Yom Kippur is ending.

Being neither Israeli nor Jewish, the Hebrew holidays are a complete mystery to me, and rather than looking them up on wikipedia or something, I am trying to form my own personal understanding of them.

Yom Kippur started yesterday evening and will end tonight. Unless I’ve misunderstood, the Hebrew days begin when the sun sets and then end at the following sunset.

As far as I’ve been able to figure out, Yom Kippur is a day of repentance and forgiveness. People apologize to their friends and those they feel they have wronged, and many go to synagogues to pray. The ultra-orthodox even stay the whole night at the synagogue and do not emerge until the following day.

It is also a day of fasting. Many people neither drink nor eat anything. It is not only a religious thing - many people who are not religious do this simply as a personal memorial dedicated to someone who did, or as a ‘detox’ to cleanse themselves.

On Yom Kippur, no one drives. All Israeli TV and radio channels also stop broadcasting. Except for the fighter planes thundering overhead last night for 20 minutes due to a false alarm, it has been a very quiet holiday.

Yesterday, I experienced a service in a synagogue for the first time in my life. The first thing that hit me was the “blankness” of the inside of the synagogue. Apparently all the Jewish synagogues of European descent are like this.

From outside, the building could have been a small Finnish school. Inside, the stark white walls, the tube lights, the air conditioning in every window gave the impression that the architect was really just going for a functional building.

If you are completely unfamiliar with synagogues, it might also come as a surprise for you that the men and women are segregated. The men use the front entrance and enter a large, sparsely decorated room.

The women use the back entrance and enter a small, completely undecorated room which is divided from the mens’ side with a little dividing wall which does not go all the way up to the roof.
There was a thin lace curtain and a wooden divider between the two sections which was rather effective at blocking the view but still offered us women a general glance at what is going on on the other side. I was able to make out the ten commandments on two slabs above what I think may have been an altar as well as some scriptures or pieces of text on frames.

This was a disappointment to me, because generally in churches, I enjoy looking at all the architectural elements, or at least the artwork.

On Yom Kippur, most people came dressed in white, or wearing white to represent cleansing and purity. Many of the married women wore lace scarves over their hair, and all the men had their cute little yamacas clipped to their hair with little hairclips.
Some of the younger girls came in all white, but wearing disturbingly skin-tight outfits and deep cleavage.
A few people, like me, just came in dresses and skirts-shirt combinations in varied colors that covered their shoulders and knees.
In other words, people were mostly dressed respectfully, but were not necessarily toting their “Sunday best”.

The second thing that hit me was how noisy the synagogue was. In churches, there is almost always a hushed atmosphere. People murmur, whisper, and generally try to make themselves as quiet as a mouse.
The synagogue was more relaxed. Before the ceremony began, people were chatting, talking quite loudly and happily. And even during the service, people were whispering and murmuring constantly. I was uncomfortable with this because I have become so used to churches.

Third, before any prayers were spoken, the rabbi held an auction. The tora was brought out and auctioned off for over 1000 shekels. (Over 180€ or $256). I don’t know if this was only symbolic, or if it’s a means of charity, because as soon as the prayers were done, the torah was put back where it belonged. Unfortunately, the view I was provided with did not allow me to see where this is.

The prayers were something unusual. In the Christian churches I’ve been to, everyone is given a psalm book from where prayers are sung. These prayers have specific melodies and notes that say exactly how to sing them.
The synagogue had a book with a prayer in it which the cantor on the mens’ side sang. I don’t know if it was his own melody, but he had a very good voice. It almost sounded like an opera, or a gregorian chant solo without the ominous atmosphere they usually come with.

The one negative thing is that somehow, he managed to extend one page of text in a large font into something that felt like it went on for ten minutes. This was mainly due to the fact he had to repeat everything three times. He also enjoyed putting in a lot of aa-aa-aaaaa-aa-aaaa:ing through different scales at regular intervals.
Every now and then, at previously determined moments, all of the mens’ side would burst into a warbling, burbling of prayers, all in personal melodies and rhythms, and then abruptly fall quiet again while the cantor continued. It was a little like the warm-up of instruments before a classical concert begins in earnest.

The wooden pews were not very comfortable (they were in fact extremely church-like in their comfort level), and all of us were atheists anyway, so after this first, main prayer, we all left and started walking home again.

Children and dogs were equally excited at the lack of traffic. The dogs bounded around, barking like mad, and the children rolled around on bikes, trikes, skateboards with only two wheels, and rollerblades.