[Teachldsseminary] Chat: Yom Kippur

[Marji]

Another page for your book of understanding of Jewish ways.

Marji

Old Testament EM seminary teacher

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Ah Yes, I Remember Them Well 

On Yom Kippur, mourning the loved ones we knew and those we didn't. 

BY LUCETTE LAGNADO 

Friday, September 14, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT 

I have always loved the rituals of the Jewish High Holidays--hearing the
wail of the shofar, or ram's horn; chanting the ancient hymns; taking part
in the festive meal, punctuated by honey and sweet jam, to mark the New
Year. 

Still, it is the brief, sober service known as Yizkor--literally, "May God
remember"--that has come to affect me most. Recited on Yom Kippur, which
begins next Friday at sundown, Yizkor is the memorial prayer for the dead.
But unlike the Kaddish recited daily by a mourner, which never mentions the
person who has passed, Yizkor is an explicit expression of yearning for the
person lost and must include his name. 

"Yizkor is a personal time, when we reflect on our relationship with our
loved one," remarks Rabbi Rafael Konikov of Southampton, N.Y. While
recalling one's parents is mandatory, it is also possible to pray for a
grandparent, a favored aunt, a long-dead sibling. These days, many
synagogues use Yizkor to mourn the millions of Jews who perished in the
Holocaust (though the names of large groups of people don't all need to be
said). Recently, some rabbis have also been praying for victims of 9/11.
This year, some will pray for soldiers killed in Iraq. 

My own growing fascination with this 10-minute prayer coincides with the
burgeoning list of loved ones whose names I have come to invoke. Yizkor was
never a part of my upbringing; it is a European-Jewish tradition absent from
my Egyptian-Jewish childhood. Yizkor dates back to the Crusades, when
thousands of Jews were massacred in Europe. There were so many dead that
Jewish communities began keeping books listing the names of the victims,
according to Lawrence Hoffman, a professor of liturgy at Hebrew Union
College in New York. 

Yizkor evolved into multiple prayers and became more important as the
persecution of European Jews continued. These days, some congregations
showcase a separate Yizkor service while others fold Yizkor into the Day of
Atonement prayers. The Reform Movement, which often shortens prayers, made
Yizkor longer (45 minutes), Rabbi Hoffman says. Yizkor is said on other
holidays--Passover, for example. But it is a hallmark of Yom Kippur, where
questions of life and death are paramount. 

As synagogue attendance in America has dwindled, Yizkor has become perhaps
the last sure-fire way to draw a crowd. Some synagogues, like the Forest
Hills Jewish Center in New York, hold regular holiday services and Yizkor in
the main sanctuary for those with tickets, and rolling Yizkor prayers in a
small chapel for anyone walking off the street. There are lots of Jews who
won't attend even High Holiday services, but Yizkor still draws them:
"They're too alienated, but they have a nagging feeling they have to recite
Yizkor," says Rabbi Gerald Skolnik of Forest Hills. "It is about guilt--'I
can choose not to go to shul, but miss Yizkor? I won't be able to live with
myself,' " he explains. 

When I joined an Ashkenazi synagogue in Southampton, N.Y., a few years ago,
I was taken aback, on that first Yom Kippur, when I was handed a big
laminated card to help me follow the Yizkor service. It was a
fill-in-the-blank affair, containing blessings in both Hebrew and English.
The card indicated precisely when and where to insert a remembered person's
name as the rabbi chanted the blessings. 

I said only the blessings in memory of my parents that year. During Yizkor
the following year, my eyes drifted to the other relations on the laminated
card who could also be remembered. 

The only grandparent of mine who was alive by the time I was born was my
maternal grandmother, Alexandra. She left Egypt for Israel when I was a baby
and passed away a few years later, alone and lost in her new home. I never
met her, but through my mother's wistful stories, Alexandra of Alexandria
came alive--an enchanting, tragic woman born to great wealth yet so cosseted
that she was helpless, unable to cook or clean or keep house. "Why, she
couldn't comb her own hair," my mom loved to tell me as she brushed mine.
Alexandra possessed one talent--she could play the piano beautifully. As
beds were left unmade, my grandmother played and played. 

I had rarely thought of her as an adult. But during Yizkor a few years ago,
I decided to invoke her name. "May God remember the soul of my grandmother
Alexandra, who has gone on to her world because, without making a vow, I
shall give charity on her behalf," I prayed. 

There had also been her polar opposite, my Syrian grandmother, Zarifa. Truth
be told, my mom hadn't really liked her stern mother-in-law very much. My
father had adored her, putting off marriage until he was 42. Zarifa was a
wizard in the kitchen. Her secret was apricots, which she stuffed in rice,
in meats, in chicken, so that every dish had a sweetly tart flavor. Who
prayed for Zarifa now? And so, during another Yizkor, I thought of apricots
and added her name to my retinue. 

Another time, I glanced at the laminated card and stopped at the word
"sister." That is when I remembered Baby Alexandra, the sister I had never
known. She lived all of eight days, but my older siblings had described her
magnificent blue eyes, her fuzz of light brown hair, how she had smiled
before succumbing to typhoid fever. Baby Alexandra joined my roster of
Yizkor names. When my rabbi brought up the Holocaust, I thought of Aunt
Bahia--my father's sister, deported to Auschwitz with her husband and
daughter--and prayed. 

Seated in the sanctuary, clutching my laminated card, I named them, I
remembered them and I felt as if they were with me. 

Ms. Lagnado, a Journal reporter, is the author of the new memoir "The Man in
the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus From Old Cairo to the New
World" (Ecco). 

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