Days of Awe

My first Yamim Noraim - my first experience of the Days of Awe - were truly awe-inspiring. It was a new year and, for me, everything was new: the prayers, the community, the sacred time of reflection, the hunger. I was struck by the familiarity with which we address God, reverential, but still close. It was only years later that someone pointed out to me that all of our prayers for forgiveness are said in the plural. We have sinned. Remember us. It didn't draw my attention at first, because it felt natural. After all, we were all together praying. But not this year.

For most of us in the US, the pandemic has meant that we have spent the past six months keeping our distance from others, praying mostly alone. Most weeks, my husband and I watch our shul's new livestream of Shabbat services from our living room with our daughters, who alternate between watching and playing. We've done the same for the High Holidays, except for Yom Kippur morning. Our shul repeated the Yom Kippur day service to give as many people as possible the opportunity to attend a limited in-person service, and both were livestreamed for anyone to watch at home. I had planned to watch the later service in the afternoon while my children napped, but I found myself on Yom Kippur morning with an occupied toddler and a napping baby, and an hour to myself. I opened my borrowed machzor and davened alone - sometimes aloud, sometimes silently, sometimes in English, and sometimes in Hebrew. I paused to think; I read the commentaries in the margins; and as I recited prayers from "us" alone, I reflected on my lack of awe this year, the strangeness, and the distance from each other and from God.

Truthfully, I was not awed this year. I spent these Days of Awe alternatingly or simultaneously grieving, angry, and numb. There are too many reasons to enumerate. Just since Rosh Hashanah a long ten days ago:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. A feminist icon, a fierce defender of our rights and our Constitution, an outspoken and intelligent woman.

Our country is on fire. Literally (both naturally and man made) and figuratively. We are engulfed in rage and choked by partisanship.

We surpassed 200,000 deaths from COVID-19. Each of those people is missed by someone. Wear a mask.

Breonna Taylor was denied justice. Her trial and the lack of closure for her family and the country is just the latest proof of systemic racism and inherent inequality for our citizens.

Senate Republicans are moving ahead (hypocritically) to install a conservative justice who will set back women's rights and women's health for decades, impacting not only myself, but my daughters well into their own far-off adulthood.

This president continues to undermine our institutions and degrade our moral decency.

Even though I recognized the danger to our souls in his gleeful rejection of civility (or "political correctness"), I have not been immune to it. I have matched anger with anger; I have judged others harshly; I have been cynical and arrogant. Worse, I have succumbed to moments of despair, convinced that none of it matters, that nothing will get better. There is no justice and there can be no justice as long as those in power subvert justice and act outside the bounds of fair play.

But then I read Isaiah.

"For I will not always contend,

I will not be angry forever:

Nay, I who make spirits flag,

also create the breath of life." Isaiah 57:16 

God will not be angry forever. I will not be angry forever.

"If you banish the yoke from your midst, the menacing hand, the evil speech, and you offer your compassion to the hungry and satisfy the famished creature - then shall your light shine in darkness." Isaiah 58:9-10

And not from the High Holiday liturgy, but always and increasingly relevant: 

"You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." Pirkei Avot 2:21

Kol Nidre begins Yom Kippur not with apologies for the past year, but a request to forgive the sins and annul the vows we will commit in the coming year. Even as we ask forgiveness for past transgressions, we acknowledge that we will sin again. But maybe we will do a little bit better in the coming year. May we learn from our past mistakes, so that even as we sin anew in 5781, we grow a little better. And therein lies the hope.

I alone and we together must do better this year. We cannot desist from the hard work of rebuilding justice and civility. We must set aside our anger and get to work banishing evil and increasing compassion. Although the world is dark, we must be sources of light. Although the situation seems hopeless, we can provide hope. Although we know we will need forgiveness again next year, we begin the new year with our best intentions. We commit to be better, to do more, to draw closer to God, and to always remember that we are in this together.