The High Holy Days used to be associated in my mind with terror.
G-d would sit on His throne, passing judgement, deciding how to kill those who would die.
I would have to go to synagogue and cry, for if I did not cry, my prayers would be perceived as insincere and therefore would remain unanswered.
This year I saw Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur from a new light.
I saw Rosh Hashana as a time of particular closeness with G-d.
I saw Rosh Hashana as a time of forgiveness.
As a time of letting go of the dark past and
As a time of moving forth into a new future.
The Rabbi delivered the classical Shabbat Shuva speech in Shul. He spoke of repentance, he spoke of the essence of Tshuva, he spoke of learning from the mistakes of the past and transforming the path to be followed in the future.
I thought of sins.
I thought of perfection.
We were created as humans, therefore, doomed to sin.
Seven times a righteous man falls, and seven times he arises.
I thought of the number seven. Seven days of Creation. Seven days of new invention. Each day a creative and unique innovation.
A righteous man falls, but he must learn from the mistake and not fall into the same pit again.
He must trudge on, on to the new challenges, where man will inevitably fall again and then arise.
I fell. I fell so deep. As I sat in the earth with my knees sinking in the mud,
my body sore from the scars, my legs bled from the fresh cuts.
I sat and cried as I looked down at the mess and the filth I was drenched in.
I was stuck. I could not see a realistic way for me to get up.
I tried to move, I tried to get up, but my body parts would not obey me.
My legs were steel rods planted in the ground.
And then G-d extended His Hand by the name of Tshuva and gave me the gift of moving on.
I looked forward, I looked at the road I could take if I got out of my pit.
I slowly got to my feet.
Step by step I moved forward.
I stood at the edge of a cliff.
I stood there alone. There was no one but G-d.
All the sins that were plaguing me, that I had no way of placing or accepting.
The sins that would not let my mind rest at night.
The sins that stained my conscience in dark spots.
All those sins were gathered in the cup of my hands.
I regretted them, I wanted to repent, I wanted to move on.
G-d gave me the gift of Tshuva.
He took the sins from my hands and left me free.
I was a free woman, free to start from a new beginning.
Suddenly, Rosh Hashana was beautiful. It was a time of new opportunity. A time of new beginnings.
