2002-09-06 - 20:57
do not even the Gentiles do the same?

As most of you ought to know, Rosh Hashannah, the start of the Jewish new year, began at sundown today. The campus Jewish student group held a Rosh Hashannah dinner this evening at six, widely advertised around campus with an emphatic "Everyone Welcome!" on each hand-lettered sign.

Free food and spiritual renewal. Plus, a place bearing the legend "Everyone Welcome!" with a lot of people present whose acquaintance I had yet to make. I went.

I have always loved the ethic behind Jewish holidays, especially Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur. I'm very attracted to the idea of renewal and atonement expressed in a concrete and real-world way, as opposed to traditions like the Catholic confessional, where you go sit in a compartment and talk to God's assistant and get cleansed that way. It seems much more real to get together and break bread with members of your community (whether you've met them before tonight or not) and talk about your hopes for the new year. It seems more real to seek atonement in the Jewish tradition: On Erev Yom Kippur (the eve of Yom Kippur, natch), you go to the people to whom you feel you've done wrong and ask *their* forgiveness, and then on Yom Kippur, you ask God for forgiveness for your sins against Him. And this is the thing, as I understand it: If you did some harm to someone, that person is the only one who can grant you forgiveness for it. Nobody else can do that, *not even God.* You can go to Him and say, "Gee, God, I'm most heartily sorry I said those things to my son, and I wish to be forgiven" and He's just like, "Whatever, go talk to your kid, I ain't gonna bail you out of this."

I think that makes a lot more sense.

I love the idea of the Shabbat. You take yourself out of the world for a day, read a book, go for a walk, have a meal with the people you love, sing some songs and remind yourself that there are things in life besides what you do with your weekdays. I'd like to do something like that with my life, and I think I'll try this year.

This year, Rosh Hashannah fell on the Shabbat, so there were extra prayers to be said and sung. I mostly did not participate in the prayers, being a non-believer, but I did sing "Shabbat Shalom" when it came around, since I can't think of anything objectionable about wishing people a good Shabbat. (I did go around all day wishing my Jewish friends a happy new year, after all.) The young gentleman leading the prayers was someone I knew from a Poli Sci class last year, and he was a little self-conscious about his singing ability or lack thereof; it was very cute. There was a lot of warm laughter among the company and personal asides made by those who were leading the proceedings.

After dinner, there was dancing, but I didn't participate because I was talking to new people I'd met. Among the people I met there was someone I'd actually known four years ago. She introduced me to a freshman that I'd been instructed to befriend, but the instruction had come from someone who left Portland before he could introduce me to this person, so I'd been wondering how to find him, and there he was. Great kid. We talked about the high school we both went to, and how much more it sucks now. After he left, I talked to another guy from his table (someone I'd never met) about student politics, drug policy, peace activism and Catullus. Eventually he had to go, and I took off soon after, since the remainder of the people there had pretty much gelled into an impromptu meeting of the Jewish student organization and the dancing was over.

I'm still not interested in having God in my life, but I do meet the most interesting people at His parties.

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