Sympathy With The Trads

 Sympathy With The Trads

 

Years ago, late one Yom Kippur afternoon, I was sitting in the synagogue, waiting for the day to end. Yom Kippur fast goes from evening to evening, so as soon as the sun set, we’d all break fast with a supper. A potluck supper, with objectively mediocre food, but hunger’s the best cook.

I was weary, irritable, and hangry, as usual after a 24-hour fast. Part of the reason for fasting on the Day of Atonement is to get Jews bummed out enough to be sincere when we confess our sins. The rabbi led the congregation through a collective chant of confession-of-sins and plea-for-forgiveness. This business done, there was nothing left but to listen to the cantor sing, and for the sun to set.

I sat and I waited while the planet rotated. The cantor sang in Hebrew. I don’t know Hebrew, so I couldn’t tell what he was singing, but his voice was so beautiful that I could relax and forget about the pain in my stomach. Then he switched to singing in English, and I could hear what he was saying.

At that very instant, as if with the *click* of a switch, my critical intelligence turned on, and it automatically evaluated the truth value of each of his statements. “Well, that’s true... that’s false... that’s interesting... oh don’t be ridiculous... I’ll go along with that... how poetic... that’s true... that’s false... very inspiring... who are you kidding...”

On and on and on! It was like sitting next to a yenta! Only the yenta was inside my head! It was me! O how annoying!

Mind you, I didn’t disagree with those thoughts. They were my thoughts! It’s just that, right then and there, I wasn’t interested in those thoughts! The last thing I wanted to do just then was to speculate in theology and philosophy. I just wanted to listen to the pretty music!

Then the cantor switched back to Hebrew, and *click*, my critical intelligence switched off. O blessed relief! I basked in the beauty of his song awhile. Then he switched back to English. *Click!* My suffering resumed.

Back and forth and back and forth! Soon I was truly repentant. Is that what I sound like? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry that I’m so judgmental! Forgive me for being so opinionated!

It was a... learning experience...

Then, hallelujah, the sun set, the service ended, and we all got up and rushed over to the next room, where a mediocre potluck feast awaited. It was delicious and satisfying.

I hear that Traditionalist Catholics object to the Vernacular Mass, sung in the common language, that the entire flock can understand. They’d rather return to the Latin Mass, sung in a language that they don’t understand, so they can hear the music and not the religion. I sympathize.

But though I sympathize with the Traditionalists, I nonetheless approve of the cantor’s bilingualism. It made me suffer from my own analytic mind’s yenta-ness, but that suffering made me become a better person, and a better yenta.