As I sit down to write this article, it is the middle of August and the beginning of the month of Elul. While most people associate August with the end of summer and the return to school, I can think only of the upcoming high holy days.

Last year I took many notes after our high holy day services, and I went back to read them not too long ago. Most of the notes were about what did and did not work musically at services, but I also wrote down my overall feelings about services, both from what I experienced and from what congregants told me. This is some of what I wrote:

Services felt different this year, more organic and like prayer and less like a performance… Part of what contributed to that was more acapella music—instead of performing for the congregation, it seemed like the choir was leading their community in prayer…I loved doing the short introductions to different parts of the liturgy. Perhaps I should write them up as a Tikvah Talk article in preparation for the holidays next year?

I went back and read those liturgical introductions and found them to be really helpful in getting me to focus my thoughts and energy as I begin my high holy day preparations. I share them now with you in the hope that they will also help you to feel ready for a deep and meaningful experience when you come to services this year:

I would like to start by sharing a midrash with you, a rabbinic story that is thousands of years old:

Why are others downcast before going on trial before a judge, but when the Jewish people go on trial before God we wear festive clothes, eat a big meal with family and friends, and gather together to sing and celebrate?

We go to trial joyfully because we know that:

God’s love is greater than God’s anger.
We are forgiven when we turn to God and reach out in love.
We are made whole the very moment we do what we’re doing right now: gathering together to renew our connection to our people and our heritage.

God is slow to anger and quick to forgive because God knows that we all make mistakes, that we are not whole yet, that there are things we are all ashamed of in our lives. This is a holiday about what it really means to be human. God hears every prayer and remembers every person because as broken as we all are, we have infinite worth, every single one of us.

Rosh Hashannah is our wake up call, a reminder of our mortality, and the un’taneh tokef is the introduction to that process. Whether you understand the words of the prayer literally or metaphorically, whether or not you believe your fate is decided today, the idea is this:

Now is the time to start living with as much integrity as you possibly can.

If you have relationships to clean up, clean them up.

If what you need is to offer yourself more forgiveness, then start that process right now, beginning with something small that you are willing to stop criticizing yourself for.

Just by being here, God is forgiving you. Now you need to forgive yourself. These are the days of AWE because this is an awesome opportunity to begin living fully and wholly as our best selves. Today is the day that God is listening to our heath-felt, honest prayers. Right now.

If the words of the machzor (prayerbook) inspire you, allow them to be your guide. If it is music that inspires you, then close your eyes and begin your transformation that way. If it is your family that shows you the way into prayer, then hold someone’s hand and let them go into this process with you. There are so many access points to God, to prayer, to spirit. None is more valid than another. Just pick your path and start your transformation right now.

Rabbinic tradition claims that Moses broke the first set of tablets on the 10 th of Tishrei, on Yom Kippur. They were written by God and they were perfect, untouched by human flaws. Moses destroyed those when he saw the Jewish people rejoicing around the Golden Calf. He and God both needed to see that although they were giving the Jewish people an enormous responsibility as keepers of the covenant, we were not, and never would be, perfect. Working through the heartbreak, Moses wrote the second set himself, in his own imperfect, human hand. This second set was a product of hard-won repentance, acceptance of others’ limitations, and forgiveness. This is the set that would last, not the set written with impossible expectations of perfection.

Indeed, that is the spirit of the high holy days: out of our brokenness we become strong, and because of that, we last.

I will close with a story about Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, the legendary spiritual leader and composer who escaped the Nazis and came from Austria to the United States as a teenager. Shlomo would go back to Austria and Germany to perform and people would ask him, “How can you go back there? How can you perform for them? Don’t you hate them?” His answer: “I have only one soul. If I had two souls, I would dedicate one to hating. But since I only have one I’m going to dedicate it to loving.”

I would like to wish us all a beautiful and meaningful high holy day season, one imbued with love and forgiveness and transformation. Through our imperfections may we all come to find strength and peace.