Rosh Hashanah

For me, a huge part of fall was always the High Holidays.

Laughing as the shofar sounded for over a minute, the person suppling it with air turning bright red. Skeptical little me asking God for forgiveness deeply convinced he wouldn’t listen anyway. Standing in a circle with my beloved family sharing my wishes for the new year. Health and happiness, so much love.

I convinced myself I was too busy for Judaism, neglecting many of the cultural practices in college and abandoning any possibility of a relationship with God.

The moments I should have been connecting with a Jewish community, I told myself I was too booked. That Hillel wasn’t for me, that Chabad wasn’t for me.

It was all or nothing. Go every Shabbat or don’t go at all. Highly irrational.

This year I went to the Chabad house for Erev Rosh Hashanah.

It felt both foreign and familiar. The Hebrew saturated with the Yiddish undertones of Orthodoxy, the women and men separated