It was Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur is the highest of the high Jewish holidays. People fast, pray and try to look contrite and atoning for a whole day. The Jewish day always starts at sundown (technically, when the first three stars are visible in the sky) on the previous evening. The synagogues are standing room only and some people cannot even make it to the inside. It is a gloomy time and public transit does not operate until the first 3 stars show up on the next evening. Traffic is limited to extreme emergencies and no one dares break that rule if they can avoid it. The supplicants (which is everybody) only go home to catch some sleep and are back at the synagogue the next morning. No drinking, eating or smoking is allowed and you are not even allowed to brush your teeth. The temptation might be too much and you could "chas ve'chalila" (God forbid - which he's actually supposed to do on this day) drink some.

Joel Lupovici did not have much to do with all the hullabaloo. Born in Romania, he had been raised in an atheistic society and though he had given up on Communism, he had kept some of their more logical tenets. Like the Marxist saying that religion is opium for the masses. His parents had sort of fallen by the side of their religion as well, though his mom would still light the Shabbat candles every Friday evening and she did not as a rule allow pork into the house. His dad, a Hungarian Jew from Transylvania could not conceive of going to work without an onion, a loaf of bread and a big slab of bacon. Somehow she allowed that but she had yelled at little Joel when he first walked in chewing on some pigskin that one of the neighbors had given him.

Anyway, growing up Joel remembered going to a synagogue on only one holiday: 'Simchat Torah.' That is 'The Joy of the Torah' and it was kind of confusing. Somebody had taken the Torah scrolls out of the Holy Cabinet and was dancing around with them. Everyone was jostling and pushing trying to get to a point where they could touch the bag that the scrolls were in. Joel got a little squashed in the shuffle but on the overall it was kind of fun even though later on he realized that there were no women or girls around.

Turned out they had to be segregated from the men and were on the balcony. He did eventually also have a Bar-Mitzvah mainly because it seemed like he would get a lot of presents. He actually did scored big time with a wristwatch, a golden anchor on a very thin gold chain and his deepest heart's desire:, a fountain pen. That did, however, not change his views on religion. The two main points that he always brought out in religious debates were:

1. That women were considered second class citizens and

2. It was ironic that so much power was given to an agnostic (Joel.).