Yom Kippur

Today was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Along with Rosh Hashanah, it is one of the two most important Jewish holidays, and involves attending several services, fasting, and generally trying to be contemplative and contrite for the day. How, you might ask, does this holiday of solemnity and seriousness fit with two young children? Read on...

We had initially planned on Dave going to the 10 o'clock morning service on his own (following everyone's attendance at the previous evening's service), and then we would all go to the afternoon service. However, at about 9:30, Sam decided that he wanted to go to the morning service, after all. The fact that there was a kids' service starting at 10:45 helped immensely with the feasibility of this idea, so we decided to go with the flow. After some very quick outfit changes, a rapid stocking of the diaper bag/quiet activity supplies, we were off to the morning service. Dave still got to attend (most of) the service, while Sam, Rachel and Natasha went to the kids' service, which involved some crafts, stories, etc.

Then it was time to head home, do another quick outfit change and turnaround, and get Sam ready for his afternoon at pre-school. Dave got to do the pick-up and drop-off, which was a nice change of pace. Sam knows the routine pretty well by now, so he was able to help Dave figure out what to do :)

Once Sam's pre-school afternoon was complete, it was time for yet another outfit change, getting everyone organized, and back to synagogue for the afternoon service. Before we left, Natasha took the opportunity to take some pictures of the kids in their dress clothes. Sam was quite insistent on reading a book during these pictures, hence the presence of "Blue Hat, Green Hat" in the first photo...

Sam and Rachel, in a slightly more "traditional" pose

The kids managed to make it through a little over an hour of the afternoon service, which included Dave reading from the Torah, something he hadn't really done since his bar mitzvah 18 years ago. Fortunately, it was a pretty brief reading (a few verses), and all went well.

Dave outside the Cedars, a building his synagogue shares with a United Church.

Finally, it was time to head home for a breaking-the-fast meal of take-out pizza (mmm... meaty pizza... :) and a handy-woman challenge of hanging a bulletin board for Sam's growing collection of arts and crafts projects.

Sam posing with various items from pre-school, church, synagogue, etc.

And finally, here is a random picture of Rachel doing what appears to be some kind of leg stretches while watching Natasha hang the bulletin board. We're not quite sure what was going on here, but she certainly looks cute :)

"I'm effortlessly touching my toes, Daddy. What? Can't you do this, too?"