The Empty Spaces of Prague

Chapter 12

Sunset arrived on the evening of Rosh Hashanah and it was a warm, sticky night.  I closed up at the museum early and said goodbye to Sammy and then went to my apartment to shower and get dressed.  While I was in the shower I heard the most amazing sound of a horn being blown in different notes and for different lengths of time.  Sammy later told me that this was a shofar, a ram’s horn that is only blown for Rosh Hashanah (and Yom Kippur). 

That’s when I got a knock on the door and saw Sammy, smiling, taking my hand, bringing me to the celebration.  This was my first Jewish Shabbat.  They lit the candles, blessed the wine and round bread called Challah This was brushed with honey to make it sweet for a sweet new year.  There was also a bunch of apples that you dipped in honey and some typical Jewish food like Chicken soup and kugel, a sort of noodle casserole.  You are also supposed to try one new fruit during the celebration so for the first time I had a pomegranate.  Its sweet red seeds were really addictive and I finally understood how Persephone could be swayed to eat some while with Hades in the underworld.  They were just so amazingly good in a way that I thought perhaps nothing could taste so good in my entire life.

Sammy stayed by me the whole time, explaining things over my shoulder so that I knew what was going on.  He would also interpret what was being said if it was in Hebrew.  He was all too happy to do this, to be an expert and show me this holiday.  I have to admit that part of it was amazing and enlightening, the connections to the harvest as if it were Thanksgiving and New Year’s celebration all rolled in one.  But it also was a little isolating.  Everyone else in the room knew what was going on, and though Sammy brought me to be a part of the celebration (he said it was important to not be alone on Rosh Hashanah), you could see that people were a little uncomfortable and didn’t really know what to do with me.  They didn’t know how to talk to me.  It was like being the club footed cousin at a wedding, everyone is nice for about two sentences and then they drift away.  So in that moment I made a decision.  I turned to Sammy and whispered in his ear.

“Sammy,” I said, “I want to go with you to shul tomorrow.” 

He smiled and nodded.  I could tell he was pleased.  But it wasn’t for him, it was for me.  I was going to be a part of this community for a while, and I needed these very nice people to see my face more so that they knew I was going to stick around.  It was a way to establish trust, because I was living here, in this quarter, working in the museum, turning off the lights of the Synagogue.  I realized that like it or not, I was a part of this community, and I needed to contribute to it more.

After the festivities and more apples and honey than I could handle, Sammy walked me to the Synagogue to turn of the lights.  He took me inside and showed me around a little.  “You know, “ he said with a smile, “this is where the Golem was supposed to live.  It was his job to sweep up and take care of the synagogue.  And when Rabbi Loew had to destroy him, supposedly his body is kept in the attic of this building.”

I looked around, but didn’t see any stairs.  I said as much and Sammy smiled, because he knew I would ask.  “At some point, so many people were looking for the Golem, the rabbi took the stairs out.” 

And I wondered what you would really find up there in the attic.  In my imagination it was only a box full of dirt.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The next day the services started early and I got to see the shofar being blown.  It was so amazing that a person could get so many sounds out of an animal’s horn.  They must have practiced for years.  I did what the other people did, I tried to blend in, but it’s hard when you can’t read what they are reading, when you can’t say what they are saying, when in fact you don’t understand it at all.  But I tried to sit and contemplate why I was there and how I could use this as a lesson in my life.  I thought of my grandmother doing this and wished that she had told me even a little about it. 

When the service was over, we took stale breadcrumbs and put them in our pockets and then walked to the Vlatava.  We threw the breadcrumbs in as a symbol of us casting away our sins, and I loved the thought of being able to do such a thing, to release yourself of such burdens that heavied the heart.  I wondered why we didn’t do such a thing in the Methodist religion.  We confessed our sins, but I liked actually throwing them out and having them be swept away by the cold, dark water.  To me, it was very powerful.

The food celebrations began again, and this time I understood them a little more.  People recognized me and might stay a little longer to talk to me.  I didn’t feel like a stranger in a strange land quite so much as I had the day before.  I shyly thanked Sammy at the end of the night for taking me.

“Rosh Hashanah is a nice celebration,” he said wryly, “After all, we are Jews, and with a history we have had, we are always looking forward to the future in the hopes that it will improve.”  But Yom Kippur, he said, is much more solemn, a day of fasting and meditation, of confessing your sins and beating your breast and getting light headed from not being able to eat or drink.  It sounded a lot to me like Good Friday, but I didn’t say that, I only thought that it might be a reference point for myself.  I didn’t think I was going to attend that service, there were some things I didn’t have to jump into in order to understand them.