I am a tax collector. My father was also a tax collector, and so was my grandfather.
In the following lines, I would like to share with you the feelings that plague me, by virtue of my role, in preparation for the High Holy Days. Like all the gabbaim, I prepare the synagogue for all your people, the House of Israel, and invite everyone with complete love to come and pray. The synagogue belongs to everyone, it belongs to the people, and every Jew has a part in it.
Naturally, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, many more Jews come to pray. If throughout the year our synagogue meets four minyanim on Shabbat, and two minyanim on weekdays, then on Rosh Hashanah the number doubles and close to a hundred people come.
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On Yom Kippur, the Temple Mount becomes a square. Over two hundred people are squeezed into the synagogue during the Kol Nidrei prayer, and during the final prayer of the holy day – the closing prayer. During the day, about 150 people also pray in the synagogue.
So what's the problem then?
The problem is Shmuel, or Shmulik as he is known by his friends. Shmulik and those like him.
I said that I love every Jew, and invite everyone to come, but Shmuel is different. Why? I also meet Shmuel during the year, since he lives next door to me. Every time he tells me forgivingly that he understands that I hold on to ancient traditions, but in the twenty-first century it is time for us to understand that the world has progressed. There is nothing beyond what we see, and empirical science proves it.
When I asked to donate it for the poor with the promise that they would pray for him at the graves of the righteous, or at the Western Wall, he happily agreed to donate but emphasized that he was doing so on the condition that they would not pray for him at any grave. He really insisted on that.
''This goes against everything I believe in,' he said, 'I'm not willing for people to pray for me in front of stones that have nothing in them. I'm not willing to give a hand to something that has lost its sanctity.' Shmuel would say harsher words like 'pagans' and 'primitives', etc. In short, a complete radical atheist.
But surprisingly, every year I would see him come to the synagogue for the Kol Nidre prayer. Of course I would welcome him with joy, but I could not contain my admiration. What is this faithless man doing here? What is he doing to the synagogue? One year when I met him on Sukkot, I asked him openly, why does he come to the Kol Nidre prayer if he so despises mysticism, religious Judaism, and spirituality.
''Listen,' Shmulik told me, 'a synagogue is a cultural place and Yom Kippur is a cultural day. I come to a place where all the Jews come and together we experience one of the symbols of the Jewish people, which is Yom Kippur.'.
Shmulik explained to me at length how immediately after prayer he returns home and eats a hearty meal, since, as mentioned, he does not believe in anything. The synagogue and the prayer of all vows are something folkloric that he was interested in experiencing. The word 'experience' repeated itself throughout the conversation.
This kind of talk is very difficult for me as a devout Jew, and certainly burdens me as a collector. As I said, I accept it with a smile, but I have a hard time forgetting that he sees me as a kind of stagehand in a theater. The cantor, if I understand him correctly, is the actor, and according to him, the rabbi is the director. He, and perhaps the other worshippers, are probably the audience that came to the annual cultural project.
Should I treat him differently? My friends, the gabbais, with whom I have spoken about the matter, claim that I am not right. Even in Shmulik's hard heart there is a Jewish spark and it flares up on Yom Kippur. So why doesn't he admit it? Because it is difficult for him. It is almost impossible for him to admit that between the shells and fences with which he surrounded himself, a suffocating Jewish soul managed to infiltrate.
Are they right? Unfortunately, I can't answer that with a definite yes.
Also published on the World Synagogue Association website.
