Yom Kippur

by Raphael Burdman

For me, the Day of Atonement means a remembrance. Eternal return. The sense of cycle. Links in the long chain of memory and myth that makes each of us unique. And all of us one. Sharing pain. And pleasure.

The haunting echoes of the Kol Nidre remind me of the sorrowful history of my people, family and self. The pogrom that took my father's father, the holocaust, the loss of my sister.

These led to a home with lots of tears. And little laughter. My only solace seemed to be temple --after temple I'd chant for hours-- and my sweetheart, whom I baby-talked, laughed and cried with for most of my late teens. Her family allowed me to fulfill my Jewish feelings more fully than my own. My parents seemed to want me to do it alone. Go to shul. Learn the liturgy. But not live it with them. A manic-depressive pogrom-scarred psyche who witnessed his father --after whom I was named-- being chopped to death by an axe, my father was usually too preoccupied with his pain to pay attention to the family's needs.

Though we kept kosher and my mother lit the Shabbos candles and went to the temple on the High Holidays, my father never understood how much yom tov joy meant to me. My sweetheart's parents, on the other hand, were immersed in it. And embraced me in their celebrations. As their daughter did in hers.

My sweetheart's parents were ultra-orthodox, they stayed in shul on Yom Kippur from morning to night. So, knowing we'd be safe, my sweetie and I hurried to her bedroom right after morning services. She was so loverly that when I first saw her naked, I cried and cried. As if all my people's, family's, and personal pain was being exorcised by her beauty.

We got back to temple just in time for the finale. That ram's horn sound seemed so similar to the noises we'd been making just an hour earlier, it confirmed our feeling that God must be inside all of us. We didn't necessarily need to go to shul every Shabbos or Yom Tov to celebrate being Jewish. Her folks were so fromm that, whenever their temple pulsated with prayer, the Lord in us could make love like Angels.

When I look back now, I realize that, not only did my teen sweetheart give me my initial --and still strongest-- taste of full affectionate erotic love, but her parents gave me my first fulfilling sense of family and immersion in the excitement of being Jewish. Though they might have been livid had they walked in on us, I know that they, in some way, knew the hanky panky that was going on between their daughter and myself. Her father even winked at me one time. Out of the blue. I've never figured out why. Maybe he was letting me know that he knew. But had to pretend that he didn't. Now my teenage sweetheart's mother is dead. And her father is in an institution with Alzheimer's.

Ah, memory. The pleasure often becomes pain. While the pain rarely turns into its opposite. Life can be sad. It's hard to avoid and forget its woes. But if we don't remember, live and celebrate the joy, we're missing fifty percent of what God gave --and gives-- us.

Being Jewish means the ability to mix laughter with tears. So, this New Year's, we should all resolve to laugh as hard as we cry. Inside and out. Shana Tova.

—from our September 1993 Newsletter

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