KOL NIDRE

I hope that all of you had  meaningful Days of Awe and that you and your families have been inscribed in the Book of Life for 5779 and beyond.

And, then...

...there they were again.The couple, aging as we are, sitting a couple of rows in front of us at Kol Nidre services. They aren't at services very often, even less often than we -- so, giving them the benefit of the doubt, I thought, hoped, that this time itwould be different.

You see, this couple, society folks BTW, in every prior year, came in, sat down, and began popping chewing gum as if gum were the staff of life -- he, a few pieces less than she. Five, six, maybe seven pieces each, their cheeks inflating like small balloons. We were annually transfixed and disgusted at this display, But it didn't end well.

He was a quiet chewer, his jaws moving imperceptibly; she, however, chewed her gum at a pace never before seen, lips open, the smacking noise continuous. I sensed that the echo from the "smack, smack, smack" was reverberating off the walls of the sanctuary. In our section, all eyes were on this grotesquerie. You couldn't help hearing the noise; soon the choir was looking around, then the Cantor,the Rabbi.

But no one did anything, no one said anything. God knows if one's kippah fell off unnoticed by the wearer, 15 men would be on you in a nano-second; smacking gum on Yom Kippur...we are embarrassed into silence for this couple. Finally, at my wife's urging -- "DO SOMETHING" -- tapped the fellow on the shoulder: "It's Yom Kippur, please?" He had not a clue what I was talking about. OK, subtlety...no good. "You can't chew gum in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur." His wife couldn't hear me over the sounds of her chomping.

And as a few minutes passed, the gum-chewing slowed to a crawl as the couple lapsed into deep sleep. Now the sounds of gum-smacking evolved into loud snoring. 

Can't wait 'til next year.

Rwexler