One Simple Seat

I recently discovered that a chair can be worth forty thousand dollars.

Not a throne.

Not an antique.

A seat.

This interested me because I had just bought three of my own for approximately one hundred dollars each—and I had spent an unreasonable amount of time choosing exactly where they would be.

I wanted the right sightline. The right acoustics. As little traffic as possible. I wanted to know who would be around me, what I would be able to hear, and what might distract me.

For a hundred-dollar chair, I was behaving suspiciously like a real-estate developer.

But perhaps that is because a seat is a curious piece of real estate.

You are not really buying the chair. You are buying temporary possession of a few square feet—and what those few square feet place you near.

I had learned this only recently on an El Al flight home from Israel. My wife and I paid five hundred dollars each to move to premium class. The airplane remained exactly the same. The destination remained exactly the same. We simply moved a few feet.

More room. More comfort. A little more dignity for the long flight home.

Worth every penny.

But five hundred dollars for a few feet is nothing compared with what happens when the location becomes truly desirable.

The $40,000 Seat

At Super Bowl LX, some of the most coveted VIP seats were listed for more than $40,000 each.

Forty thousand dollars.

For one seat. For one game.

The chair itself, of course, was not worth forty thousand dollars. Much of the value came from where it placed you: near the field, near the players, near the spectacle, near a moment millions of people could experience only from somewhere else.

Move that seat farther from the action and its value falls. Move it closer and suddenly the same few square feet can cost a fortune.

Proximity has value.

That may be the entire economics of a seat.

You are not buying plastic, fabric, legroom, or cushioning.

You are buying where the chair places you.

Which brings me back to my three hundred-dollar investment.

Because the three seats I bought place me somewhere no forty-thousand-dollar stadium seat can.

My Three Seats

My event will last roughly two days. There will be no football, halftime show, or Lombardi Trophy.

Instead, there will be a siddur, a shofar, a Sefer Torah, a chazzan, a minyan—and a King.

The three seats I purchased are for Rosh Hashanah.

Suddenly, my strange preoccupation with placement begins to make more sense. I wanted to hear the chazzan clearly. I wanted to hear every blast of the shofar. I wanted to be away from doors, traffic, unnecessary conversation, and the natural movement that occurs in a crowded synagogue.

I wanted a place conducive to kavanah.

Because if I am going to spend hours standing before Hashem on Rosh Hashanah, I do not want to spend those hours watching a door open and close. I want to know where I am.

And more importantly:

I want to know before Whom I am standing.

What the Seat Includes

For approximately one hundred dollars, my seat comes with something no stadium can sell.

The Gemara in Megillah 29a, interpreting the words of Yechezkel 11:16, identifies synagogues and houses of Torah study with the extraordinary expression Mikdash Me'at—a small sanctuary. The same passage associates the synagogue with the dwelling of the Shechinah. A shul is therefore not merely a convenient building where enough Jews happen to assemble. It is sacred space.

Then comes the minyan. Ten Jews do not merely make the room more crowded. They create the setting for tefillah b'tzibbur, communal prayer, with the sacred responses and prayers that belong to the congregation.

There is the Aron Kodesh and the Sefer Torah. There is the chazzan—the shaliach tzibbur, the emissary of the congregation. There is the architecture of prayer itself: we turn toward Jerusalem, and prayer rises through its stages until the Amidah, when we stand in silent encounter before Hashem.

And then there is the one thing nobody can include in the ticket price.

My heart.

The synagogue can provide the room. The minyan can surround me. The chazzan can lead me. The machzor can place the words before my eyes.

But nobody can purchase kavanah for me.

That part I have to bring myself.

What Happens There

And this is where my hundred-dollar seat becomes difficult to price.

Rosh Hashanah is not merely a Jewish gathering marking the beginning of another calendar year. It is a day of judgment.

The Mishnah teaches that on Rosh Hashanah all inhabitants of the world pass before Hashem. The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah 16b gives the famous image of three books opened before Hashem, with the language of life and death at the center of the judgment. Beitzah 16a teaches that a person's livelihood for the coming year is determined on Rosh Hashanah.

Life and death. Livelihood. Our deeds. The year ahead.

We say it ourselves in the prayers of Rosh Hashanah.

And now consider the economics of my chair.

A person may pay an extraordinary sum to sit close enough to watch another human being carry a ball across a field.

I paid approximately one hundred dollars for a place in which I will stand before the Creator of that human being. Before the Creator of the field. Before the Creator of the grass. Before the Creator of my body, my children, my livelihood, my years, my opportunities, my mistakes, and whatever remains unwritten in the chapter ahead.

One hundred dollars.

I think I got a bargain.

Scouting the Seat

So, I have been scouting.

Not the opposing team.

Myself.

Where will I sit? Can I hear properly? Will people constantly pass me? Will I be tempted to talk? Will I be able to close my eyes for a moment and disappear into the words? Can I hear the shofar cleanly? Can I stand there long enough for the strange illusion of ordinary life to loosen its grip on me?

Because perhaps the real question is not whether I purchased a good seat.

It is whether the person sitting in it will be ready.

A magnificent seat cannot manufacture a magnificent prayer. A quiet corner cannot create a quiet mind. Being ten feet closer to the Aron Kodesh does not automatically bring me ten feet closer to Hashem.

The geography helps.

The rest is avodah.

The VIP Seat

We have become very sophisticated at assigning value to proximity: courtside, front row, field level, backstage, VIP. The closer we can get to someone the world considers important, the more valuable the credential becomes.

For two days, an ordinary chair in an ordinary synagogue becomes the place from which an ordinary Jew can crown Hashem as King, hear the shofar, acknowledge the truth of his dependence, pray for life and blessing, pray for his family, and contemplate what kind of human being he intends to become.

No velvet rope. No security clearance. No forty-thousand-dollar ticket.

Just a siddur waiting to be opened.

And perhaps that is why I care so much about my seat.

I am not choosing where I will watch.

I am choosing where I will stand.

The Bargain

A few weeks from now, I will walk into shul and find the seat with my name on it.

Someone else may see a chair.

I hope I don't.

I hope I see a Mikdash Me'at. I hope I see a minyan. I hope I see the Aron Kodesh. I hope I hear the chazzan and the shofar. I hope I remember that there are moments when Heaven asks a person to stop behaving as though another year is simply arriving automatically.

And I hope, for at least a few minutes, that the noise inside me becomes quiet enough to understand the privilege I have been given.

Somewhere, someone may spend a fortune for the privilege of sitting close enough to see the greatest players in the world.

I understand the excitement.

But I think I found the better seat.

Mine cost about one hundred dollars.

The view is not of the field. There is no trophy presentation afterward. Nobody promised me access to the players.

Only access to prayer. Only a seat in a small sanctuary. Only a place to stand before the King of all kings and ask for another year of life.

For approximately one hundred dollars.

One simple seat.

And everything in the world to ask for.