Twice a Year Jews Need to Spread It Out

Originally appeared in GenerationJ.com, September 25, 2000

For too many Jews, the high holidays have become a chore. This would not be too much of a problem if the high holidays were as well attended as say, Shavuot. But there are many Jews for whom Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur may be their only exposure to religious Judaism for the entire year. You know these folks--the "twice-a-year Jews."

One of the great shames of modern Judaism is that the service most attended by unaffiliated Jews is the one that is the hardest to follow and involves the least participation. High holiday services are not only abnormal: their abnormalities are turn-offs. The high holidays have their own tunes, which, while beautiful, are unknown to even some moderately observant Jews. At the same time, so many people attend high holiday servces that the rooms fill to overflowing, making the search for space sometimes more important than the search for meaning.

The result turns what should be a combination of personal and community prayer into an impersonal cantorial concert. In the majority of American synagogues, the high holiday experience consists primarily of sitting in your seat and listening to the cantor, with an occasional prayer you understand and can pray along with, and a small break for the usual pledge drive.

Contrast this experience to the average Shabbat. Many shuls that are crowded and impersonal on the high holidays are friendly and inviting on Shabbat. On Shabbat, everybody knows the tunes, and if it is a vibrant shul, they sing along. The service is shorter, with more "highlights," i.e. prayers you remember from childhood, even if you never go to a synagogue anymore. On Shabbat, you aren't packing the room to the gills with people who don't want to be there, and after services, you may meet someone interesting or even get the opportunity to meet the rabbi.

Personally, I have decided to re-evaluate this decision. On Rosh Hashanah, the highlight for the holiday is definitely dinner with the family. I will go to services, but I will likely get bored and wander out after an hour. You probably will too; If a lot of people didn't feel the same way I did, how would you explain those huge crowds of networking Jews which sit just outside the doors to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah?

Ten days later, I will go to Kol Nidre on Erev Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur morning, however, I may go to services, and I may not. More likely, I will stay home and think about my actions of the past year, which is really the point of the holiday in the first place. Each year I spend the afternoon re-reading my copy of Joseph Telushkin's Jewish Wisdom in the hope that I will be able to add a couple more precepts of classic Jewish thought to my day-to-day life as part of my struggle to be a better person. To me, this is much more meaningful than sitting in services listening to a cantor and watching around me as everyone nods off.

Not all Jews, however, will make the effort to think of alternative, meaningful responses to high holiday stagnation. Jews know they are supposed to go to shul on the high holidays, even if they don't go the rest of the year. When we know somebody who, despite being nominally Jewish, works on the high holidays, I would guess it makes even the most religiously liberal among us feel just a little strange. It doesn't matter if you eat shrimp every day, work each Saturday, and marry a Christian -- something about the high holidays says, "That's when Jews go to synagogue."

Well, I am not advocating that people work on the high holidays, but perhaps a better way for Judaism to attract those Jews who don't enjoy synagogue is to encourage them to go when it is more enjoyable. If you were to rank holidays based on enjoyment, I think the high holidays would come in close to last. Shabbat, if it's a good shul with a good crowd, comes in very high. As an added bonus, Shabbat is technically more important even than Rosh Hashanah. And, since it comes 52 times a year, it can conveniently fit into the schedule of even the busiest casual Jew.

Theologically, the high holidays are our most difficult holidays. For Jews who never go the rest of the year to only go on these holidays is like taking someone who has never read a book and starting them with Paradise Lost, then asking if they enjoy reading. The way to deliver a more accessible Jewish experience is to start with holidays that are simpler and more agreeable, and work up to the really important days.

If you know a twice-a-year Jew, perhaps you should encourage him or her to skip the high holidays this year. Instead, tell them to take their three days of Judaism and use them in a way they will find both more enjoyable and more meaningful--two Shabbatot and Simchat Torah, a holiday that can convince even the most self-hating Jew that Judaism is fun. Make something more enjoyable, and you make it more interesting. Make it more interesting, and people become more attracted to it. If people become more attracted to it, perhaps they will even begin to live a few more of its ethics and rituals. Maybe those twice-a-year Jews could even move on to being five, six, or twelve times a year Jews. But sending Jews to synagogue only on the day it is most foreign and crowded is simply not putting our best face forward to those who really do need more exposure to all the things Judaism can bring to their lives.