“Jay and the Pizza: A Yom Kippur Thought”

   There was a kid in my home congregation whose name was Jay. He wasn’t a nice boy. He had problems at home. He had problems sitting still in religious school class. He had problems with the rabbi. He had problems with the cantor. Jay had problems with everybody.

  On one Yom Kippur afternoon he came back from the corner pizzeria eating a slice right in front of the synagogue. Now ours was a liberal congregation, but really! Since he didn’t have friends among the students – and we teens were all hanging out on the sidewalk during the Yizkor service – he stood alone. Jay made what my family would have called “schmatzing” noises, smacking his lips as he ate; he was extremely audible, extremely obnoxious. We all heard him. We all ignored him as best as possible. After a while three of us walked up to him, “Jay, if you don’t want to fast, that’s your business,” we said, “but it’s not nice to eat in front of us.” Jay apologized, finished the pizza and walked into the synagogue. We were shocked, to say the least.

   Sometimes adults and kids have to be reminded what to do and what not to do. Now I know we don’t live in a country where everyone is Jewish; school calendars and the like aren’t structured according to our holidays. I also know how important one’s responsibilities are in work and in school, this strange time in our lives notwithstanding. But this year and others it behooves us to take pride in what we’re all about, celebrate our holidays – especially our holydays – with as much ardor as we celebrate Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July, strongly encourage our children to differentiate Yom Kippur from the other days of the year…and by doing so ourselves we set the tone. If we don’t, they won’t.