Two rows up, back section, aisle seat, left side of the room facing forward.
That's my seat. My seat. Not yours. Mine. When I go inside. When I attend. I never do.
When I go, I do so to watch. I enter because I feel guilty. I attend because I'm supposed to support a friend. The room feels cavernous and empty. It is quite, it is cold. The light is blinding - too bright.
So I sit. And I stare. And I wait. Wait for the end.
Sounds like amcha...
Every High Holiday season we discuss, anew, the idea of tshuva - repentance, return, renewal. We speak of it in English as if it is the act of gaining forgiveness for our sins, of being cleared of our wrongdoing as if we were Catholic and had just done penance.
Sorry, no such concept here...
Tshuva, literally "return," is about turning one's ways around and going back to a Godly way of living. When we seek tshuva, we go back. We return to a better way of life. We try again.
Today I tried again. I made tshuva.
מה טובו אוהליך יעקוב...
I walked into the HUC chapel anew, this time, for the first time in a year, ready to pray. I had ignored the space for a year for many reasons: I was lazy, I was busy, I was preoccupied. Mostly, I hated tefilah at HUC. Period.
I chose to display my dissatisfaction by ignoring the problem. That is one way...
Another means of protest is active engagement. So today I chose that.
Protesting performance and prayer-less prayer by not going was wrong. It runs contrary to everything I believe in. I spend my time encouraging Jews to develop a relationship with prayer and, when they don't like how that prayer is being actualized, to work to change it, either overtly or just for themselves.
So you don't like the experience? Then find your corner and make it work for you there. Do what you want. Go at your own pace. But join the community and pray.
So I'll stop being a hypocrite. I've found my own new corner in the HUC chapel. No longer will I enter and head for the second row in the back section, left side, aisle. I'll be closer to the front, right side, far wall. My own section. I'll have a personal mechitza, from behind which I pray as I want.
This Elul, let us all figure out a way to do tshuva and open ourselves to constructively re-entering all the communities that we have intentionally separated ourselves from. Actively engage. Show a different way.
Don't be a hypocrite.
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