It’s the onset, at sunset, of the Jewish Day of Atonement and I can’t help feeling left out.
Just now I stood on my corner watching families on there way to temple filled with resolve to fast till sundown tomorrow. I can’t help but to admire and wish to be one of them.
“It’s only once a year,” my foot doctor, who will partake in the ritual, said to me this morning. “It’s the very least we can do…
One could say, it’s our Lent, just packed in one day.”
He also participates in Tashlich performed earlier, where you go to a body of water to toss in bread representing all of your transgressions for the past year. Like Catholic penance, but out in the open. I like that idea, better than shrouded in a cold box with a priest whose eyes you can’t see.
There’s such grace in the Jewish religion displayed on the faces of all those embracing its goodness.
My heart lifts for them.
Side entrance to Park Avenue Synagogue.
SB
