This story started in a simple way\u2026\u00a0It took place years ago.\u00a0It was a\u00a0Saturday afternoon,\u00a0mid-September,\u00a0Dad was at work and\u00a0Mom and I traveled to Woodbury to visit my Aunt & Uncle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought that the New Year was on January 1!\u201d <\/p>\n
Say what you will about the differences that separate the Jewish world from the rest of the world\u2026 and certainly to a kid in America this was brought home in force every December 25th<\/sup>\u2026 but that didn\u2019t trouble me as much as the confusion regarding the date for starting a New Year.\u00a0 Talk about being out of step with the rest of the world (and for all I knew, the rest of the Universe)!\u00a0 But to me, this \u201carbitrary\u201d start to the Jewish<\/em> New Year in September was upsetting.\u00a0 And I was voicing my annoyance to Uncle Saul.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just have a different calendar Jimmy.\u00a0 And our custom is to begin the New Year on the first Day of Tishrei <\/span><\/em>.\u00a0 And our<\/em> custom is older\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTishrei?\u00a0 I dunno, it sounds like a made up month to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Saul and I happened to be playing gin at the table in the kitchen nook.\u00a0As a young kid I was developing\u00a0a knack for the card game.\u00a0 Uncle Saul said I was a “natural”.\u00a0 Casual conversation during play was meant to distract your opponent.\u00a0 The trick was not to let it distract you<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy do we have to go to dumb Services at the\u00a0Synagogue?\u00a0 They\u2019re sooooooooo long.\u00a0 Why not stay home,\u00a0have a party, wear funny hats,\u00a0watch Guy Lombardo & the Royal Canadians, watch football and have a good time like we do for the real<\/em> New Years?\u201d<\/p>\n It never ceases to amaze how my Uncle could recite off by heart long literary passages\u2026 Shakespeare, Dickens, Winston Churchill\u2026 and even sections of Jewish liturgy.<\/p>\n “Let us now relate the power of this day’s holiness, for it is awesome and frightening. On it Your Kingship will be exalted; Your throne will be firmed with kindness and You will sit upon it in truth. It is true that You alone are the One Who judges, proves, knows, and bears witness; Who writes and seals, (counts and calculates); Who remembers all that was forgotten. You will open the Book of Chronicles\u2014it will read itself, and everyone’s signature is in it. The great Shofar will be sounded and a still, thin sound will be heard. Angels will hasten, a trembling and terror will seize them\u2014and they will say, ‘Behold, it is the Day of Judgment, to muster the heavenly host for judgment!’\u2014for they cannot be vindicated in Your eyes in judgment.”<\/p>\n \u201cAwesome and frightening<\/em>\u2026 trembling and terror will seize them<\/em>!\u00a0 See what I mean?\u00a0 Oh, that sounds like a good time!\u00a0 Does this sound like a good time to you? Gin!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll deal. The knock card is four.\u00a0 There is more to the celebration of the New Year than carrying on like\u00a0buffoons or watching football on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n Saul\u00a0continued on.<\/p>\n \u201cOn Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted. But repentance, prayer, and charity<\/em> remove the evil of the Decree!”<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m getting an upset stomach!\u00a0 What a great way to spend a New Years, having to get dressed up, sitting\u00a0thru painful\u00a0Services that go on forever\u2026 and we have to hear about God looking thru this Book of Life determining how people will die.\u00a0 And nothing sounds good\u2026 drowning, burning, knifed, eaten by lions or having rocks thrown at you.\u00a0 What about going peacefully in your sleep after living a long successful life?\u00a0 Did you just pick up the Jack of Diamonds?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the Jack of Hearts. Look at it this way\u2026 it\u2019s a day off from school.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSchool or having to sit thru Services.\u00a0 I hate both.\u00a0 It\u2019s like having to choose between walking across broken glass, or across burning coals.\u00a0 My stomach is killing me. And who can understand half the stuff anyway?\u00a0 There\u2019s\u00a0way too much Hebrew, and what\u2019s in English is funny<\/em> English\u2026 even that\u2019s<\/em> hard to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI’ll knock with two.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI knew it!\u00a0 You had a high Heart run!\u00a0 The Jack filled the King, Queen, Ten. I’ll lay off my Nine, you get just eleven points.\u00a0 And who thought up Hebrew anyway\u2026 with that confusing alphabet!\u00a0 Between the funny<\/em> English and the Hebrew, I don\u2019t know which is worse!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u201cfunny\u201d English that is found in the Bible, is the English spoken during the times of King James<\/em>.\u00a0 Still, Hebrew was the original language of the \u2018Book\u2019.\u00a0 Aramaic was added, and then it was translated into Greek, then Latin\u2026 then into English.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, No!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter?\u00a0 Upset that you just gave me another\u00a0Queen?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo\u2026 I just realized that Rosh Hashanah falls on a Saturday this year!\u00a0 It kills a day off from school!!And <\/em> Yale has a\u00a0game at home!\u00a0 I think I am going to throw-up!\u00a0 Thanks for the eight of Clubs!\u00a0 Suuuuuuhweeet!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cActually\u2026 there is a language that even pre-dates Hebrew!\u00a0 Much older, in fact.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho dealt this mess?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat means you have a good hand and you are trying to lull me into a false sense of security.\u00a0 The first language spoken was Basic Rock<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBasic Rock?\u00a0 How’d it go?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell\u2026 it went something\u00a0like this: \u2018That\u2019s a nice rock you got\u00a0there\u2019 and \u2018Hey! Hey,\u00a0put\u00a0down that rock!\u2019 and \u2018Don\u2019t come at me with that rock!\u2019 and ‘I have a rock, too! You troglodyte!’ and\u00a0\u2018Shmuel, one step closer and I\u2019m going to\u00a0chuck this awesome rock\u00a0square at your jewels<\/em> and you won\u2019t be able to\u00a0stand up\u00a0for a week, you will never have kids and when the other men\u2019s boys are being Bar Mitvahed, you will be crawling around the cave speaking in a high soprano! And\u2026<\/em> there will be no one to say Kaddish<\/em> for you!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe God wrote in the Book of Life that this guy Shmuel was going to die by stoning. Gin! And\u00a0in the third game you\u2019ve just been schneidered<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJimmy\u2026 you\u2019re getting too good at this game.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe at my Bar Mitzvah, we can replace the Hebrew parts with Basic Rock?\u00a0 I think I can handle Rock.\u00a0 I just hope that my Bar Mitzvah doesn\u2019t fall on a Yale home game!\u00a0 It\u2019s my deal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This story started in a simple way\u2026\u00a0It took place years ago.\u00a0It was a\u00a0Saturday afternoon,\u00a0mid-September,\u00a0Dad was at work and\u00a0Mom and I traveled to Woodbury to visit my Aunt & Uncle. \u201cI thought that the New Year was on January 1!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meggie-saul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1211,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}