Earlier in the week I was busy digesting and celebrating the Jewish New Year, which, I might add, is nothing like the Christian New Year. We pray, we eat and we are supposed to be thinking about how we are going to improve ourselves and live better lives in the coming year. And for the next 10 days that is pretty much what everyone I know is thinking about to greater or lesser degrees. Some of us have to do it while we cook of course.
We try to make sure we haven't left anyone with hurt feelings. (And on that note, let me say that I am sorry to anyone whom I may have unintentionally offended or harmed in any way during the past year. And if you think I hurt you intentionally, well, then, you are probably my children and you should get over it! And if you aren't my children then I probably feel bad about what I did -- at least a little bit and I will try my best to avoid doing a similar thing to you this year. If you would like to file an official complaint, please leave it on my front door step. I will get back to you.)
Now we are less than 24 hours from when God will close His Plan Book for the coming year. In it, is a list of who will have what experiences (good, bad and indifferent) for the year to come. I am a little shaky on this point because I happen to think that my good friend Diane z"l and my father z"l both had lived pretty admirably during their last year, yet God didn't see it that way and unfortunately they are both gone now.
But I am not going to dwell on that right now. Not because I don't want to but because I am realistic enough to know that I will never understand God and even if I did, that isn't going to change the outcome. Instead, I am simply going to try to focus on eating normally before the Fast, fasting with as much grace as I can muster, and planning to be a better person for at least a week or two after the Fast.
When I was a teenager, I never completed the Fast. Somewhere around hour 22 inevitably I would just completely fall apart and have to take to my bed with an apple. In those days God saw fit to give me another year despite my obvious shortcomings. This is partly why I don't really get what God is doing. And I pretty sure that He allows many people to continue to live and they have done some really bad things in the past year. (I am thinking about my previous post on "Rabbi Chen" as I write this but I don't want to get into the incitement thing again mere hours before Yom Kippur.)
Today in synagogue our rabbi said that during the Fast we are like angels because angels don't need food. I don't know how he knows that for sure, and he isn't the first person to say that, but let's assume that's true. The trick is to maintain your angel status (but with food) for as long as you can. In truth we all know that making major changes in our lives is anything but easy.
That said, tomorrow Jews around the world will actually attend synagogue in huge numbers. More than you will see in synagogues until this time next year.
In Israel, it is against the law to drive on Yom Kippur unless you are driving an emergency vehicle. Therefore, the streets will be empty of cars and people will be everywhere. It's an amazing experience. It's the only day of the year where all Jews in Israel seem kind of alike.
I guess everyone wants to be an angel even if it is only for a few hours. And by the time it ends 25 hours later, and we all rush home to put that first bite of food into our mouths, it's not hard to see what a holy experience it all was. Have an easy and meaningful Fast.
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