For Erev Rosh Hashanah, in case you missed out on those $1.8M front-row Miami synagogue seats, here's a rap video to get you in the holiday spirit!

The season creeps up on a person. Or at least this season has crept up on this person. A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to one of my mother's doctors in Florida--a fancy specialist who has taken a touching personal interest in her--and at the end of the conversation he wished me a happy new year. I honestly don't remember what I said; I just hope I didn't communicate my gut feeling that he'd been in surgery too long and lost his grip a bit. It wasn't till we hung up that I realized what he meant. Oh, that new year.

Somehow, the way Labor Day fell has left me playing catchup all month. Everything is happening anywhere from a couple of days to a week sooner than I expected.

In the elevators in my office building we have little TV screens that bring us exciting news and feature bulletins--along with exciting commercials, of course. Last week there was an AP report about somebody selling (or trying to sell?), on eBay, a pair of lifetime front-row seats for the High Holy Days at some synagogue in Miami--for $1.8 million!

So here it is, already coming up on Erev Rosh Hashanah, and as of this morning I hadn't even let "my people" at work know that I won't be in tomorrow. When I started working, I didn't in fact take the Jewish High Holy Days off, since Jews don't hardly come less observant than me. It was my mother who eventually persuaded me that it's important for us to take those days off--"so they respect us."

That's one possibility. Another is the response a friend of mine got when he informed the viscerally anti-Semitic boss who'd only recently hired him that he was taking the Jewish holidays off: "You're Jewish?! I thought you were Polish!" That too, my friend explained. In an instant he went from being his new boss's best friend to being . . . well, you know what.

Now, I'm mostly grateful for the excuse to take the days off, even though they come out of my PTO allotment.

I thought I could score a double here: circulating one memo and getting one PTO form signed for both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. (Getting the PTO form signed is a tad tricky, you see. The closest I've ever come to having a conversation with my department head is the time I went in his office and introduced myself--by way of having him sign my last PTO form, which I see was on March 1.) Then I noticed that Yom Kippur falls on a Saturday. So no "holiday double."

Actually, this is pretty exciting in some ways. As everyone knows, when Yom Kippur--the Day of Atonement, also known to friends as "The Sabbath of Sabbaths"--falls on the actual Sabbath, the holiness quotient goes, like, through the roof. It lends a special tone to your traditional Yom Kippur apple bob and suckling-pig roast. Surf 'n' turf is good for the holiday too. Or if you've got a really, really giant pot, you could try one of those indoor clambakes with lots of shellfish. (On the atoning business, I've offered God a special arrangement. I try to do mine in real time, and He's free to start anytime He's ready.)

Meanwhile, if you're still trying to get yourself in the holiday spirit, my friend Mike passes on this note of celebration, "a Jewish rap video" (which I had to have him tell me he directed), with the greeting: "Hope you enjoy. If you do, feel free to send it to everyone you know. We're trying to make it the Rosh Hashanah sensation."


(As this is my first attempt at embedding--though Howie keeps pestering me to try it, assuring me how easy it is--the link is www.chozinn.com.)