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Posts Tagged ‘Yom Kippur’

Atonement

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 21, 2026| Leave a Comment »

This year, the Jewish holidays ambushed me.

My brother’s Celebration of Life landed on Rosh Hashanah, a New Year beginning amidst my last era of Minnesota Nice. My Mother the Flapper left us years ago while living on Lake Minnetonka; Jim had tucked her into bed the night before she died. My brother Mike is gone. There were no apples, no honey at our erev-shiva-like evening for Jim. Only testaments to a life well lived from friends and colleagues, some funny, some poignant some echoing his early life, our Year of Living Dangerously.

Through my fault, through my fault…

Today is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. We Jews confess our sins in the Temple, in public all together, not just on Fridays in a tiny confessional to a priest. The way I was taught for years at Sacred Heart School. We are supposed to fast, not even to drink water unless for some medical reason we must, like pregnancy. Or if we are in the business of saving lives, like say ER doctors? They get a pass.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…

Our country is at war, a US-Israeli illegitimate war with Iran. Israel is continuing its relentless war against Hamas in Gaza after the October 7th attack. The news is sickening: a building collapses killing 21 Palestinians; an American aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is all but forgotten in the Middle East, and now Houthi rebels are threatening to close another strait, crippling Saudi Arabia. We are peeling an onion with repercussions beyond our understanding. Here at home, in of all places Philadelphia, Ed Sheeran is trying to resurrect his tour after ousting rapper Macklemore, saying, “My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians’ lives, of children’s lives,”

 “I’ve had to take and make difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes and I’m so, so sorry for them. I don’t want to disappoint fans, and I’ve never wanted to be an activist musician, but this has put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet.” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/sep/20/ed-sheeran-gaza-catastrophic-and-unjustifiable-first-show-tour-loop-philadelphia-us

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us….

Can an artist be apolitical? Sheeran brings up a good point about freedom of speech. My very own artist, the Rocker, wrote an impassioned essay about/against censorship when he was the Pumpkin’s age in middle school. We Americans pride ourselves on this FIRST Amendment’s Constitutional Right – Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech. AND YET, this past weekend our President has banned three major news networks from the White House simply because he doesn’t like what they have to say about him! It does my heart good that the whole press pool has decided not to cover the President today.

Today is Yom Kippur, tonight the Book of Life will close. Who will be inscribed in the book to live another year, and who shall die? The funny thing is, not all Jews believe in the strict interpretation of the Torah. Reform American Judaism allows for many ways to practice our faith. This allowance for critical thinking, for dwelling in the grey, is what eventually sold me on conversion. Many of the Jewish people I know think Bibi is a war criminal, along with our own idiotic toddler-in-chief. We have had ten days to repent, to evaluate our lives and promise to do better. To listen to the ram’s horn. To do better, to listen, to behave with civility around others and online, to interact with AI or not? This is it for us, our chance to wipe the slate clean and begin again.

Instead of repenting, I’ve been on the phone with the VA about my brother, seeing to his affairs, trying to grieve with my sister. Looking after a Golden Retriever who was fostered by us for just a day because of his grieving family.

Yes, people go to a concert to be entertained. And people go to a football game to watch football. And yes, billionaires own these venues and they too have a right to free speech. That is our complicated and brilliant way of life here in America. As my Nana would say, “God help us.”

But we are on our own, there is no cavalry coming to save us from ourselves. The Book of Life never closes and every year is becoming more dangerous. If we want to get this tyrant out of office we must show up at the polls in November. In the Torah, the wedding processional comes before the funeral cortege if they happen to meet at a crossroad. Life comes first. Here we are celebrating two Virgo birthdays last week.

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Forgive Us Our Sins

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on October 6, 2025| 5 Comments »

I’m getting to be an old regular at synagogue. After the Love Bug’s Bat Mitzvah, we entered the Jewish Holy Days with a renewed faith. Last week for Kol Nidre, the service on the night of Yom Kippur, I sat between my Granddaughter and my husband holding hands. The Bug had the honor of saying a prayer in Hebrew on the Bima (altar). The Day of Atonement is our chance to ask forgiveness for anything and everything and from everyone we may have harmed over the past year. We listened to the Rabbi speak about loss, about confronting our mortality.

She talked about getting a metaphorical box delivered to our door, with a string inside representing the length of time we have left to live. Would you open it, or would you bury it?

“Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.” As a young, practicing Catholic, I would pound my chest, “Mea Culpa,” and go to confession every week and make amends by reciting the rosary. My ‘sins’ were the usual; taking the Lord’s name in vain. not respecting or listening to my parents. Asking for forgiveness is a universal thread running through the history of time and every single religion I can think of. “Forgive me Father for I have sinned,” was and probably still is the opening salvo inside the confessional.

But what are our sins like today, as adults in this 21st Century? Did we stand by while ICE arrested people on the street, outside of their church? Were we silent and indifferent in the face of injustice? What would we change about our lives if we knew that next week we would fall and break our neck and be gone, poof, just like that? Bob nearly died when he had a stroke on the operating table ten years ago. My perspective has certainly changed now that I’ve crossed that three-quarter century mark.

I recently listened to a podcast about how we humans react to an unforeseen event – like finding out you have an incurable, hereditary disease (say Prion), that could strike at any moment. “Prion disease is a group of rare, terminal neurodegenerative diseases. They happen when proteins in your brain turn into abnormal proteins known as prions. Prion disease causes brain damage that leads to dementia…” people die within a year of diagnosis.

There are usually three reactions to getting bad news: 1) Continue blithely living your same life, we might call this denial; 2) Go with the flow and be flexible enough to try new things; and last 3) Pivot. The woman in the podcast who watched her mother die of Prion at age 51 decided to take the test – she looked inside the box – to find out she DID have the genetic mutation for Prion. This woman pivoted, she was a second year law student who dropped out and switched course. She attained a PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard. She is now 49 and has a pretty good idea of the length of her string.

Last week, I did something a little unusual; I took an adult ballet class. Bob climbed to the top shelf of my closet and took down the box containing my pointe shoes and dance shoes, and they still fit me. I was the oldest in the class, but I didn’t care. My knees weren’t used to the pliés, but my muscle memory kicked in and I walked just a little bit taller afterwards. Of course, I spent the rest of the weekend recuperating. But I am happy!

I have a pretty good idea how long my string is, and I want to dance and eat all the desserts and take a river cruise with some of my old friends, plus a few new ones. I want to be improvisational, to go with the flow of the future. I want to be arrested for protesting this administration’s contempt of the rule of law, its authoritarian methods, its downright sinful treatment of immigrants. And I want my granddaughters to know I fought for reproductive freedom until the very end.

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