Holidays are about becoming our best
For Jews, prayer isn’t just talking to God or asking for things. While there is a lot prayer can do to calm our souls, in Hebrew, prayer is a reflective verb that suggests that when we pray, we are in fact searching our own thoughts and souls so that we c
When I was a child, Rosh Hashanah meant special foods, new synagogue clothes, and sitting in the synagogue counting the pages in the High Holy Day prayer book, hoping that maybe this year the services would move faster.
Yom Kippur was all of that, minus, of course, the food.
As I got older and could understand and personalize some of the High Holy Day prayers, the two holidays became a different and more meaningful experience.
Today, I understand and teach that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are an exercise in personal and communal soulful refinement.
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, are the bookends of a 10-day period of serious spiritual and moral selfreflection and introspection.
“On Rosh Hashanah God’s judgment is written, and on Yom Kippur God’s judgment is sealed.”
But, the the High Holy Day prayer book, continues, “Prayer, acts of righteousness and a deliberate return to God can minimize God’s potentially harsh decree.” How does this work? For Jews, prayer isn’t just talking to God or asking for things. While there is a lot prayer can do to calm our souls, in Hebrew, prayer is a reflective verb that suggests that when we pray, we are in fact searching our own thoughts and souls so that we can rise from prayer a better person than when we began.
Praying to pass a test might make us feel better; praying for the passing grade and coming away from prayer with a resolve to study for the test is what might result in a passing grade.
While righteousness as a value may sound overly pious and pompous, it’s actually much more mundane. In Judaism, a righteous act is something one does because one is obligated to do so.
It’s helping fund a nonprofit not just because it makes us feel good (even though it often does), but because we are supposed to do it to help make the world a better place.
Finally, returning to God is the equivalent of making a spiritual U-turn. It’s a three-pronged process: admit a wrong, apologize to the wronged person, and amend behavior in the future so you don’t commit the wrong again.
One of the most spiritually unnerving yet spiritually satisfying aspects of returning to God is that we are taught that for wrongs committed against God, Yom Kippur’s prayers to God for forgiveness are a possibility.
However, for wrongs committed against another person, forgiveness and atonement are only possible by going to that person and upfront admitting, apologizing and then amending the behavior.
The amazing thing that helps create an aura of expectation and hope is that while each individual does these things on their own, we know that the whole Jewish community is taking part in this process.
Our prayer language tells us that this is not just an individual exercise. Knowing that we are all going through this process is soul comforting and strengthening.
This year that communal aspect is going to be different. Because of COVID, we can’t gather in our brickand-mortar worship spaces. We are individually and communally going to go through the process.
We are going to meet God and each other in any way we can. Some Jewish communities will both meet in secure Zoom rooms and live stream their services on various platforms like Facebook (that’s what my synagogue, the United Jewish Center, is doing).
Some will just live stream. Some communities will do neither, but they know that they are connected through a powerfully cosmic force over these days.
This year, whether we’re in person, in cyberspace or in our own private spaces, we’re going to do the work. And when we come out at the end of the 10 days, I believe we will have returned to God and our best selves.