Yahrzeit for Poppa

Tonight I went to Friday night services at the synagogue (I know, I know, all this Jewish stuff interspersed with Dungeons & Dragons…I'm well aware of the oddness of the juxtaposition) because they were saying a yahrzeit for Dr. Robert Gans, my Poppa. (It's been 2 years since he died. I still miss him.) I had originally hoped to go with my mom, but she had other plans she couldn't get out of. Luckily my friend Daphne came over for Shabbat dinner and services that night, so I didn't have to go alone. I didn't go last year, nor have I been remembering to actually purchase or light a traditional yahrzeit candle, but for some reason this year I thought it would be a comforting and appropriate remembrance to go to temple to honor my Poppa, so that's what I did.

It's been years (ok more like decades) since I've been to a Friday night service, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It turned out that it was a very quiet night (it was the Shabbat between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and there were no special events) and that there were really only about 20 or 30 people there. The service itself was short and thoughtful and I got a chance to think about my Poppa, so I’m glad I went. I think I prefer the night time services to the daytime ones (not that I've really been to a Saturday morning one recently either)--they seem somehow more potentially reflective and serious to me because they're in the dark. Anyway, now that I've been to a Friday night service, I don't have to be anxious about going to another, right? Right. Actually we have to go to at least one Friday night service a month now as part of our new Sunday School program that we're starting (this is one of those backstory posts that I haven't gotten to yet, but the gist is, we're trying out a new experimental "Sunday School for the whole family" concept through our synagogue), so I think I'll be getting more familiar with the concept soon--and for me, familiarity breeds comfort.