…you should have been in Woodbine, New Jersey in 2010 for my Yom Kippur service! I was hired to conduct worship for the High Holydays. The synagogue is well over 120 years old. There were other small towns in southern New Jersey that once had relatively sizable Jewish populations, and most of those towns’ folks were in small businesses as well as agriculture. It was the Frenchman Baron Maurice De Hirsch who funded what might be called the “experiment.” He believed that the Jews in America would thrive if they got out of the cities and back to their agricultural roots (remember the mid-1800s German Jews who wanted to “clean up” the new immigrants?). In any case, as has been said, “Vhat vas, ain’t!” When I was there only the synagogue remained and that was used only on the holydays; the downstairs was now a very impressive Holocaust memorial and museum. There were no more stores owned by Jews inasmuch as our people moved to where their children were…and their children surely did NOT remain in Woodbine.

Now you should know that even High Holyday services were, shall we say, abbreviated. They didn’t conduct evening services for either Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur; they only had the morning services of each. Furthermore, while Yom Kippur is traditionally an all-day event, theirs ended at noon. Why? Because many descendants of those who once lived there would come back to visit the cemetery and then go back to their homes in larger communities for their own break-the-fast (they fasted?).

I heard all about this a few days before the holydays. I thought to myself, “What am I going to do to make the holydays somewhat meaningful?”

For example, music? They have no choir, no cantor, no organ, no piano. The heck with everything else…but what about Kol Nidrei, the highlight of the most sacred time of the year?!!

What about a ba’al tekiah, the shofar blower? I certainly have no ability in that area, and while it would be bad not to have the sounds on the new year, it would be awful not to hear the tekiah g’dolah as Yom Kippur ended.

What about the magnificent Holiness Code the afternoon YK Torah reading?

And Yizkor? These people are going to the cemetery without even the memorial service.

What to do? What to do?

I chose to be, shall we say, spiritually “creative,” especially on Yom Kippur morning.

My sons, David and Alex, are superb ba’alei tekiah. But Alex worked in a New Jersey synagogue (he still does, just another one). I tape recorded his rendition of the tekiah, t’ruah, sh’varim and, of course, tekiah g’dolah, the long one.

On Rosh Hashanah Woodbine Jews would hear me call out the sound. I pushed the recorder’s button and they’d then hear the sounds in the correct order.

Now while RH was more or less traditional, Yom Kippur was the Reader’s Digest version. It was Yom Kippur Lite, and that’s pushing it.

My Wilmington congregation’s cantor and choir sing Kol Nidrei beautifully; I taped that.

So, here’s what Yom Kippur looked like…

I began the morning service with Kol Nidrei. Their sound system was magnificent, so you’d think the choir was singing in Carnegie Hall. But Kol Nidrei in the morning??? So be it.

I chose the most important prayer selections for the holyday and sprinkled them throughout the service.

I read the very moving Holiness Code Torah reading, normally for Yom Kippur afternoon, as the morning reading.

After all that was over, we went to the Yizkor service. I read one or two passages, chanted the El Malei Rachamim myself (that by itself should have had them run for the hills but South Jersey has no hills), and had them join me in Kaddish.

And then I read the majestic last selection of the Neilah/Concluding Service, the one imploring God to keep the gates of repentance open just a little longer, pushed the button of the recorder and the sound of my son’s tekiah g’dolah was heard in the sanctuary and throughout Woodbine.

As famisched as that service was, there was something worse. I was so nervous that I would go over the 12:00 noon MAXIMUM time, the service was over at 11:40, twenty minutes early. Many of the travelers hadn’t even arrived in town. Oh, well, that’s what pressure does when the entire endeavor was truly absurd. I got into my car, drove to Wilmington in plenty of time for our Yizkor service and my sermon which I had been invited to deliver.

And you thought a virtual seder was weird!

(Speaking of nightmares, here are four more virus jokes…

- The virus has done what no woman had been able to do…cancel all sports, shut down all bars, and keep men at home.

- Me: “Alexa, what’s the weather this weekend?”

Alexa: “It doesn’t matter – you’re not going anywhere.”

- Day 7 at home and the dog is looking at me like, “See? This is why I chew the furniture!”

- I’m not bored, but I’m wondering why there are 7,598 kernels of rice in this bag and only 7,322 kernels in that bag)