Jewish Identity in the Back of the Room

For the first time in nearly 20 years, I sat with the rest of the congregation for Rosh Hashanah services instead of my usual perch up front where the action is, with the Cantor and choir. With a switch this year to the engaging new machzor from the Conservative movement, Machzor Lev Shalem, our hazzan, Cantor Eugene Rosner, also introduced new music. I had a heavy travel schedule, missed the rehearsals, and felt unprepared to fully participate. So I sat this year out, and spent my time in the back of the sanctuary, (waaaayyyyy back), where my husband and sons always plant themselves.

How we experience prayer is as much what is happening in the service as where it happens. There is an old joke about a new person taking a seat in the nearly empty synagogue and, expecting a warm welcome, is surprised when a man comes up to him and says, "You're in my seat." It makes us laugh at how unwelcoming we can be precisely because our physical places are so important to our prayer experience. Maimonides (Law of Prayer 5:6) said that one should have a fixed place for prayer, and when we look around a sanctuary and can predict where people will be because that's where they have always been, we see that wisdom in action.

My shul, Temple Beth Hillel/Beth El, has always had an egalitarian High Holiday policy: the seats up front are taken by the people who get there first. (That's one reason why my family, often the last to straggle in, happily sat on the air conditioning units on the back wall for a number of years.)  The families that are not sending their kids to the children's services sit back there.

My prayer experience in the back of the room was certainly different this year. Ruined, maybe. There was too much to watch: People coming in, going out, re-connecting with old friends. One family brought bags of Cheerios and books to keep three children occupied, and the victorious look on the oldest son's face as he triumphantly settled on Dad's lap after his two sisters were banished, (presumably to the children's services) was unforgettable.

I found myself asking my 24-year old son, sitting next to me, "Did you guys do that to Dad?" He smiled and nodded.  "Is it usually this hard to hear Rabbi Cooper?" "Does the choir really sound like that every year?" He shrugged and whispered, "Sometimes. Maybe. I don't know. We never paid that much attention."

On our walk back home after services, my husband and son talked about Rosh Hashanah in the back of the room. Their memories were not about prayer or sermons, singing or spirituality. They were about being with each other. I realized that their fixed seats were purposefully out of the sphere of what they perceived as the "real" service up front. Getting there late was as important to them as getting there at all. Their experience with each other laid down memories and feelings that were more powerful than what the rabbi and cantor could accomplish.

My son said, "I can't tell you what it is about Beth Hillel. I know that I hated going to services as a kid. We had to be dragged there. I don't remember much about what happened; I just have this general warm feeling that I can't explain. Every time I go back now, even though it's only at High Holidays, I feel like I'm home."

I didn't go too far down the road with my son about how much more went in to building his Jewish memories - the regular Shabbat dinners, seders, sukkah-building, Hanuka celebrations. These were part of my memories, and the conscious effort I made to create a Jewish home for my children. In that moment, his memories were of sitting on an air conditioning unit in the back of the sanctuary next to his dad, stealing his brother's Cheerios.

I have to thank my husband for all those years he sat with our kids while I sang with the choir. I will apologize for the times I made fun of him for getting there "late." Jewish identity can be forged in the back of the room as well as in the front.