Kol Nidre in a New Key
Finding Jewish Joy in Maine
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
The cellist draws a deep breath, then strikes the first chord: slow, deep, deliberate. I expect the rabbi to sing along.
“Let’s just listen,” she says instead. “Let’s meet this moment together through the music.”
It’s Kol Nidre—my first in mid-coast Maine, where I moved in 2016. My eyes and ears are wide open in wonderment, like a child’s. I’ve never heard instruments played at Kol Nidre, or Shabbat, or any yom tov.
It’s also my first service at a reform synagogue. It feels strange, new, surprising. I awkwardly declined the kippah and tallit I was offered at the door. I marvel at how lovely it is to sit next to my boyfriend; I’m used to being on the other side of a mechitzah in Connecticut, or on the balcony in my native Oslo, Norway.
At my old shul, the cantor would wear a traditional white kittle and satin “hoiche yarmulke”—a tall cantor’s hat with silver trimmings—for Kol Nidre. Here, the female rabbi wears a white tallit and kippah, and one of the congregants, wearing his regular tallit, serves as cantor. But the somber melody of the opening prayer is the same as ever. Tears well in my eyes. This moment marks the beginning of a new chapter in my Jewish journey.
I am a Jew-by-choice who underwent an Orthodox conversion some 35 years ago, when I was in my early twenties, before marrying my Jewish then-boyfriend. I like to say I grew up Orthodox, since that’s the tradition in which I came into my Jewish life.
Now divorced, and having left academia to pursue a degree in creative writing, I knew it would be a big change to make Maine my new home, to leave the community in Connecticut where I had raised my family—an area with thirty-eight different synagogues, three Jewish day schools, a kosher butcher and a buzzing JCC. But I had not anticipated the positive ways in which my Jewish identity would evolve.
Only about 19,000 of Maine’s 1.4 million inhabitants are Jewish. And they tend to be scattered throughout the state’s vast territory, rather than living in specifically Jewish neighborhoods. Aside from the lovely young Chabad rabbi and his rebbetzin, few of our new Jewish friends are observant. Instead, we have connected with a wide variety of Jews and their sometimes non-Jewish partners, who express their Yiddishkeit in many meaningful ways—like at a raucous Purim megillah reading at a micro-brewery in Portland. My appreciation for the diversity of our tribe has expanded. And I am richer for it.
My favorite holiday comes on the heels of Yom Kippur, when we welcome neighbors and friends, Jewish and not, to share festive meals in our “Viking sukkah”—an homage to my Norwegian cultural heritage. We decorate not just with symbols of fall-themed harvest, but also with soft sheepskins on each chair to keep our guests warm and cozy.
The concept of Hachnasat orchim—welcoming guests—has taken on new meaning. Back in Connecticut, most of our visitors had their own sukkah, but here in Maine, this holy act feels more vital: for many of our guests, it is their only chance to sit in a sukkah. It feels like we are an outpost—our sukkah a shelter teeming with warmth, meaning, and Jewish joy.
I left Norway at19 for what was supposed to be a gap year in the U.S. Here in Maine, among the northern pines and rugged sea shore, my homesickness for the natural beauty of Norway is finally receding. At the same time, my Jewish identity has swelled to encompass more joy: softer, effusive, more forgiving.
At my second High Holiday service in Maine, I was called up for hagbah, the honor of lifting the Torah for all to see. Despite the surreal feeling of being tasked with something so new to me, and such a huge responsibility (what if I dropped the Torah?), I was thrilled to participate in a ritual that I had only seen performed by men. This time, I accepted the tallit.
Nina B. Lichtenstein (PhD, MFA) is a native of Oslo, Norway. She is the founder and director of Maine Writers Studio and co-founder/co-editor of In a Flash Lit Mag. Her work has appeared in Tablet Magazine, Kveller, The Forward, Washington Post and HuffPo, among other places, and has essays in four anthologies. She is the author of Sephardic Women Writers: Out of North Africa (Gaon Books, 2017) and her memoir, Body: My Life in Parts (Vine Leaves Press, May 2025). She is on Substack at "The Viking Jewess and Other Curiosities."
Instagram: @vikingjewess
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
 | A guest post by
|
Love this, Nina!
lovely. thank you for sharing this.