"Lenny Hates... Rosh Hashana" joke

I hate September. It was always back to school, so I had to be ready. It was back to homework, so I had to turn off the Yankees and study. It was my sister’s birthday and I had to be..um..nice. Yuk. But just in case that wasn’t bad enough, the Jewish holidays are here!

Oy friggin’ vey.

I hate these holidays. Like four days in synagogue. In case you were wondering, the services are partially in English and partially in Hebrew, but mostly suck. If you are comforted by being in a room of people with your religious background, love a good solemn pray, or can’t get enough of a cantor, who sounds as if he has infected sinuses, chanting in Hebrew for 4 HOURS (Some people go all day! I swear God leaves after an hour and a half), I guess you’ve come to the right place.

Personally, I find the Rabbi’s sermon fascinating. You see, no matter how much sleep I get the night before, when he starts that sermon, boom, I’m out cold. Fascinating. He’s like a hypnotist or something. The great Rabbini! They should run tests on the effects of my Rabbi on insomniacs. How about a Rabbi on tape series? “And then Abraham said to Isaac”...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Moshe, I’ll tell you, you put a Starbucks cart five feet outside a temple, you’d make a fortune!

For some of these people, temple is more of a social gathering. They show off their children and new babies. Hmmm, services aren’t torturous enough, I know, let’s add crying babies! My favorite part of the whole thing is when everyone sees each other and gives the big phony “Happy New Year”. What they mean is, “Hey, good to see that you’re not dead! Let’s keep that up for another year!”

By the way, many of these people have zero interest in actually praying! They just come to yak it up. Apparently, it’s happy (new year) hour. It’s fun to see my Dad get mad at people talking around us when it’s supposed to be a calm and solemn event. He's caught between a rock and a hard place because you really don't want to be the etiquette police in synagogue. I can almost see inside his head while he's reluctantly shhh-ing people, “Hey you loudmouthed assholes, I’m trying to get forgiveness from the Lord over here, could ya maybe shut the fuck up?”

My Dad says hello to some of his old friends or tennis buddies and their wives. Many of them love to backhandedly tell him how many grandchildren they have and how their son is a millionaire doctor with the perfect family. I just stand there and smile the dumb smile, attempting not to wish murder was legal because I just prayed for my life for the last two days. Then they go, “How’s the comedy thing going? Are you happy?”, like they're Oprah and I’m a misguided five hundered pound twelve year old girl who wears all black has three nose rings. Just once I’d like to go, “Hey how’s your lawyer son and his frivolous suing business thing going?” Everybody is holier than thou on the High Holidays. Then they go home and vote for Bush.

My family isn’t so religious. We’re more traditional. We have dinner together. My sister makes really good homemade chicken soup. My Dad and I have our usual conversations: “Hey Dad, the Yankees look good this year!”
“Yep Dad, they do.”
“Hey idiot, when are you getting married? Have another piece of gefilte fish.”
It’s really all about family (torture), isn’t it?
Ohhhh, I can’t wait baby.

So um....(big smile)...Happy New Year you crazy Jews you!