Turning and Returning

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, doesn’t come like a bolt out of the blue. The entire preceding month offers opportunities—personal and communal, formal and impromptu—for teshuva, often translated as “repentance” and related to the word “return.” Some Jews pray for forgiveness in the synagogue, pouring out emotion, crying, throwing up their hands. Some ask others for forgiveness, initiating honest conversations about wrongdoings of the past year. Yom Kippur itself, the day of judgement, begins with Kol Nidre, the eve of Yom Kippur, and ends at Neila, the closing of the gates, when Jews ask God to forgive us as an entire community, acknowledging our own small existence relative to God’s power.

In Brooklyn, I would walk to shul on Kol Nidre among the diversity of people in my neighborhood. Some, observing the custom of not wearing leather on Yom Kippur, I could spot straightaway as Jews walking to synagogue—dressed in fancy clothing but donning flip-flops, for example. Most were on their way to the park if it were a warm night, or headed to dinner, or coming home from work, relieved. In Jerusalem, I walked out of my apartment building to find dozens of people in the street, many wearing either the white kittel (a garment worn most by Orthodox men, resembling the garment that will cover them in death and burial) or wearing white clothing more generally—both serving as reminders of the unique and awesome significance of this day, the day on which God decides our ultimate fate. It seemed like everyone was headed to the same place, for the same purpose. This turning felt nearly automatic, not even a conscious choice.

Walking to shul on streets empty of cars, with traffic lights taking a rest for the entire day, in a community and a city where most of the other people on the streets were also headed to pray, I started to ask myself about turns and returns. What happens next year, when the walk to shul on Kol Nidre again becomes a choice I make? If my decision to pray on Kol Nidre, to fast and spend the entire day in shul on Yom Kippur, is challenged, how will I respond? What kind of turns will I take?

In many ways—and these ways are complicated by the fact that I am a Reform convert, a woman, and a lesbian—being a Jew and not living a Jewish life in Israel would be impossible. On Shabbat in Jerusalem, buses stop running and businesses shut down. There is practically a shul on every corner and people walk around the city dressed in their finest, celebrating and gathering with friends. I have a community of people to share Shabbat dinner with every week. The school year and the work year here run according to the Jewish calendar. The entire country, in one way or another, observes Yom Kippur (whether in synagogue or not). On Kol Nidre, after services were over, I walked with my friends to a nearby neighborhood. We must have seen hundreds of others dressed in white, walking, in the middle of the street, past closed shops and restaurants.

Teshuva for me begins this year and carries into the next. I hope that I can turn my own Jewish practice back in Brooklyn a bit towards Jerusalem. Just as we face East, face Jerusalem, face the Temple, face the Holy of Holies when we pray, I want to turn my “home” observance toward this place, where Judaism infuses nearly every aspect of life.