The 10 types of people you’ll meet during the High Holy Days

Every year as the shofar sounds and the prayers rise, the same cast of characters shows up. Each one unforgettable, each one a little too familiar.

Here are the ten types of people you’ll meet during the High Holy Days.

1. The Shofar Starter Pack Guy
He bought a ram’s horn from some random guy in the shuk. He can’t blow it, but that won’t stop him from trying — loudly, randomly, and always in the middle of traffic.

2. The Apology Tour Enthusiast
Texts you: “If I ever wronged you in any way…”
You haven’t spoken since 2011, and yes, they absolutely wronged you. Plays Nirvana’s All Apologies on repeat. It’s their jam.

3. The Food Strategist
Already calculating: one last carb binge before the fast, how many bagels post-fast, and how to sneak honey cake into shul without getting caught.

4. The Spiritual Overachiever
Owns three machzorim, two apps, and a color-coded teshuvah journal. You’ll find them weeping softly during Unetaneh Tokef while you’re wondering if the rabbi’s sermon will ever end.

5. The Influencer
Their outfit screams: I am here to be seen repenting in style. Think: sack cloth and the faint whiff of Bougie Marshmallow or Tom Ford.

6. The Shul non monogamist. AKA Tomer from Tinder
Can’t commit to one synagogue. Shows up for shofar here, kiddush there, sermon somewhere else. Collects lox platters like Pokémon back in the day.

7. The Kvetcher
The sanctuary is too hot. Or too cold. The cantor sings too slow. Or too fast. Also, the apples are mealy. Everything is a shanda.

8. The Kids’ Book Club
Small children, abandoned in the hallway with sticky hands and endless copies of Sammy Spider’s First Rosh Hashanah. Pure chaos. Pure joy. Pure sugar high. No one is going to sleep tonight.

9.The Time Traveler
Hasn’t been to shul since last Yom Kippur. Still expects their old seat. Still gets mad when someone else is in it.

10. The Existential Philosopher
Spends the service quietly panicking: Who will live and who will die? What have I done with my life? Why did I waste all of Elul watching Netflix instead of preparing my soul?
(Spoiler: it’s all of us.)