L'Shanah Tovah
So it's a couple of hours before Yom Tov, and I've done everything from tech-support for my brother (he has a dead sexy new Vaio), Sainsbury's with my Mum, salad preparation and I have a manicure booked for 4pm. Ah, the suburban life. I bumped into a couple of people I knew on the train - the Rosh Hashanah express, it's called - and because most people, wherever they live now, come home for at least one day of New Year, I know that synagogue tomorrow is going to be just as much about seeing/being seen as spirituality. And it can get a little competitive; who's got a great job/house/wife/boyfriend/children. But it's still no-place-like-home in a Wizard of Oz way.
And I should tell you, if you didn't already know, that New Year is not like parties and getting pissed. It's family and eating, and very probably arguing... more like the Christmas experience some of my friends have. In my first job, I remember taking time of for New Year, and when colleagues asked about the parties and drinking, I said "no, it's more like eating. A lot." So when it got to Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement, ten days later) they were all primed: what's the food this time? "No", I explained, "this is a fast day."
"Oh, like a diet after all that eating?"
Not exactly, but it works on some level. It's more like you're concentrating on the praying, so food would be a distraction. But when it got to Succot (Tabernacles) the week following that, I just didn't have the guts to explain that you live in a small hut in the garden where you are supposed to be able to see the stars through the roof, and you wave palm leaves around. Because, that just sounds barking, doesn't it?
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