September Was a Nice Idea

Every August, I have the same thought: September would be a wonderful month to go away.

The weather is beautiful. The summer crowds have gone home. Airfares begin to come down. Europe is still warm. Restaurants are easier to get into. Children are back in school.

And then I look at the Jewish calendar.

Never mind.

September—or whichever portion of September the Jewish calendar has claimed that particular year—is less a month than an obstacle course.

First, school starts. Even though my own children are grown, I am an ADHD and executive function coach, which means that when everyone else’s children go back to school, I go back to school too. My pleasantly civilized summer schedule suddenly becomes a blur of calendars, syllabi, assignments, meetings, forgotten passwords, and texts from college students who have just discovered that something was due yesterday.

At approximately the same moment, the Jewish holidays begin.

Rosh Hashanah arrives, and everything stops. We cook. We gather. We go to synagogue. We eat apples and honey and wish everyone a sweet new year.

Then we emerge and briefly attempt to resume normal life.

Not so fast.

Yom Kippur is coming.

Now we need to apologize to everyone, eat an enormous meal, stop eating entirely, spend the day contemplating our lives and our shortcomings, and then eat another enormous meal.

Okay. Now we can get back to—

Sukkot.

Right.

Bring out the branches.

And just when the non-Jewish world assumes that surely we must be finished, we have to explain that there is another holiday. And another.

By the time Simchat Torah ends, I feel as though I have spent a month alternating between praying, eating, not eating, cooking, checking my calendar, canceling things on my calendar, and explaining to people why I can’t do something on a Tuesday.

And then I look up.

It is somehow Thanksgiving.