It had its up and down

Now it can be told.

I have been planning this trip to Israel for a few months now, but have been keeping it a secret to avoid the throngs of fans awaiting me at the airport when I land, and also because I was hoping to surprise my sister by showing up unexpected.

Hillel drove me to the airport and my nervous neuroses were in full swing. For a 1:15 flight, we arrived at 9:45 in the morning. Found my way inside to discover that there was already a sizable line (50-75 people) for security and check in. I had already checked in online so I wasn’t sure what to do vis-à-vis this line so I asked and was told that they were part of a group trip so should walk over to the “first class” line and check in there. So I wandered and when I got there, I asked what to do. I was told I was in the wrong line because I was not in business or first class. I explained that the nice man in the tie said I should come over. A few shouted words back and forth and I was told I was in the right place. Huzzah. Next up was the “keep waiting for 15 minutes because we are just getting set up, our Windows XP isn’t working, our printer isn’t printing and there are already 4 people ahead of you in this line and they really ARE first class passengers.”

I got to the front of the line and the El Al security person started asking the important questions about why I was going to Israel and if I packed all my own bags. I kept the nervous laughter to a minimum and Shira (if that is her real name) let me through. On to passport control where my passport was suitably controlled. I disrobed to the extent demanded by the law (and maybe a little more just to spice things up), put all my stuff into a series of bins and stepped into the magical machine that spins around and decides if I am a good person. Then, out to the burly guard who patted me down to see if I had any additional evil upon my person. My backpack had to go through the x-ray type machine twice but I aced it which shows that I am superior to a backpack in terms of goodnessitude. Win.

Then, on to the gate where I waited until Hudson News (no doubt a project of Hudson University) opened so I could buy a NY Times. I only read it for the crossword puzzle. Also, there was an excellent article about a recipe for a boiled and roasted whole head of cauliflower. Look it up and make it for me. 10:30 and all’s well. Time to wait at the gate. I got some reading done between the newspaper and a book and bought a water bottle to wash down the ibuprofen for the I-haven't-slept headache.

I saw people going to daven mincha. No one asked me. I felt left out again but tagged along. There was minor controversy over exactly when was the right time to daven 12.34 or 12.27 and how many seconds. What annoyed me was that my ticket was tagged group B so I was to board early but we were still davening while they started calling for boarding. The one chance I have had to be a “have” instead of a “have-not” and it was going to be destroyed. But I still got on early enough to snag overhead space with no fighting. The 787-9 (3 sets of 3 seats across – 2 aisles) is a nice plane but the seat material is thinner and flatter than in other planes and the angle of the seats puts the video screen too close to my face. First world problems.

A young woman on the Birthright trip which was the group I saw when I first arrived at the airport sat next to me. I looked at the seating chart recently and that seat was empty so I had gotten my hopes up. No luck, I guess. I was very happily not making conversation and was settled in when a friend of hers came over and asked if I would switch seats. He, too, had an aisle seat so I wouldn’t lose anything in the switch…he said… I graciously and stupidly said yes. It turned out he was on the aisle in row 59. The last row of the plane. Next to the bathroom – like RIGHT next to the bathroom. Amongst the Birthright masses. And this row actually had no overhead space allowed. Things just went south fast.

The 787 has no air blowing vent thing but the in-flight entertainment is substantial with many games, movies and TV shows, plus entire albums of good music, games, maps and dafyomi.

An observation: why do people bring so much stuff as carry on? Suits that they then ask about hanging up? Hats and mannequin heads with wigs? Three or four bags which they expect to find space for even if it means displacing someone else’s single bag?

The Birthright guy in the middle seat next to me asked me for the aisle seat. I said no. I refuse to feel bad about that. I said I needed it for my knees. He claimed the same thing. I said no. I refuse to feel bad about that. So he went on to set a new world record for man-spreading in his seat. He took more than both arm rests and then some. Then I started hearing a baby crying before we even taxied and man boy spreader has his knees pressed against mine which are well within the bounds of my seat.

Just as a side note and you might have heard me say this before: I really want an airplane bathroom, just with a toilet that isn’t quite as loud, but still as effective and violent as the one in the 787.

I watched Dark Tower (not especially good) and ate carbs (not especially bad) carbs and listened to half of Revolver. Take a guess: how many people use the bathroom. During a 10 hour flight? Approximately everyone. Twice. I even think some people who weren’t on the flight showed up to use the bathroom while I dozed, fitfully.

There was precious little room, in the row, in the seat, in the aisle. I started getting nauseated. Compared to other planes, there is no real space on the 787 9 to daven and the population, service staff included were not jazzed about it.

I carbed out at dinner ("meatballs" rice, hummus, some sort of bland cake) but it didn’t knocked me out yet. Troubling. The plan was to fall into a proper carb coma about 3 hours into the flight. That didn’t really happen. I dozed mostly in the very uncomfortable seat and the spreader made it worse. As did the “chop.” Chop is pilot jargon for turbulence or, as I call it, death air. There was a lot. Proximity to the bathroom has proven integral. Often. On the positive side, those calories don’t count.

I continued to be very tired but sleep eluded me.

I listened to the rest of the remastered Revolver. 14 songs none over 3 minutes but all musically gold. Then some of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Breakfast. I had a bagel and cream cheese. I gave away the omelet to the Spreading-Evil next to me in the hopes that he would reward my largesse by staying within the limits of his own seat. Didn’t happen. I also skipped yogurt and the little balls of mozzarella with olives and grape tomatoes because they are clearly gross. If you don’t agree then you are wrong. I didn't think I was hungry but if I didn’t eaten how could I be sure there would be more turbulence? And we all love more vomit air (please don’t confuse this use of vomit-air with any references to a sickly Michael Jordan. So breakfast didn’t stay breakfast for too long.

The stewards are brusque or even downright rude, and the people are difficult but I somehow feel comfortable around that. It feels right. Gonna have coffee. OK, tea I guess as the coffee server walked right past me. Next up for a listen, selections from After the Gold Rush. And most of Rumors, all of Dark Side and a crossword puzzle

We landed only 5 minutes late and I, being in the last row, didn’t get up. I knew that almost 60 rows of people had to deplane before me so I didn’t rush. Eventually I got out – on to passports, customs and baggage claim. I had been in contact with Maddie to let her know of my schedule and which bus I would take but when I moved towards the exit, THERE SHE WAS!! She had come to escort me back which was useful because I had completely misunderstood the directions as to where to wait for the bus, and though she had to wake up early, because she was in uniform, the trip was free. We caught the 8AM bus #485 to Jerusalem. It continued to batter my stomach the way the flight had but after an hour and lots of traffic, we got to our stop – the construction site that is at Binyanei Ha’umah. Up to Maddie’s apartment for the opening of the suitcase and for shacharit and a prayer that my stomach would settle down eventually. We contacted Ira and met up with him at Café Aroma for a morning coffee. Then we walked around running little errands (Maddie needed hangers) and, an hour or two later, some food. While walking around we saw a commotion and some blocked off streets. Apparently there was a suspicious item somewhere so the bomb squad had to blow it up. Five times. It as very loud, but it wouldn't have been out of place in Manhattan. I forced myself to eat Moshikos because some things are important. Maddie went to get her nails done. I felt that my nails were already finished to Ira and I walked through the shuk a little. We got to Nomi’s and presented the big surprise. She did seem shocked and not really dismayed so I will take this as a win. We hung out there and I started falling asleep on a bed. We knew it was time to walk some more so back to the shuk and I pickd up a diet Coke which I hoped would help carry me over to dinner. Ira introduced me to his friend at the restaurant “Hatch” and we chatted about transliterated names. He stopped for some fresh squeezed pomegranate juice which was fantastic. We met up with two of his kids and Maddie and went back to Nomi and David’s to spend some time with them.

Then off to dinner. We went with the Weisingers and Ira and 2 of his kids to Ish-Tabach which makes meat bourekas and shepherds pies. They also have what they call a "potato salad" which is fried potato wedges. This is salad? Had I known that I would ave been encouraging salad consumption from way back. Afterwards Maddie and I walked back to her apartment and I fought the tendency of the world to move ad spin uncontrollably as sleep hints that it would be amenable to my invoking it. She wants to go out with friends tonight, but we have to watch Shiriyah at 2 in the morning and then she has to go to speak at a Lone Soldiers’ Center in the morning, so this should be interesting. In fact, we are eating at the LSC for Friday night.

More tomorrow or after Shabbat.

What makes the internet go

The other day I had an idea. It was a goofy thought, the kind I get often. For whatever reason the mash-up of the names "Orlando Bloom" and "Lando Calrissian" popped into my head. So I checked. All that came up for Orlando Calrissian was an IMDB page for a director of adult videos. I had to find two separate pictures and, using the Paint program, transfer Orlando's head onto Calrissian's body, then save it and upload it. It didn't look very good.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156291819921686&set=a.494305051685.262547.501891685&type=3 if you are curious.

Out of all the people in the world, only a porn director and I thought of the same thing. That's troubling enough, but it isn't what I wanted to write about tonight. When I googled the name I didn't find anything else.

Separate story -- I wanted to congratulate my kid on getting accepted to a particular college so I looked for animated gifs of "Congratulations." I found a whole bunch so I swiped one and posted it on her Facebook page. It struck me a couple of days later: somehow, that gif had to come into existence. And there were loads of them, just like there are huge numbers of of stupid mash-up pictures. Some guy had to upload a scene of The Fairly Odd Parents, watch it, isolate a particular 2 second portion, type in a caption and turn it into a gif. These things don't just happen by accident. That holds true for EVERY animated gif, and every silly meme and picture. Someone has to take the time to create it just like someone has to collect, tag and organize these all.

Who is doing this? Whose job is it to make all this stuff? This surely isn't the work of a single person who decided to find a specific scene from an old kids' show and upload it just to take out that snippet. I have done it and it isn't easy (I was obsessed with a song from the Muppet show so I had to find what episode it was on, find that episode, wire the playback device to my computer to catch the video, then record and edit the whole thing). Is it possible that there are computer programs that know what to look for and are scouring all the television that has ever existed to turn content into bite-sized animated gifs, but my sense is that we haven't harnessed artificial intelligence in that way just yet.

The internet is growing at a huge rate. New pages are being created and populated at every second. New videos are being uploaded constantly as more people have events, play music or fall off of skateboards and will never have children. But these aren't the people who are turning my memories into cycling mini-movies or putting funny captions onto crazy pictures with professional quality work. That stuff is appearing by magic, sometimes dark magic.

You have been warned.

A funny thing happened on the way to the funeral

Sadly, I had the opportunity to speak the praises of a good man recently. Another good man about whom all the right (and true) things are said. And while this does put focus on the life of another of God's creations, I can't help but turn the lens on my own eventual demise, mostly because I'm a selfish narcissist.

Along with my Walter Mitty-esque existence during which I envision myself in heroic scenarios one after (if not during) the next, I also have made plenty of plans for my funeral. Long time readers (and I don't know who you are) might have read my death wishes and similar posts. But I also spend time imagining something called guerilla comedy, in which people act and do the most bizarre things, all for the laugh. I am inspired by Roger Rabbit who, as I'm sure you all remember, was handcuffed to Eddie Valiant (the great Bob Hoskins). Hilarity ensued. In one pivotal moment, Eddie is sawing the handcuffs in an effort to extricate himself from Roger's presnece but the angle was made difficult by the rabbit's arm. Roger slipped his hand out of the cuffs and asked "would this help?" Eddie grunted in assent. Pause. Eddie sees what has happened so Roger quickly sticks his hand back into the handcuff. Valiant, fuming, asks "are you telling me that you could have taken your hand out at any time?" (I'm paraphrasing…apologies to the perfectionists). Roger responds, "not at any time -- only when it was funny." That's what I'm going for.

Back to the point -- I picture the scene at my own funeral. Tears, wailing, possibly gnashing of teeth though I hope TMJ will have been cured by then. A man stands up and ascends the podium. He speaks the following speech.

"When one man dies, others begin to consider the frailty of their lives -- they consider their choices and how they have lived their time on this planet. Our thoughts invariably go to our own morality and how it is as subject to the vicissitudes of time and tide as anything. The morality of every person here is at the whim of God and nature and when we stop to think about our morality, it is generally too late to make any important changes. Whom have we touched during our time on earth, and when we lie view of others, what will they think of us? The young man ignores his morality, living life to its fullest unaware of consequence and effect. Only the old man, feeble and decrepit, whose passions no longer burn as his days run out reconsiders his morality and knows that he has little time to mend his ways."

He continues this way for a while until someone climbs to his side, and whispers something in his ear. He stops, turns and says "are you sure?" The second looks at him and nods.

The speaker refocuses on the audience and says clearly, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been alerted to the fact that the word I intended was 'mortality'. Mortality. Yes, that sounds better. So, yeah…that."

-------

and then he sits down in his seat. Fin.

What hath the Internet Wrought

Recent articles (no, I'm not linking it...you can find it yourself; that's going to be important later) have discussed the impact of the spate of electronic devices on the mind of the young person. I thought it meet to add my two cents in on this. I'm sure I have, at some point previous, written about the loss of random reading and the problem of subcontracting memory to the cloud, but I have come upon another negative consequence (unintended though it may be) of the ubiquity of the hive mind.

There has been a loss of imagination and creativity.

This might sound counter-intuitive. The plethora of apps and the ability to free up the brain from the shackles of lower order thinking should be allowing our minds to soar free and high, going places that were previously reserved only for the intellectually elite or vocationally idle. But that isn't what has happened. What I have seen is a reversion to an even more concrete worldview because, once anything can be found on the internet, there is no reason for anyone to think of anything else.

Case in point -- I assigned my class to find, in their every day experiences, examples of the actual use of rhetoric which manifested particular logical fallacies. I wanted them to become sensitive to these errors in thinking and see how rife our common discourse is with them. Instead of tooling about their worlds, students started googling examples. They were "finding" examples in their lives because their lives were simply a series of directed web searches, standing on the shoulders of previous generations who were sitting at their computers. The second element of the assignment met even more resistance. I asked students to invent their own scenario in which the fallacy was invoked. I was asking them to throw off the bonds of others' thoughts and create, on their own. They started googling examples and copying them down, insisting that they couldn't think of anything. A bunch of teenagers, asked to make up something, demurred, preferring to have others imagine the world for them. That's sad.

I have gotten used to students' double (and triple) checking everything I say to see if some invisible, anonymous (but for some reason, more trustworthy) website confirms my claims. I have gotten used to their sharing documents with each other so any mystery or surprise is now impossible -- I give an assignment to one section and the other class knows about it instantly because they are all in the same group chat or google group. I have resigned myself to accepting that students can't spell without little red lines guiding them, can't physically sign their own names or even shape letters properly when they are forced to write by hand. But I had held out hope that all of these wires and waves would empower the students to push the envelope further and ask deeper, more analytical questions reflecting deeper thinking. Instead, they have relied on the work of others and reserve their questioning for when they can establish positions which challenge the accepted classroom norms (in terms of information...I'm not accusing anyone of disciplinary problems as condoned by the web) only as substantiated by internet encouragement. Even their rebellion is canned. What will happen when they can't find a preset voice to glom on to? What will happen when they have to be revolutionary on their own terms?

Look, I like the internet. It has given us a lot. But I'm just sad that I see students squandering opportunities to innovate and invent because they see this skill of mining the web (an important practice, one which we seem to be stressing a lot) and this practice of collaborative thinking as being ends, not means.

Waka Waka

As part of my daily attempts to redeem my soul (long term at least) I make an effort to give to charity. I have found that the most efficient platform is a service called Good Street. I make a monthly contribution of (IIRC) $7.50 and then, each day, I receive an email which presents me with a cause and 2 charities which help address that cause from 2 different angles. I can then choose which of the two receives .25 from my monthly donation. In cases where there is a large scale issue/tragedy, the general area of donations might stay the same for two or three days, but usually, each day brings a new cause, already researched by the people at Good St. and two charities, pre-vetted so that all I have to do is click a button. Easy, effective and educational. I recommend that you all join and buy gift subscriptions for loved ones who can then not only benefit from the giving of charity, but become more aware of the causes in the greater world. All good, right?

Not exactly.

This morning's email had a write up which began as follows, "South Africa’s education system is one of the weakest in the world. In a table drawn up by the OECD, the South African education system ranked 75th out of 76." (sourced here) I am not going to argue with the statistics because, honestly, I haven't researched them and have no reason to doubt their veracity. And I'm a big fan of education so that isn't the problem.

But think about it -- according to that ranking system, there are 76 countries involved. One of them will invariably be last. It has to happen that way. There has to be a bottom of the list unless there is some incredible mathematical tie! And I'm not counting on that. This means that if I donate to any one country, while I may be helping there, I am forcing whatever country gets leapfrogged over into a lower position on the list! How am I supposed to look the good people of, say, Morocco in the eye if I help South Africa rise? And won't the guilt of pushing Botswana down eat me up from the inside?

Maybe we should all agree that, statistically (and ignoring Lake Wobegon), a huge chunk of people/countries are below average, and on most any list, someone has to be at the bottom. Does this mean that we ignore the educational system in South Africa? Absolutely not.

It seems to me that what we should do is donate the money, improve the system and then encourage everyone to move to another country! Then, their educational system will be superior with no chance of losing steam. Alternatively, I have devised a two-step solution to resolve this issue, ensuring that, in the future, no country will suffer the indignity of being at the bottom of a statistical ranking.

1. Outlaw statistics.

Fixed. Duh.

P.S. Goodst is seriously wonderful. Don't hold my recommendation against them. I joined and subscribed my kids. Other family members ahve also joined and others have given subscriptions as gifts. Do it.

Eve of Destruction

First, please excuse the potential misogyny of the title. It actually fits with my message but I can see how some might find it offensive. I happen to like the pun.

Second, I find that as I age, more of my posts are quasi-serious musings or Torah based thoughts. As a younger man, I was inspired more by the ridiculous but now I find that reality has co-opted the ridiculous so all I can to distinguish myself from an uncomfortable reality is to wrap myself in more serious thoughts. I apologize to anyone who reads this expecting the silly on a consistent basis and who feels cheated or that he signed up under false pretenses. Refunds are not forthcoming. Force majeure and all that.

On to the Torah thought.

As we begin the yearly cycle of reading the Torah again, I realize that the biggest challenge that Modern Orthodox Jews have is Simchat Torah, the day of celebrating the Torah. It shouldn't be tough -- we love us some Torah. But it is the 9th day of a holiday which comes after 2 days of Rosh Hashana, 2 fasts, and a month of liturgical changes before that. Enough, we want to scream. And then, just when you think that we can have a big blow out celebrating that we are finally finished: finished with the holidays and their demands on our time and spiritual energies, we don't. We have to get up there and sing and dance (if you are so inclined. I'm usually so inclined that I can neither sing nor dance) to celebrate the BEGINNING! That's the challenge. Not just finding the energy and will to be joyous on the holiday, but to be sincerely joyous about starting the whole thing over again.

But I'm not here to talk to you today about new beginnings. My goal is to discuss ends.

The first reading of the year, the opening chapters of Genesis is about that (re)birth; it is about creation and the potential that lies within the starting of any new project, year or endeavor. But in the same way that we clothe the beginning amidst a celebration of beginning, we learn of ends as soon as we start learning about the start of things.

Adam and Chava are in the garden. Things are going swimmingly for an hour or so -- Adam is convalescing, post-surgery and Eve is wandering around, feng shui-ing the live stock. They have been given the run of the place with only one caveat, Genesis 2:17 (text and translation lifted fro the sefaria.org site)

וּמֵעֵ֗ץ הַדַּ֙עַת֙ ט֣וֹב וָרָ֔ע לֹ֥א תֹאכַ֖ל מִמֶּ֑נּוּ כִּ֗י בְּי֛וֹם אֲכָלְךָ֥ מִמֶּ֖נּוּ מ֥וֹת תָּמֽוּת׃
but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.”

The strange Hebrew phrase is at the end of the verse, "Mot tamut" rendered here as "you shall die" and elsewhere as "you shall surely die." The doubling of the root for "death" causes no dearth of consternation to commentators. Some say it is an emphatic doubling (hence the "surely") and cite other instances where words are doubled to indicate importance. Others understandings include

1. You shall be liable to a death penalty for the sin (evidenced by similar language in later Books of Moses when the text discusses the death penalty)
2. You shall suffer 2 deaths (and commentators discuss what those 2 deaths might be)
3. Your nature shall change so the order of things will now lead to a death, as opposed to immortality
3a. Your nature will change so the order of things will lead to an earlier death than was intended

Some, like the HaK'tav V'HaKabala point out explicitly that this "death" is not a punishment as dying is not listed as any of the curses leveled against the players after God's discovery of their actions.

I'm not going to say that they are wrong -- these are great thinkers whose shoulders I do not even merit to stand on, but the wording actually leads me to a subtly different understanding. In 2:17, God tells Adam this doubled language. Then He creates Eve. But I don't see, textually, where anyone warns Eve! Clearly, someone does, because in 3:3, she tells the Nachash,

וּמִפְּרִ֣י הָעֵץ֮ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּתוֹךְ־הַגָּן֒ אָמַ֣ר אֱלֹהִ֗ים לֹ֤א תֹֽאכְלוּ֙ מִמֶּ֔נּוּ וְלֹ֥א תִגְּע֖וּ בּ֑וֹ פֶּן־תְּמֻתֽוּן׃
It is only about [Lit, "and from"] fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said: ‘You shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die.’

Commentators (like the HaK'Tav V'Hakabala) point to Adam as her source of information and wonder why he relayed the injunction in a way which included touching, with one answer being " הוסיף לה אדם הראשון סייג לדבר " the first man added a fence around God's words, as per the advice of the Ethics of Our Fathers 1:1. But the real change here is in the end result, "pen t'mutun" translated here as "lest you die." The double language is gone! So all the interpretations of what it might mean are likewise gone!

The Nachash replies. Now, remember, the Nachash is referred to as "Arum" (cunning) in 3:1. But we know that arum also alludes to naked (as shown in 3:7, 10 and 11). The Nachash showed Eve the naked truth -- he is not deceptive! In fact, he lays things bare when he says,

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר הַנָּחָ֖שׁ אֶל־הָֽאִשָּׁ֑ה לֹֽא־מ֖וֹת תְּמֻתֽוּן׃
And the serpent said to the woman, “You are not going to die,

Hold on, you say, that isn't honest because she IS going to die! But if you look closely at his language, you might come to the conclusion I came to -- the translation is wrong. He says, "lo-mot t'mutun," which is "no, you will surely die." Now that doesn't seem much better until you remember that he is reintroducing the doubled language. He isn't saying "you will not..." but is saying "No, the consequence was this doubled concept." He is quoting God more closely than she is -- he is not hiding God's command behind a fence or in equivocated language, as Adam had done when he conveyed this information to her. Instead he says "What God said was that if you eat this, then your general nature will change and you will be susceptible to a process called 'death'" of which she otherwise KNEW NOTHING!

The Nachash exploited two things: one, Eve's ignorance of what death is, and two, the human urge to celebrate the now and not care about the long term. So what, Eve figures. So what if my nature will change and somewhere, long into the future, I will cease to be. I want that food and its special status, now.

What changes though isn't just that we, as humans, eventually die, but that we know it. And how does that awareness (which turns living into one long and ticking time bomb) begin? Usually when we encounter death through the passing of someone else. This is the double language: You will experience death and you will realize your own mortality. This is the true curse and punishment, this realization that our time is limited and we are in a race against an unbeatable foe. Eve brought on to all of us a knowledge of our own fate - and in an extended sense, this is the pain of childbirth (3:16): a mother's knowledge that she and eventually the generations after her will die.

So what is the cure? How do we get back to the garden?

We focus on the spiritual and the immortal soul. If we can remember that there is a part of us that transcends this body and world, then we can reattain the pre-fall status, and live forever. Eating fruit won't do it. Following the mitzvot and celebrating even the body's end will help us see that there is a greater promise. In our beginning, there is a built in end. But in that end, there is a new beginning (a "Dawn of Correction" one might say).

Another post-Ne'ilah post: "Ne'ilah"

Last year at this time, I posted a thought about the final prayers of Yom Kippur, the Ne'ilah service. I focused, through the lens of bosh and piffle, about how the service should not be seen as an end, but a beginning of a journey, and that the name of the service refers to shoes, which we must don in order to make that journey of improvement.

Far be it from me to cast aspersions on my own genius, but this year, I have been inspired with some loftier thoughts regarding the service. Allow me to explain.

As stated last year, the Ne'ilah service is not about an ending. And yet, most of the speeches I hear are all filled with analogies about beating deadlines -- the final 2 minutes of a football game, the sirens rushing to an accident, the paper that has to be submitted. This is, even though the gates don't actually close. The "slips" which have our verdict are not handed down until the end of Sukkot. Even then, we say in the thrice daily weekday prayers a blessing about repentance and forgiveness, and have the prayer of tachanun which includes confession. If the gates were closed then prayer the rest of the year would be ineffectual and useless!

So what changes at the close of the Ne'ilah prayer that makes it so important that we focus? (and no fair saying "we do" because we hope to change for the better all the time). The answer seems insignificant -- some subtle liturgical wordings. For the last 10 days we have been shifting the text of certain prayers to focus on God's kingship and this stress ends right after Ne'ilah ends. Ne'ilah is the last chance to address that element of God's character explicitly and that's the rush.

There is, in my mind, a difference between talking about a king, and talking to the king. In both cases, there is reverence, but in the latter, we have reached a level of importance, we have risen high enough in stature, that we can look to the king directly and make our requests; instead of saying "the king is really mighty and powerful, and he has the power to save me" we can say "Hey, king, please save me." We are in his presence, by his throne and that s about to end.

So then why "Ne'ilah"? I looked at the word with my 24-hours-into-the-fast eyes and I saw a different word that shares most of the letters -- na'aleh. We will rise up. Rising is a concept that appears elsewhere in our prayers during the year and, in fact, in the Yom Kippur prayers -- in fact, in the evening service at the beginning of Yom Kippur, we, full of fear and hope, begin the supplications with a liturgical poem beginning with the word "ya'aleh" (it will rise up). We want our prayers to rise up. But by the end of the day, we hope that we, ourselves, will rise up. We are at the throne and want to be able to rise up and address the king one last time, and, somehow, we want to be granted the privilege of staying on that level, having that "aliyah" become permanent so we can speak to "hamelech" the king, all the time.

May we all have that aliyah, that rising up this year, in the merit of the prayers which we offered fervently yesterday, and which we will continue to offer throughout the year.