Selicot Services

I just returned from Selichot Services at Adat Shalom. This is the temple that all the kids grew up in. We've been members for over thirty years. Long enough to have bought and paid for permanent seats!. Over the years I have acquired many "ghosts", people who no longer are with us but who are present in my memory bank. Mr. Halperin, who fought in the Russian Army as a cavalry officer even though he had never been on a horse, Irving Emmer founder of the synagogue and an ardent Zionist, who could not accept the definition of West Bank. Mr. Hecht who called me Matta, Max Alper. artist, quiet soul who was fighter in the 48 War. These were people who were part of the "village " that raised the children of the congregation. They scolded the kids when they ran around, smiled at them and fed them a cookie at the kiddush table. Judah loved to go to Shul. Of times more for the fun of ducking out of services than sitting in them. Other "ghosts: are my mother, her twin sister Sylvia and her Harry, Anna and her Abe, Judy and our Harry, Bobbie Edis, my mother in law Esther, and father in law Dave, Yankel, Sadie, Dora, Gilbert and Josephine. My mother would say, "you think of the dead more frequently than you do of the living". I did not understand that until losses started to mount up for me. Seymour and Judah are not "Ghosts" yet, for they are still auras around me, near me surrounding me, they still inform every aspect of my being and are part of my daily living. To night at services, I sat with Judah as we did last year year and the year before that. His smile, hand lifting to place his kippah on his head, his unhurried manner all were before me. It was hard to sit though the service this year, the premises of the liturgy did not speak to me, and I was unmoved by the prayers. When I left the moon was like a watermelon slice in the sky, the night getting a bit misty as is common in Cheviot Hills in the evening. As I pulled the car up to the curb pretty much lost in sad and deep thoughts the headlights caught something moving in the bushes in front of the house. Would you believe that a small cotton tail bunny was hoping around in the plants. It made me laugh out loud, think of Judah, and say thank you for small miracles.