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The Air in thick with sweat and tears and humidity condensed within the crowded shul

It’s Rosh Hashanah but this is not the perspiration of pleading souls beneath stark white talleisim the sweet cries of prayer; it’s more scuffling children and their exhausted mothers crocodile tears and pokes and sniffles.

Somewhere the air conditioner must be rattling out a cool breeze but it’s lost in the throng of mothers and kids and carriages. I open my machzor to Lamnatzeiach.

“Moooommy!” My toddler tugs at my sweater with fingers full of chocolate wafer. “Want nosh.”

I sigh and fumble through my bag for a bag of chips.

Back to my machzor. I hastily whisper the verses; I have to say this seven times and there’s only so long a bag of chips will last.

As I mumble I try to think of a shofar’s piercing wail shredding the heavy air of glistening angels waiting. But inside I feel dry shuttered and limp. I snatch glances at my son and can’t help noticing the little girls across from me their crisp yellow dresses and glittery hair bands. And their mother slim elegant and poised. I don’t know how she does it but my makeup doesn’t stay on once we hit the second day of Yom Tov.

A frazzled mother makes loud shushing noises distributing enough junk to feed an army while rocking a stroller with an elbow. My lips move: Ki Hashem elyon nora melech gadol al kol ha’aretz.

Why can’t I feel a little more... more something? It’s not like I don’t care. It’s Rosh Hashanah for goodness sake! We are crowning Hashem as our King our lives hang in the balance. Soon soon it will be time for Unesaneh Tokef. Who will live and who will die? Malachim yeichofeizun...