As I write, we are preparing to prepare for the high holy days. In fact, the entire holiday season is layered with increasing degrees of preparation for what is to come. Ten weeks before the new year, the cycle of Torah and Haftarot locks into a count towards the close of the old year, elevating themes of warning, punishment, forgiveness, and comforting on the national scale that foreshadow the work of repentance for each individual. With four weeks to go (about now), as we enter the month of Elul, the penitential season formally begins; we begin reciting the psalm for the season (Psalm 27) and blowing shofar – a warning alarm – at morning services. This is the time of year for chesbon hafesh (soul auditing!), reflecting on our conduct in the past year and seeking forgiveness from those we have hurt by falling short – including ourselves! In the last four to ten days of the year, we recite Slichot, introducing holiday themes and prayers, intensifying our anticipation, and giving us a last wake-up call before Rosh Hashanah.
Even Rosh Hashanah itself is a sort of preparation, almost a rehearsal, for Yom Kippur. We recite many of the same prayers and sing many of the same melodies, but with less intensity and of course, with meals. The day after Rosh Hashanah is Tzom Gedaliah – strictly part of a separate cycle of fasting to mourn the Temple, but in effect almost a warm-up for the long fast of Yom Kippur. Finally, Yom Kippur itself, the apex of the season of repentance as we practice it today, probably began its career as a day of preparation for “The Festival” par excellence, as the Talmud calls the holiday of Sukkot.
This is the season in our tradition for making amends for past mistakes, and making changes to steer away from future mistakes. This is not the work of a day, nor of three days. To make the most of this opportunity to rectify past and future takes an investment of meaningful time in our present.
It also takes an investment of our presence. We can experience Yom Kippur by being in shul on the day. But our experience of the day is informed, enriched, expanded, and made useful in our lives by the preparation that comes beforehand. And that preparation should include both the internal personal work we do during the penitential season, and some time spent in shul during the year. Without it, the holidays are reduced to unfamiliar ritual in unfamiliar language among unfamiliar people. When we make ourselves at home in shul with some regularity, as our busy lives permit, the people become our community, the extended family that supports us; the ritual speaks to us through the familiarity of the normal prayers we recite throughout the year, and through the striking changes in content and tone that make the holiday services so special and moving; and the language sings to us in the voices of our ancestors, even when we don’t understand all the words. Then we are truly prepared for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (and Sukkot and Simchat Torah) to impact us with their full power to help us change for the better.
If you’ve been a stranger to shul this year, there is still time to prepare, though not much. And of course, with this year mostly in the books – there is always next year.