In 1976, my family moved from Stamford Hill to Golders Green. Each year thereafter, for many years, we returned to Stamford Hill for Yom Kippur, where my grandfather, my father’s father, was the rabbi of a synagogue.
In 1983, my mother’s father decided to join us in Stamford Hill and throughout Yom Kippur I stood beside him as he prayed.
That year, we reached the Ne’ilah prayer early, and my father’s father — who was leading the services — decided to recite each Avinu Malkeinu out loud for it to then be repeated by the congregation, instead of just the limited selection of nine verses that are usually read out by the chazan and then repeated.
Their recitation is always highly charged even under normal conditions, but at the end of Yom Kippur, and with each one being recited aloud in unison, Avinu Malkeinu took on a whole new dimension.
Close to the end is a set of four verses that are all connected to each other. They begin with Avinu Malkeinu, aseh lema’an harugim al shem kad’shecha, “Our Father, our King, do it for the sake of those who were killed for Your holy name.”
Suddenly, as he recited this first of the set out loud, my mother’s father began to sob uncontrollably. His whole body was shaking. Both his parents and most of his extended family had been murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust, and in that moment, in those final minutes of Yom Kippur, their loss was so vivid to him, and so evocative, that he was overwhelmed with emotion, and this usually impassive man broke down and cried like a child.
Finally, we reached the fourth in the set: Avinu malkeinu, nekom nikmat dam avadecha hashafuch, “Our Father, our King, avenge the spilt blood of your servants.” My grandfather straightened up and responded with a full, strong voice — a piercing recitation.
It almost seemed as if he was challenging God to give meaning to the death of his parents, whose only “crime” had been that they were Jews in the wrong place at the wrong time —resulting in their gruesome death at Sobibor death camp in May 1943.
Although it was more than 40 years after his parents’ murder, the wound was still fresh and raw, and as painful as ever. And evidently, my grandfather wanted God to know how he felt — truly, it is a moment I will never forget for as long as I live. In fact, I think of it every year on Yom Kippur when I say the words nekom nikmat dam avadecha hashafuch, I think of my mother’s father, shaking with emotion, alongside me, responding and repeating those words with all his might, not holding back.
pini book
Rabbi Pini Dunner's new book (Photo: Bookcover)
I also think of his parents, walking into the gas chambers, to be murdered in cold blood. And to top it all off, I think of my father’s father, also a victim of Nazi persecution, who lost his parents in Auschwitz and who led the prayers that fateful Yom Kippur.
For me, each year, at that moment in the service, Yom Kippur is not just a generic day of worship or a holy day in the Jewish calendar. Rather, it is a deeply personal experience that ties into the experiences of my forebears, and my memories of them on Yom Kippur.
In fact, my Yom Kippur experience as a whole is an amalgamation of all the many Yom Kippur experiences I have had throughout my life. It includes the many people I have prayed with and the many places I have prayed at. It includes the tunes I have sung; it includes the highs, and it includes the lows; and it even includes all the different post-Yom Kippur fast-breaking meals I have shared with so many people and in so many settings. And each Yom Kippur I continue to create new experiences that act as the setting and foundation for the years that follow.
It goes without saying that this phenomenon is not just limited to Yom Kippur. Every significant Jewish date is loaded with memories. I remember that one year, on the first night of Succot, it just would not stop raining.
My father, ever the optimist, refused to give up hope of making kiddush in the succah and insisted that we wait until it stopped raining before we began eating.
An hour or more went by, and we were all hungry, so, with my father’s reluctant consent, we began the meal indoors — but he was still utterly determined. Every few minutes he went outside to check if the rain had stopped.
Eventually, long after we had finished eating, he came running in, his eyes gleaming. “It’s stopped raining,” he announced excitedly, and we all traipsed into the succah for kiddush and cake. My father just couldn’t stop smiling. He was like a child who’d received his favourite toy as a gift. And that’s exactly how he felt: that God had given him a gift — kiddush in the succah on the first night of Succot.
These memories and so many more turn each festival and each significant Jewish date into a combination of history, tradition, Jewish laws and customs, memories, nostalgia and new experiences. And the result is so much greater than any one of those individual components.
Every wine stain on the pages of the Haggadah we use. Every forgotten High Holy Days schedule that we left tucked into the pages of the machzor. The smell of Yom Tov food cooking in the kitchen. Each one of these and so many more are the kaleidoscope of our Jewish experience, which add colour, context, and meaningfulness to the festival experience, augmenting the practical aspects of the festivals and notable Jewish dates that punctuate our lives.
Rabbi Dunner’s new book, Hearts & Minds II: An Original Look at Jewish Festivals and Significant Jewish Dates, Otzrot Books, is out now at £18.95.
