Sometimes I reflect back to a time where religious practice was not as well informed but had a mystique born out of a simplicity. The days when you really anticipated Eliyahu Hanavi would enter your door, like the old man in your hagadah who comes to the home of the pointy yarmulkaed family of the Maxwell House tradition.  

In the 1990s the late Dr. Willie Helmreich wrote how he remembers a simpler time when you would eat a candy bar without a hechsher, just by perusing the ingredients. (This line in his article was taken to task in the Jewish Observer as a yearning for a time of weak amaratzus, understandabely.) I am not pining for uninformed Judaism, just the mystique of it. 

Here are some things that have improved, and others that may have just become more complicated – in mitzvah observance in my years thus far: 

Yom Tov always included one milchige’ meal 

Tashlich was done ON Rosh Hashanah, and not during a Chol Hamoed trip 

Tashlich involved saying three pesukim in Micah, and turning around. There were not people poring over long techinas in their machzorim 

Rosh Hashanah night had one ritual: An apple in the honey…shanah Tova u’metukah. No leeks, fishheads, or placards with conflicting instructions. 

Women wore white. Men wore white ties and yarmulkas. No gold Jewlery. 

Now some of the ritual practice has changed because of proximity to rivers, long yeshivah davenings that go until midafternoon (eliminating the tashlich slot), a need to require the simchas youtov mitzvah of meat and wine.  

On a different note, a Rov in Brooklyn brought up the following question on what he called the minhag of women in German Jewish shuls who bow along with the men in the avodah part of Yom Kippur Musaf. 

The question is: The Piyut says clearly that the “Kohanim and the people sitting in the azara- when they heard the Holy Name uttered by the Kohein….woul bow….”  

The women in the Beis Hamikdash would not be in the “azara”, but in the “ezras nashim” and thus would not bow. Ergo, their bowing in Shul does not accurately replicate the Avodah in the Beis Hamikdash. 

Bouncing this off of  a friend, he believes that we are not looking to make an accurate replication of the avodah, since- for instance- on Sukkos we all circle the almemer, although in the Beis Hamikdash only Kohsnim (albeit, baaleu mum were allowed) could perform Hakofos on Sukkos.  

A short note on Hoshanos. In WH we say Eroch Shuiey on the first day of sukkos, unlike the standard minhag found in an Artscroll machzor. I think this practice has good cause. Since the piyut proclaims, “I have revealed my sin on the fast day…”. Since we are referring to the recent Yom Kippur and drawing on it to ask for salvation, it makes sense to say this on the first day- which is closest to Yom Kippur.  

Good Mo’ed!