Activist Activities

Yom Kippur at Sdot Yam
By David Ben-Ariel

Mon., Oct. 9, '89/9:30 p.m.

Kibbutz Sdot Yam

Today was Yom Kippur, so I begin to write on a "clean slate," beginning with synagogue services (2 1/2 hrs.) last night to usher in this holiest of Jewish days.

I mainly went for the experience, as well as spiritual solidarity with my people (God's Church & the Jews) around the world. I read & sang only about a tithe of the service - amazed that I could keep up in Hebrew I'd never read before.

With me were other ulpanistim [Hebrew students] who elected to fast - mainly, I believe, for the experience or test or show-off of will-power. God alone knows. I scanned the faces of all those assembled in the make-shift synagogue with mixed emotions and an alien distance.

Tradition - even empty, hollow, shallow - has assisted Jewry to preserve this Day, however imperfectly; yet I also couldn't help but think of God & Kahane who might dismiss such "worship" as vain and such "devotions" as void. Liberal, Hellenist, humanists who have nothing to do with God and are ignorant of or deny His Word as a general rule, as hypocritical & unacceptable as professing Christianity on the pagan days of Christmas and Easter - temporarily becoming "religious" or sickly kind...Nevertheless, may we all ultimately worship the One True God and His Son, in spirit & in truth. G'mar hateemah tovah! [Be inscribed for good in the Book].

During this relatively easy fast today, I laid in bed & read & read The Good News magazine, meditated on life, my past, present and potential future. I prayed & asked for forgiveness and clarity of mind & purpose with patience to overcome sins and achieve success in this spiritual struggle, resolving to start again to abstain from alcohol and stop going to our kibbutz pub on erev Shabbat [Sabbath evening]. Today I really missed Church services and fellowship with the brethren, remembering our divine camaraderie.