days of yawm

My old man had dragged me to Yom Kippur services.

Which was cool because I got to take the day off from school.

"The self-appointed big-mouth of the synagogue" (that's what my old man called him) was this crazy old Russian dude named Reuben.

Reuben must have been about eighty at the time.

Little guy, about five-three, maybe a hundred and twenty pounds.

But he was an aggressive b*****d.

Well, Ruben was holding up the service because he was waiting for Irving Cohen to arrive; he didn't want to start the service without Cohen's presence.

Something about how a Cohen is supposed to recite one of the blessings over the Torah.

I don't know, I'm not a biblical scholar, so I don't know what the hell it was all about.

But, anyway, my old man was furious.

First of all, everyone in town knew Irving was a drunk.

And not only was he a drunk, he was an 

Atheist, too.

And everyone knew this.

Including Reuben.

But it didn't matter to Reuben whether 

Irving was a drunk or an Atheist.

He was "A Cohen," and that was all that mattered.

That's when my old man got a hold of Reuben.

And things got ugly.

"This is ridiculous, Reuben," my old man 

said. "Why the hell are we sitting around here waiting for a loser like Irving?"

"I want a Cohen… Irving is the only Cohen in town…And we have no Levis…"

"Irving could give less than a crap about being a Cohen.  Or this synagogue!  Or you or anyone else!  And we don't need either a Cohen or a Levi to recite the blessings… any one of us can recite the damn things!"

"Relax, we'll wait… if he doesn't come in a reasonable amount of time…"

"A reasonable amount of time?  Services were supposed to start at nine o'clock.  It's now nine-forty-five!"

"Patience, please…"

"Patience, my a*s!"

"Please, no cursing…"

"This isn't about him being a 'Cohen' at all, and you know it… This is about his goddamn money… You've always been impressed by money… and the rest of us just aren't good enough for you to get up there and recite the blessings… that's what it's about!"

"It's about tradition…"

"Oh, bullshit!  It is not!  Reuben, you are such a hypocrite!"

My old man grabbed me by the arm, and we rushed out of the synagogue, forgetting to take our yarmulkes off.

Boy, he was pissed.

The whole way home, he just stewed.

After that, I knew we wouldn't go to any more services.

And we didn't.

We observed the Jewish holidays, alright.

We didn't observe them in a synagogue.

That's when my old man introduced me to horse racing.

And I've been a convert ever since.