I ask forgiveness

I deeply apologize.  I could have done better.

For the sharp comments and irritable retorts. 

For the cranky mornings and frustrating indecisiveness, I’m sorry. 

For the moments of impatience, cutting off without really listening, and assuming without hearing, I could have done better.

For the unanswered emails, forgotten birthday cards, and delayed calls to keep in touch.  For the friendships that slipped behind errands and plans unmade due to laziness, I apologize.  For the times when you needed an ear, a hug, a hand to hold, and I wasn’t there.  For the connections lost without required tending and support asked for that I didn’t hear, I’m sorry. 

For the fear, panic, worry and heartache I’ve caused.  For the times together marred by my worn-out craziness; for the rigidity I can carry in my wake, I could have done better.

For tossing aside the blessing of life, invincible faith to choose familiar over right, I’m sorry.  For the expired rules I blindly follow and the childhood fears I grasp without reason.  For the anxiety over the mundane as I miss the sweet blossoms; for the aimless obsessiveness and automatic rituals, I apologize.  For the doubts that halt my footsteps and the self-criticisms that mute my voice; for the lip service to ideals and the promises absent of action, I could have done better.

For the wasted minutes of worry and the pits of overwhelm I easily slide down.  For taking for granted the blessing of breath, limbs that move, and a beating heart.  For misplacing priorities in favor of tired habits and putting off growth for tomorrow, I could have done better.

For all of the ways I may have hurt you, known and those I don’t even realize, I ask for your forgiveness.

For all of the ways I have cut myself off from bliss, abused my blessings, and lost sight of my dreams, I ask for my own forgiveness.

I could have done better. 

I hope, plan, and intend to do better in the coming year.

The Case for Fasting

I used to argue my case for fasting, fervently citing ritual and tractate, claiming spirituality as my motivation rather than an excuse to have a calorie-free day.  It wasn’t all a life.  I wanted to be a member of my tribe, beat my chest remorsefully along with my community and share the hunger pains of late Yom Kippur afternoon. I believed that fasting could be holy, a setting apart, a focusing on the holy rather than the mundane.  But for me, the larger truth was that I wanted an anorexic’s freebie day.

I was 20 the last Yom Kippur I fasted, already a veteran patient at eating disorder treatment centers and hospitals.  I was 20 and home from college for the High Holidays, arguing with parents who feared for my life on a daily basis.  As I pled my case, they rebutted with worries that fasting would in fact keep me out of the book of life, that not eating was choosing a slow death rather than opting for another year of life.  I knew the allowances for the sick, elderly and children, that fasting didn’t apply if health was an issue.  My parents were right.  If fasting symbolized a sacrifice, a step away from the norm in the direction of holiness, then for me, eating was more meaningful than fasting.  But at the age of 20, I was to starved and stubborn to concede their points or admit the reasons behind my staunch desire to fast.  I held my self-destructive ground and spent the day light-headed in shul, bowing and remorseful, chanting communal sins while beating my bony chest. 

And so, aside from the services, it was no different from any other day.

My light-bulb moment wasn’t at the blast of the shofar or the closing Nehila prayers.  It wasn’t the sermon that moved me to tears but rather the break-fast later among family and friend.  It had been a bitter day for me, knowing the insane hypocrisy of begging for another year of life while having spent the past 365 days actively tossing aside that very precious gift.  I was afraid to pray for healing, too ashamed to make vows of recovery as I stood on too many years of broken promises and identical Yom Kippur reflections.  But as I stood from the sidelines and watched my family fill plates with warm kugel, bagels and lox, and all the Jewish comfort foods I loved, a small light flickered within.  My personal fast never ended.  There was no break-fast celebration for me.  There was no end date where my inner calculator shut off and my starving dictator was muted.  There was no meal where I freely filled my plate and rejoined the land of the living.  I listened to the laughter and praises to the chef as I cried out my first true prayer of the day.

Please Hashem, help me choose life.  Guide me toward healing and end this perpetual fast that keeps me far away from you, locked in a tiny life. With gratitude for the million second chances, please grant me this moment, this chance to taste freedom, this opportunity to take a bite of my mother’s kugel as a step toward life.

This year I’ll be at services with my community, making my amends and atoning for my sins.  This year I’ll beat my chest and desperately plead for my name to be sealed in the book of life. This year I still need to do better, take bigger bites and farther steps. 

This year I’ll find my holiness in a full belly and experience as much spirituality in the sounding of the shofar as in the taste of my lunch.