my Kol Nidre. When I teach them to

pass a test when they want to learn creativ-

ity, that is my Kol Nidre. When I do that

which I must to put bring food and security,

when I do not call those around me on their