5782

I couldn’t find the Rosh Hashanah post I wanted so I’m writing it myself.

Because this year feels weird. I know that after 2020 (5781), I should not be taken aback by HHD this year, but I am. Because last year, the whole nation was in it together. We were all working hard to beat back a global pandemic. We were all talking about black lives mattering. We were all fatigued from a very contentious presidency that I’m fully committed left all of us in adrenal fatigue. We were all tired together. There was a sense of unquestioning “of course” when services were virtual, and gatherings were small. Gratitude and grief were the societal mood.

This year has felt different for me. I have done next to zero spiritual or practical preparation for 5782. It is only today, as I sit at home in my PJs rather than at work that I can really absorb the fact that we enter the 10 holiest days of the year this evening.

This year, I feel like the whole world has moved on without me. In some ways I’ve participated in the national shift of priorities. I got vaccinated, which felt like the most hopeful medical moment of my life. Emboldened by this, I took a phenomenal week-long vacation with my sister where we hiked many miles and saw beautiful things. I’ve dated (vaccinated) people. I’ve kissed new people. I started to edge into a sense of normalcy. Until Delta came and ripped through my southern, majority unvaccinated community.

I had to wrangle with family, friends, and colleagues who doubted (and some still doubt) the vaccine’s safety, utility, and trustworthiness. I watched my work life turn on its head as colleague after trusted colleague turned in their resignation, electing to travel nurse for absurdly high pay. I’m not a COVID ICU nurse ( I do surgical trauma), so it feels like the nursing burn out conversation circles around me rather than speaking to me.

So I sit here a full year later and find myself tired again. My tired is an achy, lonely, disoriented tired. It seems like we should all be together again this year. It feels like we were so close. It feels like maybe we will never stand shoulder to should again in the massiveness of the shul. It feels like I’ll never get to sing with the choir again. It feels like I will never get to feel the peace that only comes with the breaking of the fast on YK, with my jewish brothers and sisters in the echoing halls of my synagogue ever again.

I have been full of grief again this year. Over the 10 days of repentance I am supposed to rehearse my death, but it feels like less of a rehearsal this year. This year, it feels like something very real has died. A hopeful, earnest, optimistic part of me is laid to rest. The part that feels like togetherness, or that we can politely disagree about things without destroying the heath and wellness of our community, or the part of me that feels like empathy is accessible to all.

So it startled me this morning when I woke up with a sense of peace. It took me by surprise when I woke up with Max Janowski’s Sim Shalom stuck in my head, whose lyrics begin

Grant peace, goodness, blessing, grace, loving-kindness, and compassion to us

I’ve always thought that peace was the weirdest thing for the Jewish people to perseverate on. Of all of the sensations, moods, and experiences for us to pray for, why peace? Why not elation, passion, excitement, or even joy? Why is peace considered the ultimate experience? I think this year has demonstrated to me in the clearest of ways that is the purest, most enduring thing we can work towards. The tempests of politics, pandemics, heart break, anger, and exhaustion will continue to swell around us. In many ways, we are powerless to the greater world. Much of our power is seen in the day-to-day interactions with our fellow humans. It is in the integrity I bring to my work, the kindness I bring to my friends and family, and the compassion I hold for those who are different from me. Ease is, in fact, the only place from which I can experience joy, elation, passion, or excitement. Ease is the resting place for my weary heart. Peace and ease are the foundation on which I can weather the storms that will inevitably come my way.

So for this Rosh Hashanah, I welcome peace. I welcome the promise of ease that my faith restores in me. I welcome the tidaling of my breath, and the reliable lub-dub of my heart beat. I welcome the gentle stretches that start my day as I reach my fingers and toes as far as they can move. I pray for peace. I pray for peace amongst the storm. I pray for peace for myself and my community. I will rehearse my death and dying as the next 10 days commands me to do, and I hope to reckon with the part of me whose faith in humanity is shaken. I hope to wrangle my sense of powerlessness from a state of hopelessness to hopefulness. I hope to forgive myself and my community, and I beg God to forgive me for the things only God can forgive me for.

Tonight, as Rosh Hashana fills the mouths of Jews all over the world with the sweetness of honey and hope, may it also grant us peace.

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