Preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - Part III

Following up on parts 1 and 2. Jeff Bernhardt published an interesting article in the Jewish Journal entitled "In Approaching the High Holy Days, It Pays to Take Time to Prepare." It is along the same lines as my earlier posts. Well worth a look.

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Preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Part 2

It ain't magic, ya know.

You simply cannot show up in synagogue on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, mumble a few prayers, and expect to be magically cleansed of your sins. It is not even clear what being "cleansed of your sins" means in that context. To make these holidays meaningful, it takes a little work ahead of time. But fortunately the payoff is large. These holidays represent an ideal opportunity to take stock of our lives, think about what we are doing right and try to continue it during the next year, and think about what we are doing wrong and take steps to correct that during the next year. Part of the great wisdom inherent in the Jewish holidays is that they provide very real, practical, and this-worldly opportunities to make our lives better.

Last year, I posted about how I and others prepared for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. A few commentators made other suggestions. I was speaking to (an Orthodox) friend and colleague the other day, and he graciously shared the interesting way in which he prepares for the holidays.

Each year during Elul (the month before Rosh Hashana) he prepares an outline of all the important areas of his life: family, professional life, friends and relationships, religious, learning, etc. He then password-protects the document and saves it. No one has access to the document, not even his wife. He lists all his specific goals for next year: where he would like to improve, where he would like to continue to do well, what specifically he would like to achieve. In preparing for this, he reviews his outline from the previous year to help him take stock of how he did during the current year.

This is similar to the process I use, but with one huge improvement: it is in writing and can be a lot more detailed. It is easy for him to check on his progress during the year and in fact in subsequent years. But I had not written down my goals, and so I sometimes had a hard time remembering specifically what I wanted to do. And with password protection, it is safe. I am going to follow his lead this year and do the same.

The only thing surprising about his process was that he described himself as being somewhat intense and fanatical about all this. I got the sense from him that few people in his community do this kind of preparation for the holidays. Few people in my Conservative community do this type of preparation either, at least that I know of. But I think we all should do something along these lines. To borrow Tom Lehrer's line (and omit his simile): what we get out of these holidays depends on what we put into them. I am sure that we have all experienced boring and meaningless Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services, where we walk out of synagogue and wonder why we went in the first place. Well, a little preparation now solves that problem then.

So let me leave people with two questions, one religious and one sociological:

What if anything do you or people you know do to prepare for the holidays?

How many people in your family or community prepare for the holidays in some serious way?

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Preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - Practical Issues

How do you prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? Obviously, the holidays are what we make of them. And they are a great opportunity for self improvement and to right some lingering wrongs. But all this takes some preparation.

At one extreme, people can simply do nothing to prepare for the holidays. They get to synagogue, find themselves a little bored, and get very little out of the holidays.

At the other extreme, people can approach the holidays at a very high level of generality: repenting for mistakes, seeking forgiveness, starting a new year. The obvious problem is that these lofty ideals are too lofty to do much practical good. One needs to be specific: repent for specific mistakes and seek forgiveness from specific people. Start a new year by doing specific things in a different way.

Here are a few things that I have done and that others have suggested to me. Feel free to offer additional ideas in the comments.

Realistic Resolutions. In some years, I have thought about one or two general things I would like to do better the following year. It might involve personal traits, relationships with others, or plans for specific goals. I then try to think of specific and concrete ways of accomplishing these things. I try to limit myself to things that I probably can do. Reaching a little is OK; reaching too much is likely to produce failure.

I then check in with myself at the (secular) New Year and at Passover (or roughly a third and a half of the way through the year) and try to make mid-year corrections. Am I on track? If so, great. If not, why not?

Similarly, I think about one or two general things that I have done well the past year, perhaps with some difficulty, and think about how I can keep on track. These are sometimes last year's goals.

Meetings. A friend noted that he tries to set up meetings with anyone he has an ongoing problem with and tries to resolve the problem one way or the other.

Going Through the Prayerbook Ahead of Time. Another friend noted that one of her friends goes through the prayerbook before the holidays. Specifically, she focuses on the V'dui and Al Chait, thinks about sins or mistakes that she has made that fall into these categories, and actually takes notes in a personal siddur. (Note: if you do this, its probably a good idea to keep it is a secret locked place.) This process helps her use the structure and content of the prayers to help her become a better person. And obviously the prayers have more meaning to her in synagogue once she has "personalized" them ahead of time.

Any other thoughts?

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UPDATE: a link with a few more suggestions. Aish HaTorah's website has an article on this topic called Three Steps to Genuine Change. (It really discusses three separate methods to implementing positive character changes rather than three separate sequential steps.) Aish is particularly good at these types of practical character issues.

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