1. Think of all your sins. Can you really atone for them in one week? Were any of them worth it? Which ones?
2. Be a Jewish fashionista. Count the diamonds and the rolexes in your row. Comment on the skirt lengths. Be judgmental. You have until the last shofar blows to repent.
3. Borrow a baby from someone sitting nearby. Play. Tickle. Return upon spit up, funny smells or crying.
4. Tie knots in your neighbor’s tallit strings. Extra points if he or she does not notice.
5. Scope out the good-looking Jews in the crowd. Can you tell if they are single from across the shul?
6. Read the Torah and Haftorah portions; the stories of Jonah and Abraham are dramas worthy of TNT. Pick a story that makes you angry, and then argue about it with your friends (quietly).
7. Bring a different book to read and hide it behind your prayerbook or Tanakh. Make sure the Tanakh is bigger than your secret book. Bonus points if your secret book is also Jewish (Rich Cohen’s new book on Israel perhaps?).
8. Count the people wearing white and flip flops or sneakers (it is customary to wear white to symbolize purity and leather-wearing is prohibited on Yom Kippur).
9. Sing loudly and slightly off-key the few prayers you still remember from Hebrew School.
10. Follow along with the services. Um… duh.
(Photo: KellySue)
If your a in a shul with separate seating – you can always stare over the mechitza and make eyes with someone.
I would pick up a tanach, nothing like some ancient wars and lust to make the service go by quicker.
You can look into the peoples ears in front of you, I am fascinated with ear hair…
Pull your neighbors tallit off their shoulder and pretend its just natural.
Scare the little kids by making faces at them.
Pull out your air shofar and pretend you can blow too
Now, to make sure I’m near a baby/babies (thinking it’ll take more than one)!
Good suggestions. I hung out in the temple library when services got to be too much and read a most excellent novel last Yom Kippur.