I got an email from the shul last night, informing me that I was to be honored with gelilah for the second Torah on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. Being the cynical conspiracy theorist that I am, I immediately called Harav Eliyahu Fink to ask whether this required me to sit through long periods of time. I honestly feared that those long periods of boredom would lead me to sexual thoughts and everyone knows that the more you think about repressing sexual thoughts while holding a Torah, the worse it gets. I would say that it ranks up there with being called to the Torah on shabbos afternoon and farting so bad that the Rabbi takes a leave of his throne. I also feared that this second sefer Torah gelilah honor, was really just a way to get me to sit through shofar without reading the gadol fiction I spend most of my time in shul reading.
Fink told me it was only the haftorah, great, but what if some stuttering newly indoctrinated BT was hired to do the haftorah and he got stuck on some complicated word like misragshim? What if the volley of suggestions from the audience as to how to pronounce the word didn’t work and he had to be changed out in the middle? Has that even happened? The only time I saw someone get changed out was on Pesach when the old Holocaust survivor doing musaf collapsed in the middle.
Ok, so it wasn’t a ploy to get me to sit through shofar, but was it some evil conspiracy to get me to shul on time. On shabbos I don’t come to shul on time, it’s not because I can’t come to shul on time, it’s because I prefer to get to shul in the middle of laining so I could catch up and say both of my shemona esrei’s with the musaf tzibur. If my shul had a normal 1.5-2 hour davening length, I would definitely come on time, but 3 hours is way too long. So each week when the rabbi reigns down his fiery storm of mussar he always mentions those people who come to shul late, the other guy who waltzes into shul 2 hours late knows all of shas, so I use that as my heter.
There’s this one very annoying flaming BT in shul who feels that he needs to give me mussar every week about this “coming late business”, I wouldn’t put it past him to pay for gelilah in order to get me to show up on time. Does Rosh Hashanah gelilah even cost money? Some shuls mark everything up for the high holidays, it’s not about God, it’s about the beginning of their fiscal year and the empty coffers. I wonder if this guy has decided to translate his annoying mussar into strategy.
Of course, there’s also the Rabbi who wishes I would wear more than hippy pants and sandals to shul, it’s not exactly the type of shul that wants one of their only yeshiva educated FFB’s to be the guy dressing like a kibbutznick. Traditionally I put on a suit twice a year. The first night of Rosh Hashanah and the first night of Yom Kippur. What about the days you ask? Well, I put on the suit, walk to shul and about an hour into davening I regret it. Sure, I take those snarky “man you clean up well” comments as compliments, but the lack of comfort and maneuverability of suits drives me nuts. Maybe with giving me some sort of honorm, they’re hoping I wear at least shoes to shul.
Should I feel honored?
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Remember if you ever get Hagbah: lift and separate and you don’t have to hold ’em up for 18 hours either.
Do you think any of my conspiracy theories will prove to be correct?
Never fails to make me laugh 🙂
Wear a kitul on Yom Kippur and skip the suit.
Maybe they did their cheshbonos and concluded that of all the people left who didn’t get an honor, Heshy’s the biggest mencsh and will make a donation for the honor he never asked for anyway. Put differently, they are trying to squeeze you for money.
Gelilah is the worst. Even on shabbos you feel like the whole world is watching you and saying “there’s no way he’s going to do this right.” I can’t even imagine on RH. I’ll always take hagbah, but when they come at me right after giving out hagbah, I try to slip away and get out or get involved in a conversation or something. At least with hagbah if they look at me funny I can make them fast.
What kind of church are you a member of?
I never heard of a shul that sends out emails a week before yom tov telling you how they’ll honor you. Heck I’ve never heard of a shul that worries about this shit in advance altogether.
When I belonged to a big conservative shul about a decade ago they sent mailings telling people if they were honored- of course they had even more trouble getting people to show up early than most orthodox shuls.
Isnt it the guy who does hagba who has to sit and wiat? Gelilah just involves dressing it up then thats it. Am I missing something?
What is really sad is that it doesn’t have to be the way it is. The required tefillot for RH and even YK are relatively short. If you look at ancient liturgies from assorted ganeizot you find the holiday prayers were substantially expanded over the centuries by pietists and kabbalists until they reached the form we use today about 400 years ago. This is also true of the weekday prayers, but its even more pronounced during the hagim. We’ve turned what should be enjoyable for the whole nation into a punishment for the common man. The average Jew, including many talmudei hokhamim, is not a ascetically fetishistic khat chewing mystic who sits around meditating and fasting on mountain tops while hiding from their wives. The liturgy can be changed, but that would require courage and knowledge and the guts to admit their is a problem. Calling yourself a rabbi while choosing the strict opinion and doggedly worshiping the status quo doesn’t make you a scholar. Its just religious politics and dogmatism. Any baal habayit who can read the shulchan arukh can provide that. Rabbi-shmabi. Gadol fiction is right. Give me a decisor with some gravel in his guts and the will to make some tough calls. Otherwise, people will continue to secretly resent what they should be enjoying.
Normally I would not praise, because it just encourages you but that line about your heter from the guy who know all of shas – very funny. I need to tell him. He will love to hear that 5 days before RH.
More importantly, the stuttering BT doing haftarah – I know who it is. Based on a conversation at maariv yesterday, you’re eating at his house over yom tov.
I went to bukeriyan shul and prayer and the gabay screamed at me because i refused to take galilah.i found out after it because they dont give their own people gelilah because they too good for gelilah.they like money and honor only.
bukeriyan are krazy peepuls