Post YK musings
Sep. 22nd, 2007 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuThe nice thing about leading a service is that I don't stand there cringing, thinking to myself "I wouldn't have chosen that melody!" (At least, not too often. :-)
Seriously, I was very pleased with how my minchah went this afternoon. I felt moved by the words and confident in my chanting thereof, and I finished within 30 seconds of my assigned target time for the handoff to neilah. My pesukei d'zimrah in the morning was ok, but I did lose control of the nusach once or twice.
Last night, I was worried that I have lost my ability to be moved by the Yom Kippur liturgy. It used to move me much more; one year, by the end of the amidah on Kol Nidre night, I was sobbing. Perhaps I have reached my upper limit of observance; perhaps I used to be so strongly affected by it because I knew I had so much more work to do on improving myself, and now that I'm approaching forty I've improved as much as I can. (Not that I don't have a lot farther that I should go, but I may be nearing my practical limits.)
But tonight I was emotionally fully invested in the words of the liturgy. It built up through minchah and neilah and when we finally -- finally! -- got to say Avinu Malkeinu, I was begging HKB"H for us all to be sealed for a year of life, health, sustenance, safety, and forgiveness; I was in "the zone" if you will, all doubt suspended and ecstatic in prayer.
It's good to know that I can still feel that way sometimes.
Seriously, I was very pleased with how my minchah went this afternoon. I felt moved by the words and confident in my chanting thereof, and I finished within 30 seconds of my assigned target time for the handoff to neilah. My pesukei d'zimrah in the morning was ok, but I did lose control of the nusach once or twice.
Last night, I was worried that I have lost my ability to be moved by the Yom Kippur liturgy. It used to move me much more; one year, by the end of the amidah on Kol Nidre night, I was sobbing. Perhaps I have reached my upper limit of observance; perhaps I used to be so strongly affected by it because I knew I had so much more work to do on improving myself, and now that I'm approaching forty I've improved as much as I can. (Not that I don't have a lot farther that I should go, but I may be nearing my practical limits.)
But tonight I was emotionally fully invested in the words of the liturgy. It built up through minchah and neilah and when we finally -- finally! -- got to say Avinu Malkeinu, I was begging HKB"H for us all to be sealed for a year of life, health, sustenance, safety, and forgiveness; I was in "the zone" if you will, all doubt suspended and ecstatic in prayer.
It's good to know that I can still feel that way sometimes.