This year Rosh HaShanah was on a Friday so we went to services as usual and after a Shabbat of rest it wasn’t too difficult to convince my husband to wake up for the 9 am service on the second morning. The service is longer than the usual, at just over 3 hours, and by the end we were more than ready for our lunch. However our patience was rewarded with the sounding of the Shofar (Ram’s Horn).
For me the songs of Rosh HaShanah have a vague childhood familiarity. This is not the comfortable familiarity I have with the prayers from Kabalat Shabbat, where I find the tunes gliding into my mind during mid-week daydreams.
My remembrance of the High Holiday tunes comes from when we lived in England, too far from the synagogue to visit every Friday - an ordinary working day.
Although I attended Sunday school and understood the elements and history of the holidays I had little grasp of the order of the ceremonies and prayers. During services I often felt lost and alone – my father in the man’s section, my mother at home and my few Sunday school friends with their families. As I struggled to follow the text the heartrending harmonies of ‘Avinu Malkenu’ and 'Adon Haslichot’ were a beautiful mirage in a desert of confusion.
Now I speak fluent Hebrew and regular synagogue attendance has made following the service second nature. The biblical Hebrew that still confounds me is explained by my Israeli husband and the lovely voice of our cantoress guides us through the Holiday harmonies with pleasure and confidence.
When I look around I am surrounded not only by my family but also by familiar faces many of them belonging to my closest friends.
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