Pre-Rosh Hashana

I have been joking here, and friends in California and Israel have been saying as well, about how hot it has been, and how it is a tradition that the hottest weather is at Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

During the seven years I worked as a High Holiday Cantor, I went through six weeks of anguish preparing for the holidays. The first three years, I worried about singing in key; the last four, I tried to make my art a holy experience for the congregation. I no longer work, but I am married to a rabbi. He spends his days now in his basement office (which is quite comfortable) churning out sermons. He also will lead services for the children, including  skits and parody songs, and host a discussion on Yom Kippur afternoon. He not only fasts, but doesn't drink coffee for twenty-five hours.

It's just after three in the morning now, and I'm not sleeping, mostly from indigestion I think, rather than the worries that keep most people up. This happens sometimes, but not every night. Still, when I'm up at night, when even the cat is asleep under our bed, I think of things.

It occurred to me tonight that a Season of Repentance is good to have every year. You forgive everyone, and even yourself, for all the knuckle-brained, thoughtless things you've done, and then you move on and vow to do better. It beats carrying around a lifetime of guilt.

I realize now, and I think Joe feels the same way, that we were raised to be selfish jerks. We were first-born sons of mid-twentieth century Jewish-American families. It was up to our mothers to cook and clean, even though they both worked. Our families expected us to find wives to take the place of our mothers. It didn't occur to them that we would live alone, or with another man.

 Sometimes I'll mention to Joe how something in our lives reminds me of some long-ago event, often  where I could have helped and didn't. He asks how many years ago the event was, and he usually says "Isn't it time you forgave yourself for that?"

That goes for other people, too. Often, I'm still resentful of people and groups of people."Isn't it time you forgave them?" Joe says. I was thinking tonight about a reunion from my high school next month, all the classes from 1963 (the first class at that school) to 1969. I graduated in 1967. The people I was most friendly with, the Jewish kids, and those who went away to college, mostly don't go to these things. And in a new group on Facebook from my junior high, a man and woman I remember confessed that they had a crush on each other. I don't imagine anyone would say that to me, and my crushes were often other boys ( although thinking about it, I can't remember anyone specifically). Suddenly I was back in the world of seventh and eighth grade hurt over not being invited to a bar mitzvah.

I'll be sixty-six in October, just after the holidays. It's time to let go of resentments from the past. They are exhausting and worthless. I've created a whole long life for myself. I can go back and visit that old world online or at a reunion, and be upbeat and charming, knowing that I'll return to my real life, my good life. I'll forgive the slights and hurts, and forgive myself for the slights and hurts I inflicted, knowingly and unknowingly, all of them. And, at this holiday season, I can vow to not be the selfish jerk I was raised to be, and be the loving, compassionate person I want to be.