No Hoshanot today!

Well, no hashanot for me — or, as the English has it, no hosannas. I set my alarm for 6:30 this morning, but somehow it didn’t go off, and I slept until 7:20. After even the most cursory shower and breakfast it was too late to walk to Hoshana Rabba services as I had intended. And there went my opportunity to attend this service, which I have never either led or attended.

So, what did I miss? A short explanation of Hoshana Rabba from Wikipedia: “Hoshana Rabbah (Aramaic: הוֹשַׁעְנָא רַבָּא‎, lit. ‘Great Hoshana/Supplication’) is the seventh day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, the 21st day of the month of Tishrei. This day is marked by a special synagogue service, the Hoshana Rabbah, in which seven circuits are made by the worshippers with their lulav (palm, willow, and myrtle branches) and etrog (citron — looks like a lumpy lemon), while the congregation recites Hoshanot (songs of praise). It is customary for the scrolls of the Torah to be removed from the ark during this procession. In a few communities a shofar is sounded after each circuit. “

My colleague and friend Cantor Hinda Labovitz offers this “look behind the scenes” at all that the cantor has to accomplish in this service. She writes,” I like to call this service the ‘Olympic Ice Skating Finals of Jewish liturgy’… Basically it’s a mash-up of 98% of Jewish chant modes you hear from throughout the year. […] it’s got elements of weekdays, Shabbat, Shalosh Regalim (Pesach, Shavu’ot, and Sukkot), and High Holy Days .” Cantor Labovitz davens from “a color-coded siddur that visually cues all of these transitions, some of which are quick. […] this ‘wacky’ service includes prayers for rain and deliverance, seven lulav-parades around the chapel, and (literally) whacking the willows.”

So, am I bummed I missed it? Kinda. This was my one chance in the foreseeable future to go to Hoshanna Rabba in Jerusalem. Reform Jews don’t do Hoshanna Rabba, so I won’t be leading it any time in the next few years, probably, either. However, looking on the brighter side… During sukkot I have eaten in someone’s sukkah every day so far: for the first few days in the two sukkot at Laurie Rappeport’s in Tzfat, on Thursday in the sidewalk sukkah at Pesto, a little Italian restaurant up the street from me, Friday with my friend Yehudit for Shabbat in a sukkah in their small parking lot, and yesterday on the mirpeset of my friend Tamy for Shabbat lunch with some lovely people. Tonight I will go to services for the beginning of Simchat Torah, the last day of the month of holidays we’ve been celebrating, and tomorrow I hope to attend morning services, an afternoon potluck, and then an evening egalitarian celebration with musical hakafot (parades with Torah scrolls). So perhaps it’s not too bad to take today off.

Off, of course, doesn’t exactly mean relaxing…which brings me to the other reason that I am not singing hosannas today. I’m engaged in a frenzy of cleaning, which began, most inappropriately, Friday night at 11 pm when I got home from a one hour walk home after Shabbat dinner with Yehudit. What could possibly compel me to start mopping late at night on Shabbos — I who not only hate cleaning but scrupulously observe the Shabbat prohibition against it? Let me rewind…

A day or two after I got home from my nice visit in Tzfat with the family (yes, I’ll post some pictures soon!), I found that I was covered with bug bites. Now, I’ve had a bit of a problem with mosquitos here — there seems to be some wet, vegetative place nearby where they breed. These were too abundant to be mosquito bites, though. I spent a horrible several hours reading online about bed bugs. Then I started looking for evidence. May I just say, I have much to be grateful for, and right now, I am more than anything grateful not to have bedbugs!!!! However…the bedbug has a common cousin, another little flat blood sucker — the flea. Yes, thanks top the plague of “Trash cats” who hang around my stoop in search of the food that the former tenant used to provide, I am now afflicted with fleas. And when I came home late Friday night I was wearing a short enough skirt to see that they were crawling up my legs. Hence, late night mopping on Shabbat. I can’t wait to ask my Talmud teachers if the principle of pikuach nefesh (saving a life) would allow for this. Flea do carry diseases sometimes, and so it seems as thought one might be allowed to break the mitzvah of Shabbat rest in order to get rid of them — but I didn’t wait to find out. I am a Reform Jew, and fleas totally gross me out!

The locus of the fleas, it now appears, is actually outside. I have for the most part managed to eradicate them from my apartment — at least, for the time being. I’ve been mopping, vacuuming, and doing laundry like a fiend. Today I had repeatedly dumped hot soapy water over the area in front of my door, and I have removed the door mat in which I believe the flea eggs were hiding. But I imagine in may be some days or even weeks before I am totally free of this little creeps. I’m going up to the store soon to buy some baking soda to spread on the carpet and the sofa, and if I can find it, some not-too-toxic-to-people spray or powder to spread outside.

In the meantime, I wish you all a happy Simchat Torah. I”m sitting on my mirpeset, the sky is blue, the air is cool the shrubs near me have burst into yellow flowers, I have Brahms Clarinet Quintet on Spotify — so, if I am not singing hoshanot, I am at least content!