New Year Reflections

We spend so much time reflecting in preparation for the High Holy Days, I often found myself reflecting throughout the celebrations.

Rosh Hashanah came and went without a major glitch, which isn’t difficult to do. Often the problem is making sure I get all the food cooked in time whilst making sure I’m still maintaining some sense of the looming New Year approaching in a few hours, that I might greet it with the reverence it deserves.

It was on Yom Kippur, though, I noticed the greatest difference.

On Erev Yom Kippur, as I reviewed the liturgy, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. I only noticed because I spent most of that day baking my husband an apple pie. (That was the one thing I didn’t have time to do on Rosh Hashanah.) Usually, I’m so absorbed in my own neurosis, I spend most of the day in a frantic panic until I’m an utter mess beneath an austere veneer for Kol Nidre service. The fact I felt so at ease I could spend my time baking a pie–entirely from scratch–was nothing less than a miracle.

Even more bizarre was how effortless, how easy, this Yom Kippur felt. For example, as we transition from mincha into nehila, I mentioned to my rabbi how the machzor he wanted to use didn’t have the full v’ddui. He looked at me, and I kid you not, said, “I know. That’s why we’re using it,” a mischievous glint twinkling in his eyes. We both started laughing because what else do you say to that?

As we drove back home, I told my husband that was probably the best Yom Kippur service I had ever experienced.

Sukkot even went by just as smoothly, which was almost as much of a shock since it feels like building the sukkah is a greater source of stress than Yom Kippur itself.

My husband had to work on Erev Sukkot, but he managed to get up the frame of our sukkah, giving me plenty of time to decorate it. This year, too, we finally had a [mostly] kosher s’chach! I didn’t want to spend hundreds on one of the traditional bamboo roofs you can buy online, and as we brainstormed different organic material we could use, I saw a brief mention of corn stalks on chabad.org. I must have filed it away because as we walked into the local Lowe’s to see what we could find as material (I was thinking maybe they had a plant we could “harvest” for “palm branches”–I was desperate, okay!) up front with all the other autumn décor were lo! Corn stalks!

That’s when it hit me like lightning. “Wait a second! We live in Kansas! Corn is everywhere!” I exclaimed to my husband who stared at me as if I wasn’t from around here (neither of us are natives to Kansas). A few Google searches and a couple of phone calls later, we had a supplier. The local Louisburg Cider Mill has an annual autumn festival, including a corn maze. They had plenty of corn stalks cut down to make said maze, so the next day after work, we rushed South to buy our eight bundles. Even better, a lot of the stalks still had the corn on them! Our kosher-ish s’chach came with décor included.

Finally, at long last, after two years of sukkahs we slapped together last minute, we had the makings of a beautiful sukkah I could be proud of. We even used our left over PVC pipes from our chuppah as part of the structure.

The weather stayed relatively pleasant, B”H, and we spent as much time in our sukkah as possible.

Of course, soon preparations for the upcoming wedding of my sister-in-law took over, and we were out of town. As I write this, almost two weeks after Sukkot’s conclusion, I listen to my husband cut all the zip ties we used to secure our s’chach outside as he tears down our beautiful sukkah.

The wedding, much to our surprise, felt more like a vacation than planning and putting on a wedding.

Tucked away, deep in the Smoky Mountains of Appalachia, a mile from the border of the Cherokee National Forest–we found ourselves staring up at the foliage of the changing leaves, listening to the rush of the babbling river below us. The cabin my mother-in-law rented was idyllic (except for the ladybug infestation, but more on that later).

On the last night of our stay, in the chill of late autumn, I sat on the deck, listening to the river for the last time, staring up into the inky black sky, marveling at the multitude of stars. Though hazy, I could faintly make out the Milky Way, and I saw the tiny speck of the Andromeda Galaxy’s glistening red. I text my astrophysicist sister that I could–at last–see the stars! Tears streamed down my cold skin as I gaped in wonder at the universes just beyond my reach. I whispered to my husband in the stillness how I couldn’t leave them behind, that I needed to be able to see them–always.

Early the next morning, as we made our departure before dawn, I stared up one last time and felt my heart ache to stay. I finally understood why my mother longed to return to the land of her people; I felt the same longing deep in my bones. “Like calls to like.” Before, I had thought it strange how I ached to see mountains when I had never seen any before except in photos. Unlike Bilbo, I hadn’t gone on any adventures, but my plea was the same: “I need to see mountains again–mountains, Gandalf–and then find somewhere quiet where I can finish my book.”

Even now the ache is still there, and I wonder for how much longer it will stay dormant, if at all.

Twice now, I have seen the mountains of my forefathers: both in Israel and Appalachia. How much longer will my soul rest in the Great Plains, or will the itch soon drive me mad?

The running joke between my husband and I is we need to move to Colorado for our health. I fear the joke is soon becoming a reality.

As we enter into Cheshvan and Chanukkah only less than two months way, the month of intense holidays behind us; as the world darkens with the quiet wonder of winter, I can’t help but wonder what Hashem has in store for us next?