Of course (in my way of doing things), my idea was somewhat more ambitious. Which is why it never got done. I’d like to see:

• More annotation of the origin of lyrics and tunes
• Links between tunes which are applied to different prayers

Essentially this means that the tune and the words are separated, and each of them could be annotated with Hebrew, transcription, translation, authorship/variant notes… and somewhere in the intersection people would upload recordings. Maybe I can ask Mendy and Gabe to work on it. Or mabye it was just too much to ever make a site out of and they’ve got it right.

Either way, I’ll need to find some time to record some tunes. (Because most of their voices are terrible…)

Not only do I have to work out the tune, but there seem to be a variety of texts for the purpose. This chart compares a few samples. Any bits people particularly like or don’t like??

• Is God a dweller on high, or a father to orphans?
• Should God procure space upon or under the wings of His presence?
• Do we mourn “6 million Jews”, or “our brothers, Children of Israel”, or “multitudes of thousands of Israel”, or the “holy and pure”?
• Do we specify “men, women and children”?
• Do we state that their death was “in the sanctification of God’s Name”?
• What different means of death should we list?
• Do we name the holocaust, or list the camps, or mention Germans, or Nazis, or that their name should be erased?
• Do we give attribution to our prayer for them, or to our charity on their behalf?
• Do we mention that among them were the righteous and learned?
• And why is יום pluralised irregularly as ימין when it follows the word קץ?

That morning I got up after not much sleep to go to the Ghetto Shul and be chazan there for Tefilat Hageshem, had a brief lunch there (too much food, too much the same, not enough eaters) and went back to bed. As night fell from evening, after having a seudah shelishit without food (ie just singing) with Allison and her friend Sophie, I packed my bag and was ready to go to our first stop for the night: the Ghetto Shul.

There were nine of us who had decided to walk from downtown Montreal up to the more Jewish neighbourhood of Cote St Luc, about 8 kilometres:
Arié, David Zvi, Denise, Greg, Nathan, Rachel H, Rachel K, Sarah and me. Things started a little late at the Ghetto Shul (announced for 7, actually after 7:30), and yet at the same time I was surprised at how fast things went. We did two hakafot (rounds of celebration and dancing with the torah scrolls) before discussing our movement to the next location (Westmount Chabad). And the discussion took a while to complete, so in the meantime I danced some more, getting hungrier. It turned out half the group weren’t packed and ready to go yet to the night’s adventures, so when things were finally sorted out, the 4th hakafa was already coming to a completion and tables were being taken out for food. Despite our hunger, those of us that were ready left off, to meet the others at Westmount.

So four of us headed down the road for the ~35 minute walk west. It didn’t feel that long, probably because we were singing (and a little dancing) through the streets along the way: me and Arié and Denise and David Zvi (who was dressed in a long black gown and tallit for the occasion). We also figured that at this late hour, we were better off stopping at Shaar Hashomayim who would finish before Chabad. But the Shaar were dining, and it looked/smelled like quite some feast—the sort of thing we should have already paid for. The idea that it might have been worthwhile to sneak in past the security guards only came up afterwards, and we arrived at Westmount to discover that they too had just finished the services. But there was plenty of good food on the table: mostly kosher American Chinese, some of it actually bearable (fried rice even good, but chicken mostly battered alongside pineapple). So we stuck around there for a short while; a couple of plates of food, a couple of glasses of wine and whisky shots; a couple of dances though the dancing was over; a couple of brief conversations. The rest of the group had turned up, and the night was yet long and Cote St Luc far. Next top was another Chabad centre, but some walk away.

We walked on, towards the Montreal Torah Center, the unassuming name of a large Chabad establishment in the Jewish centre of Montreal. It was quite a cool night, and many chins were considering freezing off, but the singing continued, albeit reduced, and it was altogether quite pleasant. If nothing else, it was a wonderful group of people to spend the walk with. When we got to MTC, we were met by large crowds of people in the entranceway. Once again, we had just missed the end of the official action, and now there were only a handful of hasidic farbrengens, and young people crowding the foyer.

So we got bored of MTC pretty quickly, and headed towards “The Lighthouse”, dropping our bags at Arié’s place on the way. The Lighthouse is a youthful scene in CSL run by Rabbi Elyon Shemesh, a shaliach from Israel and a student of Shlomo Carlebach. As we entered his apartment, the nine of us were fervently greeted by many familiar faces, shocked, amazed and excited to hear we had just walked all the way from Downtown (it was now after 1am, too). So we joined in the party, meeting some of the locals and having a good time, snacking on cakes and pretzels. And Elyon rose to speak, and spoke, a long personal anecdote, with a few songs and some nice teachings interwoven, and it lasted an hour. All cheered his words, and decided it was about time for bed. So we too left and found our way into Arié’s basement at 3am. (There Greg entertained us in his unusual lack of sobriety; Nathan and I played footsies through the night.)

We woke up fairly late: the family had decided not to wake us, so we all eventually crawled out of the house in time to miss most of the celebrations at the nearby synagogue. The congregation we attended is a small Moroccan one founded by Arié’s father, and when we got there the crowds had left to dance through a circuit of other synagogues in the neighbourhood. Just as those of us arriving late caught up all we had missed, the congregation returned. They returned with song for the taking out of the torah from the ark. For some reason, the sifrei torah here were not in the decorated cases usually expected for a Sephardi congregation, but were dressed like Ashkenazi scrolls; many of the lovelier tunes were Sephardi, although there was a spattering of chassidic nigunim among them as well. The hazan there has a wonderful voice, and an oriental style that I continually fail to imitate (some think I do a good “shabbehi yerushalayim”, but they clearly haven’t listened carefully to the real thing). According to their custom each nearly-bar mitzvah boy went up to the torah, and upon completing his turn received a toy car (of course one of the congregants owned a toy store—at the same time, they were forbidden to open the box on the festival). They had an atmosphere imbued with cheer and excitement, and for those of us mostly familiar with European styles it was a beautiful experience. I nonetheless did visit a couple of times the Adat shul around the corner, particularly the congregation in its basement, where the dancing continued much later (I still only got in for the last minute of it).

After the services, the Moroccan congregants and my group of friends went downstairs to enjoy the delicacies of the lunch Arié’s mother had prepared in exquisite North African (or otherwise) taste. Meat-filled pastries, turkey, artichokes; a nice small buffet of delicious food. And of course mint tea whose many species of leaves she ships regularly from Morocco; and sweet battered pastries with fruits for dessert.

Many of our group had left by dessert and were off to have another picnic lunch some distance away at Mount Royal; Denise, Arié and I were left with his brother (Yoel) and friend to rest at their house. We came up with an idea of heading up to Quebec City for the weekend of the 28th, but that plan seems less likely now—besides, we would miss all the pre-Halloween parties! Soon we were back in the synagogue for some more prayer, food and delicious song. Later, at Arié’s home we waited for the family to return to say havdalah and bring out the festival. The family gathered around: Arié’s mother and father, Arié, Yoel, his sister and her boyfriend, Denise and me. It was a nice family gathering with beautiful custom and a blessing from the father of the household for the following week’s prosperity for each of his children and those present. Like from the congregation earlier, the prayer was adorned with sporadic “amen” responses from those listening.

Arié continues to repeat an idea from Yosef: Sephardi Judaism is real religion, while the Ashkenazim are all about “what does the halacha say?” And maybe he’s right, and maybe it’s why chassidut felt the need to escape the chambers of learning and to jump up and down in a natural and loving fervour away from the nitpickings of the law. I don’t know how I feel about this, and I think that there needs to be a balance in the styles of practice. I certainly did enjoy my taste of this Moroccan flavour, and will definitely be back for more.

With a lift back to Villa-Maria station and a ticket lent to me who bore no cash, the month’s festivities were over and we were on our way home.

In my second week in Montreal, I received a phonecall. It was Dena, the rebbetzin (Rabbi’s wife) of the Ghetto Shul, giving me the phone number of a man named Mr Brick who was looking for someone to lead services at the Bagg Street shul for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. I had never led services for the high holidays before, but I had led services, and this was something I had hoped to do, in one North American city or another. By this stage, only about two weeks before the New Year, I had thought I wouldn’t find anywhere out of town, and would probably end up at the Ghetto Shul.

Unlike many students who had been here longer, I had actually heard about Bagg Street, or read about it online. It’s one of the few congregations downtown, and the longest-running synagogue in Montreal, having been built in the early 1920s. Much like Sydney’s Newtown Synagogue, it’s a beautiful, recently-restored building situated in an area that no longer has a significant Jewish population. But unlike Newtown Shul, Bagg St hasn’t had a young revival and is weekly frequented by exactly 10 or 11 men (including a Rabbi who runs off to his own congregation after giving a talk on shabbat) and maybe a woman or two.

After giving the shul’s caretaker a call, I visited, and he showed me the highly ornamented synagogue, its historic treasures, and a list of what would be demanded of me if I were to accept my mission: maarivs, shacharits, musafs, neilah, shofar blowing, torah reading.. This was all a worst-case scenario, where someone might be able to fill in to read the torah, or maybe do a shacharit here and there. He decided that although he didn’t need a real chazan (only a baal tefillah), he would rather someone who could actually sing. So we sampled a few notes and he seemed sufficiently pleased.

So, without spending too much time to think about it (about the nearness of the holiday, the amount of preparation, and how much I might rather being at the Ghetto Shul), I signed away my next few weeks of time. I justified it with the shul not having anyone else to lead them, me needing experience, and a little alleviation from the financial burden of 7.5 months of travelling…

I practised a little, mostly at the latest opportunity possible, with the help of a faded memory of some great tunes learnt at Kehillat Moriah in my youth from David Shaw, a few more from Or Chadash / JLC, others from virtualcantor.com and from a couple of CDs (Yisroel Williger) I bought after getting the gig, and a handful warm-up exercises from various choirs.

Rosh Hashana was nice, although a little lonely to be away from most of my friends–still, I did encourage a few to come along. Then again, many were out of town, and even the Ghetto Shul struggled at length to get a minyan (quorum for prayer) at any reasonable hour. It may have been for a lack of physical warm-ups (and only vocal preparaton) or because I was too loud and misusing what voice I had, but I was quite hoarse by the end of the services on Rosh Hashana. Nonetheless, I felt the shofar blasts were all fairly clear even if my voice wasn’t by the end of the day.

A new experience was the traditional sale of aliyot to the torah in an auction before the scrolls were taken out of the ark. It’s maybe not my favourite custom and is questionable in how appropriate it is on the Day of Judgement, but it is a tradition, and was a little amusing to watch the amounts called in English and Yiddish, “second time”, “third time”, “sold!”

The second night of the new year I had off (the shul was unlikely to gather enough people), and I went with a group of friends to Chabad of Westmount, a 30 minute walk west of my home here. It is (maybe surprisingly) a very welcoming congregation and rabbi, and provided us with a perfectly prepared and presented banquet of a dinner. A conversation of mine with the Rabbi (next to whom I ended up sitting went a little like this):

J: Wow. What a meal! Where do you find these people?
R: It’s actually my wife’s cooking
J: I know!
R laughs

It went a little longer, but I think I’ll stop there. Another feature of the night was all the small-to-medium-size children running around serving the courses. At one point I was served a plate of salmon, which I proceeded to pass to my neighbour. I received another place, I passed it to their neighbour. They asked me why I wasn’t eating: “I don’t eat much fish”. And I discussed my unusual fish-eating pickiness with them, when suddenly appear two hands from beside me, which throw down a plate of the fish in front of me. I was left a little resigned and very amused by the appearance of this boy, whose head did not nearly reach my shoulder when sitting, and whose arms had to stretch upwards to place the plate in front of me. It over all was a wonderful night of good (some new) company, great food, nice singing and interesting learning.

My Rosh Hashana lunches were spent at the Ghetto Shul, where a crowd much smaller than the average shabbat were dining as I entered on the first day. (On the second day when I came in, they hadn’t finished services yet and I even jumped in for a quick Birkat Kohanim when I suddenly realised no one else was stepping up to the task.) I have not been particularly impressed by the food served there, and was even a little less so on Rosh Hashana. Oh well.

A place, though, that continues to feed me on such festive occasions is Yosef and Danny’s across the road. Yosef is constantly inviting the Hillel crowd and a handful of others to his table for a delicious and entertaining meal. On the first night of the holiday he had covered the table with “simanim”: various edible omens, ranging from black-eyed beans to fresh dates to beet leaves (fried in a sweet batter) to fish heads. It was a new experience for me to have a Rosh Hashana meal with quite so many of these. And it was quite a lot of fun, but maybe a habit I wont get into doing every year.

Yosef also hosted us on Sunday evening for a meal before our day of fasting. He decided we’d find enough people to get a minyan together for mincha before it. I was holding that minyan up: too busy cramming tunes and printing out sheet music that I’d typed up (while the printer was out of toner) I arrived half an hour late. And after mincha I went back to get a belt, non-leather shoes, some coins, and some socks for people to swing the coins around their heads. The meal was, as usual, wonderful, but running a little late, I left with just enough time to walk to Bagg St with Naomi.

Kol Nidrei started late: they hadn’t properly confirmed that the Rabbi would be speaking first, so when they finally decided he wouldn’t show, it was getting dark. The service itself was not so remarkable. I borrowed a nice tune from virtualcantor for one of the piyyutim (“Yaale…”), and in other tunes whenever I hit or sustained a high note I suddenly noticed heads pop up from the women’s gallery overhead and stare in my direction for a moment, only to recide until another note. I don’t know if they feared the stained-glass windows being broken, but they seemed at least to be impressed and let me know so after the service. I guess chazanim are much more often baritones and basses… Among those coming up to greet me after the service was a former lecturer of mine (I dropped his class after a couple of weeks), who described my (or Mr Nothman’s) presence on the bimah as a nice surprise.

Not wanting a repeat of Rosh Hashana’s hoarseness, I warmed up well on Yom Kippur morning, and kept a much softer, more comfortable volume throughout shacharit. Musaf I put in a little bit more, and it is a lot longer than any other service of the year, so I did come out of it a little worn. But I came out (after 3pm, with Sarah and Naomi) to a sprinkling of rain. I had decided we would go find out what was happening at the Holiday Inn, at which the Ghetto Shul was convening. Maybe someone would be there giving over some insightful words, or maybe I would just be able to get some rest in the comfort of friends. But when Sarah and I got there, it was nearly empty. Nathan did entertain us a little (and taught us a little), but he was one of few remaining. So I got 20 minutes of nap there on the carpeted hotel floor.

Refreshed, I returned through a sunny afternoon to the Bagg Street shul for a 5pm start, and was able to actually sit down during most of mincha (although I purchased an aliyah). By the time we reached neilah, and despite my not being confident with the tune, I had an enormous adrenalin rush, which made it a very powerful finish to the day (again despite my failing to get the tunes right). One of its few detractions (maybe) were that I could see a number of women spent the service looking at me instead of their books… We had started late, so it wasn’t entirely my fault when we brought out Yom Kippur 20 minutes late, and I was quite surprised that no one left for their break-fasts until I blew a long tekia gedola and sang to next year in Jerusalem.

With many congratulations after five hours standing and singing that day, we went down stairs to drink a little grape juice, eat a little cake, and raise our hands to the fluorescent lights to divide between holy and profane. After breaking the fast once, and despite it being quite late, I walked with Naomi, Sarah, Tali and Leah to the Holiday Inn again to see how their fast-breaking was going. Their fast-breaking had gone, along with their fast-breakers. But people were still cleaning up and there were bags of fruit and half-eaten cakes and packets of buscuits lying around for the taking. By this time I was highly fatigued (by loss of adrenalin, or simple exhaustion) and needed to get some books from the library to read before the next day’s Levy class. On the way home we refused a man on a street the money we weren’t carrying, and instead gave him a half-eaten cake. It was a relief to get my books, to shower, to close the gates of my experience, and to begin again ordinary life as an exchange student in Montreal…