For most of my life, Yom Kippur had a familiar address.

For most of my life, Yom Kippur had a familiar address.

I spent it in my home in Toronto, Canada—or what I must now learn to call my old home. I spent one Yom Kippur in Morocco and another in Israel in 2007, almost 20 years ago. But otherwise, year after year, I observed this holy day in the same city, surrounded by the familiar.

Then I made Aliyah and landed in a Jerusalem neighborhood I barely knew. This year marked my second Yom Kippur in Israel since making Aliyah.

I have now been here for a full year, yet Yom Kippur in this country still does not fail to wow me.

For me, part of preparing for the Yamim Noraim means finding the right place to daven.

For Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a Sephardi minyan is not enough. I need the Moroccan Sephardi nusach.

The Syrian, Mizrahi and Yemenite traditions each have their own beauty, but they are not mine. On these days, I need the Moroccan melodies and rhythms that have accompanied me throughout my life.

They do not merely sound familiar. They carry memories. They connect me to my family, my childhood, my history and all the Yamim Noraim that came before.

More than anything, the Moroccan nusach reminds me of my father. I grew up hearing him sing. Piyutim, tefillah—anything that could be sung, he sang. He loved it. Those Moroccan melodies were part of the sound of my home and part of the sound of my father.

I felt it on Rosh Hashanah this year. I davened at a different shul, but it, too, was Moroccan. As soon as I heard those familiar melodies, tears came to my eyes.

When I hear them now, I do not only hear the nusach.

Perhaps that is why having my nusach matters so deeply. It is not simply the way I prefer........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)