The shule was full. It was packed with bodies intent on repentance, focused on their sins against Gd and their fellow men and women, inspired by a race towards atonement.
Well, at least, Reeva hoped they were. There was a chance that many of the people on either side of the mechitzah were equally focused on making it through the service – of getting to the end of another Yom Kippur without fainting or snapping or feeling too wretched.
Perhaps there were some, like Reeva, who were held in place, locked in their seats, by the people around them and by the urge to feel their way past the doubt and confusion and self-criticism that plagued them.
It was the second Al Chet of Mussaf, the second confession of sins in the additional service during the day of Yom Kippur. Hours had passed already, with the clock on the wall edging forward to the arrival of the long-awaited break from prayer rich with personal and communal intensity and buoyed by the ethereal quality of a body that has not eaten nor drunk for a day.
