When Rosh Hashana begins at sundown tonight, it ushers in the 10 days that lead up to Yom Kippur, known as the Days of Awe.

	Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette Facing the ark, where the Torah scrolls are kept, Rabbi Yale Butler practices blowing the shofar, a ram's horn, at the Kollel Jewish Learning Center in Squirrel Hill yesterday in preparation for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Click photo for larger image.

Long services, the scramble for expensive tickets required for synagogue seats, questions about the relevance of services -- it's enough to drive a person meshugana, or crazy.

An August online study by the National Jewish Outreach Program found that of the 78 percent of respondents who described themselves as being affiliated with a synagogue, more than half said the High Holiday services were either too long, boring, repetitive or not relevant. Almost 70 percent complained about the high cost of tickets. Fewer than half the respondents -- 48.9 percent -- said they went to a synagogue for holiday services because it was "spiritually uplifting."

"That's because synagogues don't speak to people," said Ephraim Z. Buchwald, founder and director of the outreach program, one of the largest such efforts in the world.

"Many synagogues do what they think is important to others without taking into consideration the praying community. Most of the [attendees] are so intimidated that they just sit there like bumps on a log."

		Holiday services The following locations will offer free Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services. Call the numbers or see the Web sites for times and reservations. Kollel Jewish Learning Center, 5808 Beacon St., Squirrel Hill. 412-420-0220. www.jewishpittsburgh.org Hillel Jewish University Center, 4607 Forbes Ave., Oakland. 412-621-8875. www.hilleljuc.org Chabad House on Campus, 4607 Forbes Ave., Oakland. 412-683-7770. www.chabadpgh.org (Services held at the Hillel Jewish University Center.) Congregation Dor Hadash, 6424 Forward Ave., Squirrel Hill. 412-422-5158. Chabad of Fox Chapel, 107 Woodshire Drive, Fox Chapel. 412-781-1800. www.chabadfoxchapel.com Chabad of the South Hills, 1600 Bower Hill Road, Mt. Lebanon. 412-278-3693. www.chabadsh.com Lubavitch Center, 2100 Wightman St., Squirrel Hill. 412-422-7315. www.yeshivaschools.org Beth Hamedrash Hagodol/Beth Jacob, Uptown (412-471-4443); Ahavath Achim, 500 Chestnut St., Carnegie (412-279-1566); and Bet Tikvah, (412-362-7025) www.bettikvah.org

For the past 30 years, Buchwald has held a beginner service during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Only four people attended the first year; he expects up to 300 people this year.

His goal, he said, is to attract unaffiliated Jews, those who don't belong to a synagogue. Studies show the unaffiliated are the hardest pressed to attend High Holiday services, primarily because of ticket requirements.

Nearly half -- 47 percent -- of the estimated 42,200 Jews in the Pittsburgh region are not affiliated with a synagogue, according to a 2002 Jewish Community Study conducted by the United Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation. That percentage is similar to that of Jewish populations in Baltimore, Cleveland and Detroit.

Fifty to 70 years ago, many congregations collected large chunks of their budgets from the sale of High Holiday tickets, or through other fund-raising mechanisms. But as the size of synagogues' annual budgets grew, High Holiday tickets were included in the cost of yearly membership dues.

Tickets can range from about $35 a seat to several hundred dollars, but virtually no synagogue will turn away a worshipper who cannot afford one. Other arrangements can be made in advance for relatives, students, military personnel, even members who have not paid their dues. For several years, a consortium of 42 synagogues in the Philadelphia area has set aside tickets to their High Holiday services that are given on a first-come basis. But, said Jay Fingeret, president of Beth Shalom Congregation in Squirrel Hill, "we walk a delicate line for the membership" which could be alienated by free tickets going to nonmembers who could afford to pay.

Pittsburgh will offer seven free High Holiday services this year: four are through local Chabad-Lubavitch centers, plus one each at Congregation Dor Hadash and the Hillel Jewish University Center in Oakland. The seventh, at the Kollel Jewish Learning Center on Beacon Street in Squirrel Hill, will be the only free beginners service available in the region.

This is the second year that Pittsburgh native Rabbi Yale Butler has led the program, which will feature four separate Rosh Hashana services and three Yom Kippur services.

"I'm doing a beginners service because so many Jews are seeking," Butler said, "because so many Jews don't even know where to turn.

"There are many, many people out there who have done it all and seen it all. But they don't really know who they are or what they are. There are no values there. They realize it's the Jewish new year and they don't know what it's all about."

Rabbis and synagogue officials have tried for years to make the holiday services more interesting, shorter, less expensive and more interactive. For instance, there are newer linear transliterations of prayer books that include the Hebrew text, a phonetic translation and an English translation under the Hebrew text.

Some services include music. There are self-help books like "The Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur Survival Kit." And a multitude of jokes have surfaced about the propensity of some Jews to attend synagogue only during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur (Example: How did the synagogue get rid of its squirrel infestation? It made them members and only saw them twice a year after that.).

Butler said singles, couples, and high school and college students attended his beginners service last year. He described it as being "like a Jewish catalog -- sort of a tour through the holiday as much as it's a service."

"The more you know, the better off you are," Butler said. "The Kollel encourages the concept that accomplished, sincere people should come and find out who they are Jewishly.

"The only thing we ask people to pay is attention."