Here it is, the beginning of September. Summer is over, right? No! It’s all downhill from here, right? No! The leaves are starting the change color, right? Say it isn’t so! Covid-19 is a distant memory, right? We wish!
There’s no question that the month of September is a turning point in the year. Summer vacations have come and gone. School is beginning soon, albeit virtually for many students. The election season heats up for the next eight weeks. And the High Holidays are just around the corner.
This is certainly the year that times have changed and are continuing to change. The coronavirus pandemic continues virtually unabated with the ongoing disruption to our lives that we have all encountered. Of the literally thousands of posts and cartoons I’ve seen about the pandemic, one of my favorites is the one that says, “the worst investment I made this year was in buying a 2020 calendar!” Sad but true. How our lives have changed these past six months.
Our children of all ages have returned or are about to return to school and college. The “new reality” is something we could not have imagined a year ago: distance learning, hybrid models of instruction, college campuses opening and then closing because of Covid-19 outbreaks. Parents who have never done so before home-schooling their children. How the lives of our children have changed over these past six months.
Our country is in a period of change as well. The tragic loss of Black lives at the hands of law enforcement, the peaceful rallies marred by the violent actions of a small minority, the continuing debate over the removal of Confederate statues, the actions of professional athletes in solidarity with the legitimate aspirations of Blacks in America. All of this as a backdrop to what is shaping up to be the most contentious presidential election in recent history. I wish I could say, “how the face of America has changed over these past six months,” but the reality is, the injustices within our society and the decline of political civility is but a continuation of long-standing behaviors and practices. Perhaps we’ll be able to soon say, “how the face of America is changing for the better each and every day.”
What of the High Holidays? In so many ways, these Holy Days will be as they always have been: the observances of Selichot, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will take place in synagogues and other settings throughout the world. And yet, so much has changed: Most congregations are holding their services virtually, with no in-house attendance. Some are allowing for very limited in-house attendance with appropriate precautions and social distancing in place. Some congregations are pre-recording their services while others will livestream in real time.
Who could have imagined not being able to enter your house of worship at all? Or not being able to enter it without a mask and a temperature check and having to sit far apart from your fellow congregants? Who could imagine being instructed not to sing loudly, if at all, in that very sanctuary, so as to minimize the spread of possibly infected droplets? Who could have imagined watching services on your television, or your computer, your tablet or even your phone? How our ritual practices have changed over the past six months.
What has not changed, however, is what these High Holidays are all about. They are about change: changing our lives for the better, recognizing, acknowledging and confronting that within us which is in need of positive change. You can engage in that process of self-examination no matter where you are. You can hear the tefilot, the prayers, no matter where you are. You can have an uplifting, inspiring and authentic spiritual experience no matter where you are.
One of the main themes of the High Holidays is teshuva, often translated as repentance, but which literally means “turning.” We want to turn our lives around, to make them even better than they currently are. What does it mean to turn things around? It means to change. And so this Holy Day season is our opportunity for just that.
So much of our lives has changed over these past six months, and not necessarily in a good way. For Jews, this is our time to embrace change in the most positive way, so that we can say, as did Elphaba and Glinda, the witches in “Wicked,” “I do believe I have been changed for the better.” Kein y’hi ratzon - so may it come to pass.