I cannot begin to tell you the calm, satisfied feeling that washed over me last night, as I was elbow deep in preparing enough stuffed cabbages to hopefully last through Simchas Torah while simultaneously turning two roasts in my oven, as I listened to Avram preparing his Yom Tov davening in the other room.
Call me sexist but my first inclination was, "This is how things should be....".
Growing up, my father being the shul's Baal Tokeah, the first sounds of Elul were of course the sounds of tekias shofar. The deep tones of my father's yekkish teruos easily conjured up sounds of repentant sobs. (For those new to the blog, I will once again embed my shofar video at the end of this post.)
Shortly after I got married, the sounds changed a bit. They were the haunting melodies of the Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur davening that Avram was preparing.
(Click the link below for a nice rendition of Lewandowski's Zocharti Loch)
Of course in later years as my son took on the tradition of his grandfather, the house was once again filled with both sounds.
And through all this, my kitchen provided the olfactory evidence that Yom Tov was on its way.
Sounds and smells.
Two powerful triggers.
I like it this way.
3 comments:
How nice and interesting to hear Yekkish shofar blowing- a new experience for me. The holidays have been prefaced by lots of shofar blowing here as well- my husband will be a baal tokeiah for the first time this year, so he's been practicing for months. But we'll be away from home for Rosh Hashanah- so there's less cooking than last year (plus, I've just started a new job- all the scheduling is new and uncertain.)
Amen
In my opinion the definitive Zacharti Lach on the web can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um05_Upfmn4
It's sensational.
Martin
Post a Comment