The Voice from the Whirlwind

The great storm that swept through Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens eleven days ago generated two tornadoes, one of which touched down in Park Slope, not far from our home, and produced winds that reached 125 miles per hour. As my wife and I watched the storm from our windows (only later did we learn it was dangerous to stand there), the sky darkened, visibility was reduced to just a few feet, and heavy rain flew past us horizontally with great force. It was the day before Yom Kippur, the Day of Awe, but religious observance on that day has never created in me the awe I felt while watching that storm. For ten or fifteen minutes, the universe made its primordial power overwhelmingly manifest, as it did human impotence in the face of that power. I could almost hear the Voice from the Whirlwind asking, Who cut a channel for the torrents / and a path for the thunderstorms...?

Like my wife, I fasted on Yom Kippur. Unlike her, I stayed at home, as I've done for the past 20 years or so, whereas she went, as she unfailingly does, to religious services. I've asked her why she attends services, since she considers herself an agnostic. "This is my tradition," she always replies, "my story." Regular attendance at synagogue services, not only on the High Holidays, but every Shabbat, helps connect her to the majesty of the universe and her place in it. She also attends because the congregation is our community and she doesn't want to disassociate herself from it.

I feel bad that I've separated myself from it in this way, but the liturgy irritates me enormously. If I attended services, I would have to utter words which I cannot believe, which would keep prompting me to say to myself, "No! No! No!" I'm unable to view the liturgy's references to God as metaphor. Still, I miss the drama of striking my breast, as one by one I, along with the rest of the congregation, recite a litany of sins, some of them personal, others communal. Even if we haven't personally committed these sins, we're responsible for the fact that others have done so. I like the modesty of the request that we make, for one more year in which to improve ourselves, although now that I'm approaching 80, the request doesn't seem quite so modest. But I'm even less capable of chesbon hanefesh - examination of the soul - in the synagogue, where I carry on an internal argument with the prayer book, than I am at home.

So I considered my sins in quiet contemplation at home and hoped that those I've offended during the past year have forgiven me. And I thought about the power of the universe, as glimpsed the day before.