The walking wounded after Yom Kippur

First, the president had the brilliant idea to rearrange the synagogue's seating for the Yamim Noraim (High Holidays), with the amud (reading desk) in the center and the seats facing the amud, Sefardi-style. So every time we turned to face the Aron Kodesh (Holy Ark holding the Torah/Bible scrolls), we were facing sideways, and had no chair backs in front of us on which to rest our machzorim (holiday prayer books). Good luck holding a machzor for a few 45-minute Amidah prayers: By the end of Minchah (Afternoon Service) on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), my right wrist--I was using mostly my right hand to spare my worse left one--was killing me. And it wasn't just Ms. Formerly-Broken Wrists, either--the woman next to me was having the same problem.

Then, my new non-leather shoes turned out to be a little too comfortable--they were just loose enough to slide around a bit and aggravate the ganglion cyst under the sole of my left foot. There'll be no Israeli folk dancing for me tonight. :(

I'm just full of complaints today. On the plus side, I've thankful that my complaints are minor ones.


There's an interesting report here on DovBear's blog regarding different "styles" of Kol Nidrei. Enjoy.