Power and Atonement

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I have failed at that. But even our “I” rings out in the plural. Even our confession of individual sin is never individual, is never alone. This is power unlike any other. It is comfort unlike any other. It is an absolute statement of our peoplehood, of our humanity, of our unending ability to make a mess of our lives, and our unending ability to stand by each other in spite of it. One day a year we gather – the atheist Jews, the observant Jews, the Buddhist Jews and the new Jews; the Jews by choice, and the Jews by birth; the Jews by marriage, and the Jews who are doubting their Judaism; Jews who believe and Jews who don’t; Jews who know the Hebrew of the service by heart, and Jews like me who are still struggling with it; generation of Jews, all in one room, all admitting that we have messed it up and praying to get it better this coming year.

And for one moment, we are not alone in our pain. We are not alone in our regret.

It is a statement so much more powerful than any petty, childish feelings about who shows up every Friday night and who doesn’t. It is a statement much more important than who is wearing what and how many of my tattoos are showing. It is a statement of communal pain that will be forgotten all too quickly.

For one moment, we will be a community. We will be a people. We will stand with each other’s pain. We will understand what it means to be a nation accountable to G…d and each other. We will pray that next year we will have less to atone for. And for many of us it will be true.

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