My Jewish Year. Abigail Pogrebin

      Brushing my teeth later, it suddenly dawns on me that Elul is over. All the August-to-October introspection ends not with fireworks but with a bagel and a shmear. For forty days, I’ve done cheshbon hanefesh (“accounting of the soul”) and heard the shofar blast each morning. That trumpet now falls silent until next fall.

      So why, despite forceful moments, was I largely unresponsive through the final day? Because I didn’t feel changed. There was no revelation. The words on the page didn’t reach out and grab me the way Alan Lew said this holiday should. I can hear the rabbis scolding already: “That failure is on you, Abigail.”

      I should have heeded Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, who’d urged me to try the Yom Kippur ritual of dropping to the floor. This ancient tradition calls for prostrating oneself face-down to embody falling on God’s mercy during “Va’anachnu korim,” which means “and we bend at the knees.” Weiss tells me, “I think synagogues should be a place of baring the soul, taking off a lot of layers. Then you come to grips with who you really are, and a lot of people are uncomfortable with what they find.”

      I would have been “uncomfortable” making a spectacle of myself, and my fellow congregants would have been alarmed if they’d seen me buckle to the ground. Prostration takes a spiritual moxie I’m still lacking.

      Rabbi Paley had warned me that High Holy Day transcendence is hard for a rookie. “You can’t fully get it, Abby, because you simply haven’t read the book as many times as we have. For rabbis, the text is never repetitive because each of the words hooks into something else and we’re always seeing something new.”

      I did see new things. But not enough of them. Something got in the way of complete candor or apology, except when I stood in front of the Torah for two minutes with my family.

      Maybe because real repentance is too raw to do in a public place. Maybe because I’m too afraid to really consider that I, or someone close to me, might have transgressed enough to be punished.

      “My life is being weighed,” writes Rabbi Yitz Greenberg; “I am on trial for my life. . . . If life ended now, would it have been worthwhile?”

      I couldn’t bring myself to answer that. And no prayer forced me to.

      V’al kulam eloha selichot—s’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kaper lanu: For all these sins, O God of mercy, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.

      Rabbi Sharon Brous

      ON SUKKOT

      It’s hard to observe Sukkot. You have to be really invested. There are a lot of rules, specifications. You need two and a half walls minimally, preferably three walls. The Schach (roof) has to be something that grew from the earth but is no longer attached to the earth. More shade than sun. There are a lot of very specific regulations. It’s hard to take on Sukkot in a small bite. At the same time, you can bring really secular and disconnected Jews into a sukkah, and they will have a profoundly moving experience.

      Rabbi David Wolpe

      ON SUKKOT

      One reason why we go from the High Holidays to Sukkot is that, having had the world given to us on Rosh Hashanah—the world has been created, we now have to build something. We have to create something out of the world, and the sukkah is the first gesture. With the first nail that we drive in right after Yom Kippur, we say, “Having been redeemed and having the world be created, now I want to make it better.”

      Rabbi Naomi Levy

      ON SUKKOT

      On Yom Kippur, God is our judge. On Sukkot, God is our shelter. On Yom Kippur, we sit cooped up for endless hours inside. Sukkot is about space and breath. On Yom Kippur, it’s all about “What have I done?” But on Sukkot, it’s “What can I do in the world?” On Yom Kippur, we deprive ourselves—we starve! But on Sukkot, it’s gratitude and about bounty, sensuality, eating, and company. On Yom Kippur, we’re in God’s house. On Sukkot, God comes to our house.

      Rabbi Ed Feinstein

      ON SUKKOT

      I have a very radical idea—I’ve actually preached this in the synagogue: Jews, as you know, show up three times a year—two days of Rosh Hashanah and a day of Yom Kippur. I say, “Those are the wrong three days to show up.” First of all, they’re morbid holidays. And if there’s anything our generation has learned from the Holocaust, it’s that God owes us a smile. So don’t come to shul on Yom Kippur, don’t come to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah; come on Sukkot. Come on Pesach. And then choose Purim or Simchas Torah—better both. And dance. And sing. This is joy!! Why can’t you Jews enjoy joy? Why can’t you embrace joy? These are High Holidays. Why can’t Jews get it? Because we love misery. And guilt.

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