{"id":136,"date":"2006-09-20T10:38:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-20T10:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html"},"modified":"2006-09-20T10:38:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-20T10:38:00","slug":"low-down-on-high-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html","title":{"rendered":"The Low Down on the High Holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enough with the homilies. There is no high in this year\u2019s high holy days.<\/p>\n

My fellow rabbis are missing this year\u2019s significance: Most people who will be walking into synagogue feel a sense of loss, confusion, and bewilderment at a world in total and utter disorder. This year was worst than last year and there is nothing that says next year is going to be any better.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, Adam Cohen in The New York Times described in an op-ed<\/a> how Americans are, now more than ever before, pessimistic about their future. Hope has been replaced by fear, and redemption has been lost to malaise.<\/p>\n

The paralysis of the war on terror, the never-ending Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and round two in Lebanon have all contributed to American Jewry\u2019s sense that hope is not on the way. Yes, yes, yes: Personally, Jews are for the most part doing pretty well. But communally, we are tired and scared about what next year will bring. For better or for worse, the question most Jews will be asking this week will be: How does one live in a world where nothing seems fair, just, or right?<\/p>\n

I am sorry to be so down, but sometimes life isn\u2019t just about the highs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enough with the homilies. There is no high in this year\u2019s high holy days. My fellow rabbis are missing this year\u2019s significance: Most people who will be walking into synagogue feel a sense of loss, confusion, and bewilderment at a world in total and utter disorder. This year was worst than last year and there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Low Down on the High Holidays - Virtual Talmud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Low Down on the High Holidays - Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Enough with the homilies. There is no high in this year\u2019s high holy days. My fellow rabbis are missing this year\u2019s significance: Most people who will be walking into synagogue feel a sense of loss, confusion, and bewilderment at a world in total and utter disorder. This year was worst than last year and there…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-09-20T10:38:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Eliyahu Stern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Low Down on the High Holidays - Virtual Talmud","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Low Down on the High Holidays - Virtual Talmud","og_description":"Enough with the homilies. There is no high in this year\u2019s high holy days. My fellow rabbis are missing this year\u2019s significance: Most people who will be walking into synagogue feel a sense of loss, confusion, and bewilderment at a world in total and utter disorder. This year was worst than last year and there…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html","og_site_name":"Virtual Talmud","article_published_time":"2006-09-20T10:38:00+00:00","author":"Rabbi Eliyahu Stern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html","name":"The Low Down on the High Holidays - Virtual Talmud","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-09-20T10:38:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-09-20T10:38:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/53c806e36632262087fa251c621f2bc9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/low-down-on-high-holidays.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Low Down on the High Holidays"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/","name":"Virtual Talmud","description":"Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, where politics and pop culture meet 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/53c806e36632262087fa251c621f2bc9","name":"Rabbi Eliyahu Stern","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/417\/4170a8452a509d8efe19496bf5d566e9x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/417\/4170a8452a509d8efe19496bf5d566e9x96.jpg","caption":"Rabbi Eliyahu Stern"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/author\/estern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}