5759

Personal Travails
Of New Year Services

TERESA STRASSER

Special to The Jewish News

36

From

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(248) 557-0109

Alicia R. Nelson

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Customers, Families
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NEW YEAR!

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IN ORCHARD MALL • ORCHARD LAKE RD. AT MAPLE • 855-8818

A Very Happy and Healthy
New Year to All Our
Friends and Family.

9/18
1998

R50 Detroit Jewish News

EDMUND FRANK & CO.

ooking back on 20 years of
attending High Holidays ser-
vices, I recall that in:
* 1978: My mother
decides to take us to synagogue for the
first time. I am wearing scratchy tights
with a hand-me-down dress and
patent leather shoes.
My brother and I have no idea
what's going on. We sneak out to go
to the bathroom and become
embroiled in an intense dodge-ball
game in a nearby alley, where I ditch
the white rights to achieve full mobili-
tY.
When we return to our seats, we
look awful. We have
also missed something
called Kol Nidre. This
makes our mother cry
and gaze longingly at
other people's children.
*1983: I have
become aware of the
simple fact that most
of the
congregation's mem-
bers are rich and we
are poor. I deduce this not only from
the horrible sight of our bruised and
rusting Datsun among the BMWs in
the parking lot, but also from our
seats in the far reaches of the balcony,
from which our rabbi is just a tiny
speck with a low, vibrating voice.
When I ask my mother if we can
park around the corner, she cries —
not unlike after the dodge-ball inci-
dent — and gives me some lecture on
how we have things you can't buy,
blah, blah, blah.
'1986: Puberty has made me very
angry. How absurd that I should have
to put on some ridiculous Gunne Sax
outfit and pray among the bour-
geoisie! I start referring to our syna-
gogue as Temple Giorgio, based on
the expensive perfume that was so
popular at services that year.
Secretly, I'm moved by the sermon,
the talk of forgiveness, the music. But
I've mixed up the religious content
with the whole experience and it just
makes me want to go out and smoke
one of my Benson & Hedges Menthol
Ultra Light cigarettes in the alley.
But I have learned one thing. This
time, I make it back to my seat in

time for Kol Nidre. This time, it's the
smell of cigarette smoke that makes
my mother cry.
*1991: I'm away at college. I hear
on the news that it's "the holiest day
of the year for the Jewish people."
How did I miss it? I don't have any
idea where to find services so late in
the game. I feel more left out than I
did at Temple Giorgio. I vow never to
miss services again.
*1992: Miss services, again. This
time, I figure, who needs them? I can
do the whole fasting/forgiveness thing
from the comfort of my own home.
But it's not really the same.
*1993: Can't afford services. Free
services at a local college are more
than an hour away I stay home.
"1996: My
boyfriend has just left
me and I'm set on
staying home to see
what's going to hap-
pen with the televi-
sion show "Dr.
Quinn, Medicine
Woman." My best
friend Lesley, the
most sentimental
human being on the
planer, convinces me to go to services
with her. She wants to "bond." She
thinks it will be good for me.
During Kol Nidre, she cries harder
than she did during the movie The
Bridges of Madison County.
The rabbi talks about how the
world can be a lonely place. I lean
over and tell Lesley, "Yeah, I know.
That's why the Beatles wrote 'Eleanor
Rigby.'" It's not that funny, but she
starts laughing. Our whole aisle starts
to giggle.
Outside after services, Lesley's fix-
ing her mascara as we navigate our
way through the crowds. I start think-
ing about being part of a community,
about not being alone, about the
smallness of my everyday problems
compared to the huge history of my
people. I start having what might be
considered a spiritual experience.
Then I realize I'm just really hungry.
*1998: I'm in a new city again and
I don't know if I want to go to
services alone, plaintively humming
"Eleanor Rigby." In a way, it doesn't
matter. Feeling guilty for not going,
going and playing dodge ball, going
and giggling, going and feeling
inspired, going and feeling alone, it's
all part of the same experience.
Whether I pray or not, Yom
Kippur always reminds me who I
am. [II

We missed
something

called Kol
Nidre.

Teresa Strasser is a 20-something

writer and performer living in Los
Angeles. She wrote this column for the
Jewish Telegraph. ic Agency

c_\

