Word Prompt – MACHZOR – Avi Ganz

The way we relate to the machzor is somewhat counterintuitive: Our daily liturgy is often taken for granted and rarely conjures up the nostalgia and emotions that the machzor does. Jewish people in all communities have "their" tunes, "their" customs; a right and a wrong way to do things when it comes to the Yamim Noraim. Yet, a daily Mincha can be davened anywhere regardless of nusach, timing, or melody.

On one level, this is likely related to our need for familiarity and how that need intensifies in otherwise unfamiliar situations. At the same time, perhaps there is something more about the familiarity of the otherwise unfamiliar machzor. It conjures up High Holidays in shul with parents or grandparents. The machzor that my father holds as he bentches his children on erev Yom Kippur, or the machzor that my grandfather clutched between finger and thumb as he covered us in his tallis for duchening. The machzor that my mother held as she whispered Tefillas Zaka at home when we were too young to go to shul, or the impressive, leather-bound chazzan's machzor that our shul's chazzan used when I first stood beside him as a choir boy sweetly harmonizing to UneSaneh Tokef.

More than 20 years since I started my career as a baal tefilah and just holding my machzor conjures up all of these images and so many more emotions that have accompanied us on our tefillah journey. Ultimately, the script that was written so many years ago is replaying itself throughout the millennia as Jews across the world, through the machzor, ask The Creator for "ma'aneh lashon."