One of the gifts of Jewish prayer is that it welcomes our questions alongside our faith. The High Holy Days, especially, invite us into conversation — with God, tradition, and ourselves. This conversation can be comforting or challenging, and often it is both. If you’re coming to services this year, whether you attend every week or only once a year, I would like to offer one suggestion: Don’t worry about agreeing with every word you read. The High Holy Day prayer book contains some of the most beautiful poetry in Judaism. It also contains some of the most difficult. We encounter prayers that speak of judgment, of the Book of Life, and of our very destinies. For many modern Jews, these passages raise more questions than answers. And yet, rather than diminishing the experience, those questions can become part of the prayer itself. Our tradition has never expected every Jew to understand every prayer in the same way. In fact, many of our greatest commentators spent centuries debating what these words really mean. The prayers themselves have endured not because every generation interpreted them identically, but because every generation found something worth wrestling with. Take “Unetaneh Tokef,” one of the best-known pieces of liturgy of the season. It speaks in powerful images about life and death, blessing and hardship. Whether we hear those words literally, metaphorically, or somewhere in between, the prayer asks us to confront something we often spend the rest of the year avoiding: the reality that life is precious because it is finite. At the same time, the prayer reminds us that while we cannot control everything that happens to us, we also are not powerless. The familiar words — teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah — teach that repentance, prayer, and acts of generosity can lessen the severity of the decree. However we understand that line theologically, it points us toward the timeless truth that we always retain the ability to shape the people we become. Years ago, psychiatrist and Holocaust Survivor Viktor Frankl wrote “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”[1] Those words echo an important truth of this season. We cannot choose every circumstance of our lives, but we can choose how we respond. We can choose compassion over resentment, gratitude over bitterness, hope over despair. In the language of Deuteronomy, we can continue to choose life.[2] This year, as you open the machzor, I encourage you not to just rush through the pages trying to keep up. Let a phrase catch your attention. Sit with a question that makes you uncomfortable. Read a prayer more than once. If a passage doesn’t reflect exactly what you believe, ask what it might be trying to teach you or what conversation it strives to begin. The High Holy Days are not an examination where there is one right set of answers. They are an invitation to honest reflection, meaningful conversation, and spiritual growth. If you come with an open heart, you may discover that the prayers have more to say than you remembered. L’shanah tovah u’metukah, To a good and sweet new year.
[1] Viktor E. Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning” (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), 75. [2] Deuteronomy 30:19 from Parashat Nitzavim, words we will read on Yom Kippur morning at