A few years ago, Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk suggested to his community of Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple that, every night of the liminal ten days that float between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, one should do this:
I encourage you: before each nightfall of the ten days of repentance, prepare your testimony. Ask yourself in your heart: are you a person who defaults to truth, or do you greet most of what of what you hear people say with suspicion? Don’t judge your answer. You are who you are, and you will not have a perfect record of judgment and being judged. The mistakes we all make often lead to grudges, vendettas and long-held bad feelings. In my experience, and in keeping with Jewish tradition, it is best to scrutinise the grudges we hold and ask ourselves what they yield that is more fruitful than forgiveness and understanding of oneself and others.
We are told again and again. Yom Kippur, which begins this year on Wednesday evening, is just for us. In order to smooth things with others, we need to pick up the phone, drop a note or just open our hearts a little wider, so that we cope better with those in our lives whose ‘person tax’ gets a little high – and I suppose we would do well to imagine how our ‘tax’ might be onerous for others. Sometimes.
This is the balancing of what matters most to us and the people we live amongst. What matters is when we forget the essence of us, we can now effect some kind of teshuvah (turning) that allows us to return to ourself, to the root of our soul.
I am so looking forward to seeing you over Yom Kippur. We are back at FPS, Hutton Grove.
I wish you a meaningful day. Gmar Chatimah Tovah.
Rebecca
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