Couldn't make it to Jconnect's Yom Kippur Services this year? No problem, JGirl's continues her account of the High Holiday Services below. Check it out!

So, when we last spoke, I was trying to sort through some serious questions (fourteen, to be exact) for which I really had no answers. The “annual review” that is Rosh Hashanah was a rude awakening for me, and trust me, it’s going to take a lot more than the “ten days of repentance” to solve my problems! The reality is – it’s going to take me at least a year, or maybe several years. I have quite a bit of soul-searching to do.

I know I’m not alone. Like many of you, I’m at a point in my life where I have hit a plateau and I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’m at a “do-or-die” point personally, and until I answer some very important questions about myself and my foundation, I’m incapable of making good decisions. At the same time, I can’t try to answer fourteen “life-changing” questions or overhaul my life in ten days. It takes time.

What I CAN do, though, is start to move through some of them. I can keep them on hand and approach each dilemma, one step at a time.

I didn’t want to go into Yom Kippur in a panic, however, and one thing I learned this time around is that Yom Kippur isn’t about just suffering and atonement. It’s about those things to some degree, yes, but it’s really about letting unnecessary things fall away in order to focus on the purest form of our selves. Without any external factors or cumbersome restrictions (i.e. nourishment, outward appearances, work, etc) we are supposed to examine what’s really in there. We are supposed to look inside, experience our souls with a magnifying glass, and cleanse our spirits.

Achieving that takes work. Finding answers to the questions I am currently struggling with is going to take work. But at the end it will be joy.

I didn’t know the meaning of all the prayers (c’mon, I’m a once-a-year Jew), but at the end of the day, I just stood there and took it all in and realized that to some degree I’m going to have to leave some thing up to G-d (it’s that whole “giving yourself over to the Universe” thing). To some degree He knows what’s going to happen, but in the meantime I have the power to change certain things. And I figured out at least three:

I want to spend considerably more time than I have in the past learning about Judaism, because I’m tired of doing stuff and not knowing why I’m doing it. Judaism is in my heart, so I’m going to have to learn more about it. I want to find a partner (don’t I say that every year?). I want to take better care of myself and my body.

So how about that? Three things. Maybe these things are too corny or too obvious, but I don’t think so. Focusing on the pieces is the way to improve the whole human being, right?

As this happened, services ended and the shofar was blown. And everyone started to celebrate. What were they celebrating? Clarity like I had just gotten? Themselves? Other people? Who knows?

Immediately afterwards, everyone went to a community-wide Break Fast in the area. There were just SO many young people. After a very trying 24 hours, everyone was there, celebrating and socializing and basking in the glow of the Jewish spirit.

Does that sound totally lame? It’s totally true – I can’t help it. This “once-a-year” Jew was completely overwhelmed with emotion, and joy, and for the first time in quite awhile – a whole lot of clarity. Sigh.

Until Next Time,
JGirl