I sit and take out my Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur Machzorim to try to start preparing for the upcoming holidays. In a normal year, they have not been touched for 12 months. This year my Yom Kippur Machzor was taken off the shelf and brought with me to my wedding, where I said the Yom Kippur mincha before heading to the wedding hall.
When thinking back to that afternoon, I was standing next to Montefiorie’s Windmill, overlooking the soon to be purple and blue skies, feeling the wind rushing past my hairsprayed hair, where I was wearing my teal winter coat over my wedding dress. I stood there opening this book that I only open once a year. I took a deep breath. And then started mincha.
I was thinking about being back in Jerusalem, the place I called home for many years, and which still feels like home. I thought about the jumble of emotions I was feeling as I was about to go to my own wedding. I thought about the years I felt sadness where I wanted to find someone; the years where I fought to make sure I did not feel ‘less than’ because I was not married; the years I stood up so that others also would be seen and respected no matter their marital status. I thought about how lucky I felt to have found a partner that I loved and loved me. I thought about how in just a few hours, I would be different and yet also be the same. I thought about how I wanted to have that feeling of a ‘clean slate’, but also knew that so much was a part of me, and would always be a part of me, and would be a loss if it was no longer part of me.
I remember thinking about the feelings of awe and joy I feel on Yom Kippur, and davening mincha that afternoon brought me back to those feelings. The feeling of change. The feeling of being in the presence of God. The feeling of holiness, that was filled with joy. These feelings were present was when we got to the wedding hall and started the Tish and sat at the bedekin, where there was lively singing. I even got up to dance. The mixture of emotions reminded me of davening in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur.; we are all aware of the awe and seriousness of the day, and at the same time it is a time of joy, community, and a feeling of completeness. The joy I felt dancing when I was supposed to be sitting in the ‘bridal chair’ was a joy from the heart, not of frivolity. It was my heart singing and connecting with those near me, those who were in my heart, and for the first time in a while, God.
As I think about renewal in the days approaching Rosh Hashanah, I am brought back to the thoughts about my wedding. Renewal is not about total change, it is not about no longer being who I was. It is about celebrating my individual self and adding on to that. It is about connecting the past to the present and looking forward to the future. It is about creating a space that is filled with seriousness as well as joy.
For so many years, Tishrei and the start of school almost always went hand in hand. The new School year helped with giving a clear marking of the change. There was the moving up a grade; having a new teacher; having a new schedule; being in new classrooms. not seeing friends or teachers for a few months gave, the ability to look and see the ways in which people changed.
Now that I am no longer in a school type system, that is harder to see and harder to notice. There isn’t a clear benchmark that must meet by a certain point. There isn’t a clear change of schedule that will show me that now we are in a ‘new time’. There aren’t any reunions after a long summer that enable me to see changes in people I am close to, or them to see changes in me.
In thinking about renewal this year I would like to create a new (but not necessarily drastically different) schedule to be able to recognize time passing, a way to mark that this is a new time. I would like to create clear and attainable goals, with my own timeline, or even have others in my life help keep me accountable to them. I would like to be able to hold onto that feeling of awe and joy, not only on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, but create ways to find it throughout the year.
May we all be blessed with a happy, healthy and sweet new year.