Even if the person you wronged doesn’t remember what you did, it can still make a difference to ask for forgiveness. Maybe.
By Etgar Keret for Tablet Magazine
Yom
Kippur was always my favorite holiday. Even in nursery school, when all
the other kids liked Purim because of the costumes, Hanukkah because of
the latkes, and Passover because of the long vacation, I was hooked on
Yom Kippur. If holidays were like kids, I once thought when I was still a
boy, then Purim and Hanukkah would be the most popular in class, Rosh
Hashanah would be the most beautiful, and Yom Kippur would be a kind of
weirdo, a loner, but the most interesting of all. When I think about
that now, “a kind of weirdo, a loner, but the most interesting of all”
is exactly how I saw myself then, so maybe the real reason I loved Yom
Kippur so much is that I thought it was like me. The thing is that even
though I’m not a kind of weirdo anymore, definitely not a loner, and
grown-up enough now to understand that I’m not the most interesting, I’m
still in love with that holiday.Maybe it’s because Yom Kippur is the only holiday I know that, because of its very nature, recognizes human weakness. If on Passover, Moses and God settled accounts with the Egyptians, on Hanukkah Judah Maccabee beat the crap out of the Greeks, and on Israeli Independence day we fought bravely against the Arabs and won our country, on Yom Kippur we’re not a heroic dynasty or a people, but a collection of individuals who look in the mirror, are ashamed of what demands shame, and ask forgiveness for what can be forgiven. And maybe that was actually the quality that attracted me to Yom Kippur from the very beginning, that it is the most private of all our holidays, a day when you stand alone before your deeds and their consequences without TV, without bustling cafés and restaurants, without stores crammed with merchandise, without all the rest of the day-to-day noise that makes them more palatable. It’s the holiday when you come face to face with your life as it is, and there’s no stupid reality show to divert your attention, no news updates, no chocolate-chip ice cream cone to offer you some consolation.
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Every human being possesses unlimited potential for greatness and a unique ability to impact the world for good.
This
recipe comes to us thanks to Susan Kohen from Virginia, with a note
that read: “I love apples and honey for Rosh Hashanah, but since we have
so many apples this time of year, I try and get a little more creative
while trying to stay healthy.”
The
title of this talk is “The End of American Jewish Literature, Again.”
It alludes to an oft-cited and, for some, provocative essay written by
the late American Jewish scholar and critic Irving Howe. The essay was
in fact his introduction to an anthology he edited, Jewish-American
Stories, published in 1977. The anthology assembled stories by many of
the writers responsible for what is considered to be the golden age of
American Jewish writing: Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Grace Paley, Bernard
Malamud, Henry Roth, Stanley Elkin, and others. Usually when the essay
is invoked it is for the lines that appear near its conclusion. I’ll
quote them for you in full:
Data
gathered from more than 800 rabbis and members of the Rabbinical Center
of Europe (RCA), together with the European Jewish Association (EJA),
indicates that about half a million Jews will this year attend Rosh
Hashanah tefilos held in 1353 synagogues across Europe, to mark the
Jewish New Year next week.
The
Israeli-Palestinian conflict receives a disproportionate amount of
attention in relation to its size and importance in the world;
journalists follow the herd and suffer from groupthink; and there is
fear of Palestinian censorship, backed up by threats.
NEW
YORK — Awesome! Heart-stopping! Gaga! Meshugga! They’re just words. Or
not. The Jewish Museum’s exhibit “Mel Bochner: Strong Language” explores
the meaning of words. More than 70 works fill the first floor gallery
space. Each one explores the tension between the visual and the verbal
through the words themselves and the colors Bochner chose to paint them.
Jewish
educational networks buzzed all summer with questions about how to
handle returning to school in the wake of the conflict in Israel and
Gaza this past summer. Educators are still looking for ways to process
their own (often conflicted) thoughts and emotions, and continue to
discuss what approach to take in handling these complex current events
in school settings. I am no different – I spent the summer worrying
about family, friends, and colleagues in Israel, sickened by violence,
dismayed by the persistence of what feels like a hopeless cycle, and
shocked by suddenly open displays of anti-Arab racism in Israel and
anti-Semitism all over the world. I was also overwhelmed by the thought
of helping faculty members, parents, and students learn something from
these events once school started. Yet, when I began reaching out to
colleagues, many educational strategies began to crystallize. Last week,
I entered the school year with great clarity of purpose. Here is some
of what we are doing at the Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in
Foster City, CA to help students process this summer’s events.
When
President Barack Obama warned of "international fallout" if Israel
fails to embrace the latest U.S. Middle East peace proposal, Newsmax
asked noted author and Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz to comment
on the growing talk of a European boycott against Israel.