Whose Phone Is That Ringing?

A timely lesson in humility

Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

I am having a low-energy day, though I just got home from a beautiful walk. It was a full weekend, with Yom Kippur services and fasting followed by a day of writing.

I keep reflecting on the moment Saturday when I heard a phone ring during Neilah, the very beautiful concluding service. Whose phone is that? I wondered with annoyance. Then it dawned on me. It was MY phone ringing!

In a flurry of utter mortification, I fumbled to turn the sound off, completely aghast that I had failed to do so when I returned from the two-hour “break” in the afternoon. Why hadn’t I just left it in the car?

If the people behind me were judging me, they mercifully didn’t show it. The irony of this occurring on Yom Kippur was not lost on me. Here we had spent more than 24 hours in deep prayer, atoning for the ways we have failed and stumbled and fallen short – including judging others and ourselves harshly, and asking for and receiving forgiveness – and I was that person?

Oy vey.

Already shaky from fasting, I managed to get my heart rate back to normal-ish in time to read a closing poem, followed by our final collective recitation of the Avinu Malkeinu prayer and one last mighty tekiah gedolah as the Gates closed.

When my phone began to ring, I felt the absurdity of my human condition so acutely. Here I was dressed in all white, like the angels – or one who is about to be buried – and that jarring ring reminded me that no matter how much or how fully we give ourselves to these rituals, no matter how hard we try, we very much remain our fallible human selves. In a word, we keep being alive in this space some describe as a dress rehearsal for death.

And maybe this is the point.

In a 2018 op-ed, Bari Weiss described Yom Kippur as “…also, at its deepest level, a dry run. It is the one day of the year when we Jews are asked to look our mortality in the face.”

When I die, I do not want to be fumbling to turn off my ringer. I do not want to be distracted, regretful, or otherwise hard on myself. I do not want to be worried about missing my cue or not knowing the words or how my hair looked.

No, when I die, I hope to see the faces of those who love me. The ones who forgive fully, even if not easily. The ones who remind me I can do the things I feel called to do, which also happen to be the things I fear doing, just not as much as I fear not doing them.

After writing and submitting my rabbinical school applications in the past two days, a wave of insecurity came over me. I looked at the possible outcomes on the website of one of the two seminaries to which I applied: Admitted, Admit in Time, Not At This Time, or Rejected.

I imagine the latter two are fairly unlikely, but see the possibility of “Admit in Time” due to my limited background in Torah, Rabbinic texts, and Hebrew fluency.

“Be honest about what you don’t know but yearn to learn.”

These words on that same website struck me. Ah, that much I can do; I am nothing if not honest about what I don’t know, and it is precisely what I don’t know that I yearn so deeply and completely to learn. I hope this, together with what I do bring to the table, will be enough.

When I show up for my Zoom interviews, I will think about Yom Kippur and how holy the sanctuary felt as the voices of our rabbi, hazzan, and a third professional singer braided together in tones that created a true embrace in the closing moments of the service.

I will remember why I am doing this, for whom, and to what end. I will remember how I have longed to be a conduit for Jewish learning, continuity, community, tradition, wisdom, comfort, courage, and prayer since before I even had the language for it.

Just as we stand humbly before Gd on Yom Kippur, may I show up for my interviews with humility, confidence, and grace. And most of all… may I remember to turn off my ringer in advance!

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