Brookwrite

High Holy Day observance

by Doug Brook
Deep South Jewish Voice Colunmist

During Yom Kippur services this year, I had a revelation: We sure do stand a long time that day.

But, perhaps more importantly, a very significant and, until now, lost aspect of the Yom Kippur liturgy was revealed to me. I reluctantly admit that the words in my machzor seemed to reform (which was confusing since I was in a conservative synagogue) into a revolutionary new perspective on the traditional confessionals.

For those of you who think that the lack of food or drink was getting to me, think again. This happened two hours into Kol Nidre (that's the opening night service of Yom Kippur, for you Yankees fans out there).

Besides, my hallucination came late in the afternoon of Yom Kippur when I pictured (get this) a man being eaten by a big fish and trying to save a bunch of people after he was spit out a few days later. I'm not trying to bait you with a whale of a tale here. It was really just a story of a man who was trying to gain his freedom after three days of entrapment, during which he was limited to great sole-searching.

So, we were up to the first of the three hundred seventy-four Yom Kippur recitations of the confessional "Vidui" (Yiddish for "we do it"), when the words on the page magically transformed into a centuries-lost interpretation of this highly popular, Top-40 testament from none other than this columnist's pet Mishnah tractate: Baba Gump.

As at least three of you know, the Vidui is an acrostic confessional that They (derived from the Aramaic term for "Them") annually remind us is a community confessional. That means that we all say it together because, though we might not have done (or been caught at) each act ourselves in the past year, someone in the room probably did; and, given half a chance, we probably would, too.

Disclaimer: This columnist does not advocate the increasingly popular game of looking around the sanctuary trying to decide who actually did what, or who did the most on the list. The person next to you did not do all those things, necessarily; just like you didn't do them all, necessarily.

But back to Baba Gump's divine revelation. If you look in the trusty Rabbinical Assembly machzor, you will find that the translation of the Vidui is itself an acrostic (each word starts with a successive letter of the alphabet, which has nothing to do with small insects on Christian icons).

The fact that the odds of both the Hebrew and English of this traditional text both being perfect acrostics are less than the Braves winning a post-season game this year has eluded scholars for centuries. But Baba Gump has shown the way with the true, literal translation of the Vidui, as follows (the Hebrew is before the English, if you're confused):

(Remember, that in Hebrew, "nu" at the end of a word means "we", not necessarily the Yiddish invitation to gossip, "nu?". Though the coincidence in this context is striking.)

Ashamnu: We were ashamed.
Bagadnu: (From the Hebrew word "beged" meaning "clothes") We were dressed badly.
Gazalnu: We were gazelles (meaning, we were animals... in a bad way).
Debarnu Dofi: The first word means "we said", the second word is a plural form, so literally "We called people dufusses".
He'evinu: We were heavy (either physically or intellectually).
V'hirshanu: We cheated in creating an acrostic by adding a letter "v" that just means "and" to the beginning of another word "hirshanu" (probably to meet a printing deadline).
Zadnu: We were the villainous General in Superman II (applies mainly to Terrance Stamp).
Chamasnu: We were as tasteless as hummus.
Tafalnu Shaker: A derivation of "nafal" which means "fall"; so literally, "we fell in a shocker" (see Alabama vs. Southern Miss... or UCLA... or Arkansas... or... just shoot me now).
Ya'atznu Ra: "Ra" means "bad", so literally "we were yutzes... in a bad way".
Kizavnu: We told people to "kiss off".
Latznu: We played the lottery.
Maradnu: We were marauders.
Ni'atznu: We kicked our knees into the "atz" of other people.
Sararnu: We were women named Sarah that satire columnists might have thought were cute but they wouldn't give him the time of day if they had the last watch on the planet and he needed to know if the Mets game had started yet...
Avinu: "Av" in Hebrew means "father". Since it is spelled differently here, it means "We were fathers, when we didn't mean to be".
Pashanu: We said "pshah!" to people too loud (they heard it).
Tzararnu: We have unfairly strived for a cheap laugh at the expense of women everywhere named Sarah when, in fact, none of the many women who in the past year wouldn't give us the time of day were named Sarah.
Kishinu Oref: Literally, "we made quiche for the ref". In other words, we bribed the officials (see Florida v. Tennessee).
Rashanu: We had rashes, that we got doing things we shouldn't be.
Shichatnu: Literally "she caught us", means that whatever it was we were up to, she knew about it.
Ti'avnu: Literally "we had tea on the avenue," this refers to all sins of carrying on other activities while driving; including but not limited to talking on a cell phone, eating, applying makeup, listening to Barry Manilow, cutting off satire columnists on the freeway, or writing down license plate numbers of cars that cut you off on the freeway while still going 80.
Ta'inu: We had too many senseless, gratuitous commercial tie-ins (see the Olympics).
Ti'tanu: We got so drunk that this word was the closest we could come to pronouncing that classic song from "No, No, Nanette", "Tea for Two".

(Note: there is some debate about whether this last one would be a sin after witnessing someone commit Tafalnu Shaker. See Alabama vs. Southern Miss, UCLA, Arkansas... why didn't you put me out of my misery the first time?)

I hope next year you keep in mind this revelatory translation from Baba Gump, especially if at any time in the coming year you find to the horror of you and your neighbours that you are, in fact, a gazelle.

Doug Brook is a technical writer in Silicon Valley, who hasn't written much this year because, both domestically and abroad, it hasn't been too funny lately.