A Lobbyist’s Yom Kippur Prayer

The hardest thing to say sometimes is I was wrong. The liturgy has us doing it quite a bit over Yom Kippur. So I wanted to take a moment and reflect on that, from the perspective of the organization focused on being the “government advocacy, public affairs, and community relations voice” of the eight Jewish federations statewide.

I think we were right far more often than we were wrong. And I think the “how” of our “what” and “why” is also something we proudly point to. We are tenacious, but we act with honor and integrity. We model Jewish values in our professional interactions and our lobbying efforts.

We keep the focus on the community’s needs and on the needs of each of our communities.

We take counsel, and act deliberately. And we sacrifice for our agencies and those they serve.

Still, there are times we slip or we err.

To anyone…

…we should have asked advice of…
…we ought have included more…
…we should have reached out to sooner…
…who thought we should have been more direct…
…who wished for us to act with more urgency…
…who thinks we misjudged priorities…
…who believes we missed an opportunity…
…who wants us to speaker louder…
…who thinks we should tone down certain efforts…
…who helped out our cause but wasn’t thanked appropriately…
…who took the time to push our community agenda but receives no recognition…

…I am sorry.