lagilman | as we enter the High Holy Days....

I wrote this several years ago, but each year when I try to compose something new, it still speaks best for me on this day, and this holiday. And so I share it once again...
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This is the beginning of the Days of Repentance in the Jewish tradition, starting today with Rosh Hashanna (Yom Ha-Zikkaron) and ending ten days from now with Yom Kippur.

I am mostly, as I often say, a forgetting-to-practice Jew. But there are a few traditions I hold fast to, and the High Holy Days are among them. Not from any religious compulsion, but more because they...well, they make sense.

The Days of Awe are a time to pause and reflect on the previous year, to consider the actions done by and to us, and to search and find forgiveness. In these days, we are taught, God inscribes our fate for the coming year... but that inscription can be altered by our actions within the next ten days. If we are honest with ourselves, if we seek forgiveness from those we have wronged, and forgive those who have wronged us, the judgment will be lightened, the inscription be kinder.

I do not believe in an omnipotent God with pen and gradebook. But I do believe in balance, in forgiveness, and in fresh starts. Coming in September, a time of seasonal change and the beginning again of the academic year, it always made perfect sense to me that, along with changing our closets, we could change our approaches.

Yom Ha-Zikkaron finds me, this year, in a place of peace, if not complete serenity. If you have harmed me, either by intent or omission, by act or by word, know that I do not hold a grudge. If I have harmed you, either by intent or omission, by act or word, I ask your forgiveness, and offer the knowledge that I will take pains not to do so again.

L'shanah tovah tikatevi v'taihatem. May we all be inscribed and sealed for a good year.