Blues can be a good thing too

I'm sure people want to know why leading Mussaf services on Simchas Torah in Milwaukee's Lubavitch House, otherwise known as "The Shul East" fulfilled a lifelong dream, right? Right.

Basically, on Simchas Torah by Mussaf you can do whatever the heck you want. You're loaded with spirit, you have no voice left (and if you do have one, shame on you!), and everyone is waiting for a show. Here's a more detailed look at my Mussaf:

After many years of partying on the high holy days, my voice lasts about ten minutes. Sure, if I didn't scream it would last a lot longer, but it's difficult to modulate properly after the heavy imbibing of spirituous liquids. This year I lost my voice on the night of Shemini Atzeres and never really got it back until after the holiday. You know how on car racing games there's a turbo function, where you can speed up for a short amount of time? So I can do that with my voice, for about a minute at a time, which comes in handy when the rabbi is trying to end the hakofa and I have to keep it going. This doesn't help much for extended periods though, so my mussaf was hoarse, which was fine, because mussaf on Simchas Torah is supposed to be hoarse.

Alcohol plays an important role in the Jewish religion. For example, we do the blessing of the Kohanim in Shacharis on Simchas Torah, not in Mussaf, because we assume that that priests (among others) will be too drunk to do much by Mussaf time. In my case, I made kiddush at about 11:15, farbrenged for a while, and was slightly recovered by the time Mussaf rolled around. When I stood up to lead the congregation in prayers one of the local shluchim declared that the kohanim's saying their blessing early shouldn't be for naught, and he poured me several generous lchaims to get me back in the party spirit.

The last and most important factor in Simchas Torah Mussaf is the ability to do whatever you want. For example, through Kedushah I used the nusach for Shemini Atzeres (the blessing for rain). I can't see myself davening on Shemini Atzeres ever, but for a few minutes I was able to sing for precipitation. I continued pretty normally after that, embellishing in the (in)appropiate places and leading all in the rousing tunes that make up our prayer service. By Birchas Kohanim I did the traditional fake benediction, another thing which I can't see myself doing for a while (principally because we don't do Birchas Kohnaim until Pesach).

Overall, it was a great experience. The only thing to mar it was the absence of some extremely important persons, but I suppose that even in our greatest joy we must recall the destruction, or something like that.