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TEMPLE: Outside the rhythm of the routine

By John Temple, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published September 27, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Honey cake is a treat enjoyed at Rosh Hashana. We mailed homemade cakes to each of our children this year.

Photo by Ellen Jaskol / The Rocky

Honey cake is a treat enjoyed at Rosh Hashana. We mailed homemade cakes to each of our children this year.

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It's the time of year when the the yellow in the leaves arching over the city's parkways makes me smile. The leaves look the way the ripe pears of the season taste - sweet.

It's the time of year when on a few special days I find myself out of sync with the rhythm of the city. The time of year when for a few hours the roar of news fades and a timeless sound fills my ears.

We are preparing for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, which begins Monday evening. That night we will have a big dinner for friends and eat many foods that carry their own memories.

The next morning we will drive to synagogue for a day of prayer and singing before joining friends from Iraq for another holiday meal, this one imbued with the ancient traditions of the Jewish community of that region.

For weeks we've been talking about what we should offer our guests. Maybe it's a way to make the holiday expand and fill our lives even before we enter the days of reflection between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

The holiday is a time we eat sweet things, invoking the promise of the coming year. The taste of Judith's honey cake reminds me of happy days at our holiday table with our children. The taste of her honey cake connects one year to the next.

This year we shipped a packet to each of our children, on their own in different parts of the country, with a honey cake fresh from our oven inside. A symbol uniting us no matter the distance that keeps us apart.

The smell of the honey cakes makes me look forward to the round hallah we also eat on this holiday. This is no bread of affliction. The egg bread is sweet, dotted with raisins for the special occasion.

And I think with pleasure of the fresh, crisp apples we will dip in honey. And the juicy red pomegranates we will savor.

At the home of our Iraqi Jewish friends, David and Louise Kazzaz, we will go through a special ceremony where each holiday food carries a certain meaning. For a few hours it will seem we are not in Denver, but in another place, another time, even. In the world of their childhood in Baghdad.

The holiday is one way we pass on and preserve our traditions, that we stay connected to those who have come before us. It is a way that we connect our own children to a world we want them to feel part of.

Now I've come to realize that the holiday is also a time to reconnect with my own memories of our celebrations with our children.

This New Year is not like the secular one. This New Year is about stopping and remembering what is important in life. The blasts of the shofar, or ram's horn, in the synagogue pierce our contemporary sensibility. The sound is so basic, primal even. Before it is heard, there's a sense of anticipation in the crowd. The horn breaks the routine of our daily life and demands something more of us. There is something about the seriousness of the day. It is not that I can claim to be deeply religious or learned. Perhaps it's that life on these special days seems more profound.

The shofar, according to the scholar Maimonides, tells us, "Wake up from your slumber! Examine your deeds, and turn in repentance, remembering your Creator. You sleepers who forget the truth while caught up in the fads and follies of the time, frittering away your years in vanity and emptiness which cannot help: take a good look at yourselves. Improve your ways. Let everyone abandon his bad deeds and his wicked thoughts."

I don't mean to burden you with the weight of the sage's words. But they are words that call me back.

I share them in part because I hope they take you, too, outside the rhythm of what may seem to be just another "normal" beautiful fall day.

I share them because they represent the hope of one generation to the next, of a father to his children, that they are able to keep sight of what's important in this world. A hope that they will celebrate this same holiday long after I am gone, that doing so will connect them to memories as sweet as my own.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202.

Comments

  • September 29, 2008

    12:02 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Who_Me writes:

    "It's the time of year when on a few special days I find myself out of sync with the rhythm of the city."

    What would be nice is if your writers/editors could keep their stories and headlines synched. Boyfriend kills girlfriend's daughter headline contains the story about the car crash in Weld county. How sync'd up is that?