The necessary art of gentleness on the High Holidays

I am one of those Jews who find the High Holidays extraordinarily difficult. I know I am not alone, but it is not something often discussed in my circles. The High Holidays are looked upon alternately as an absolute obligation or a call for more spiritual work.

My big problem with this line of thinking is, if one is taking being a Jew and a human being seriously, one is doing this work year-round. It seems a bit chutzpahdik to ask – require –  us to double up on the work we’ve already been doing. Something in me deeply resents it – which, of course, is another thing I can work on in teshuvah.

I think the thing that really causes resentment and uncertainty about Yamim Nora’im (the Days of Awe) is that they can and often do make us feel bad about ourselves. It is hard enough to face places where we missed the mark over the past year; doing so while maintaining some sense of self-regard is a monumental task, a balancing act requiring an equanimity that can be hard to come by in the best of times. Other kinds of self-work are required to arrive at this balanced state, and it is this state that best allows us to access the power and redemptive possibility of the High Holidays.

With this goal in mind, it is important to remember, to try to be gentle with oneself during this intense period of self-scrutiny and cheshbon hanefesh (a sort of spiritual accounting). Being kind to oneself could thus be seen as a part of teshuvah, a part of the process that G-d wants us to undergo at this time of year, or a necessary aspect of that process of returning to our truest, most authentic selves.

As we all know, this year has been excruciatingly difficult for the Jewish People. Going into the New Year, we can remember and reflect on those losses and ongoing terrors, but still celebrate that we are still here as Jews living Jewish lives in the myriad ways our people have found to express our culture and contribute to the world. We are well-versed in holding tragedy and triumph at once.

But how to be gentle with oneself when one is used to being harsh during the High Holidays (or perhaps even more generally)? Rabbi Miriam Margles offers a teaching that when we tap our hearts during the Vidui prayer on Yom Kippur, we can imagine G-d gently knocking on the door of our hearts, calling out to us in love as we ourselves embody that physical presence. We can think of G-d reaching out to us personally as we tap on our hearts, letting us know we are beloved. Self-forgiveness is especially important and especially difficult in a year when we have perhaps sometimes acted rashly under stress. Viewed in the light of gentleness, self-forgiveness is as important as asking for forgiveness from others.

Gentleness, however, does not let us off the hook. Instead, it increases the likeliness of a successful teshuvah and making positive changes for the new year. We are more likely to respond positively when given encouragement and forgiveness and multiple chances. G-d is understood as a god of love and in order to live accordingly to G-d’s laws, we must extend that love to ourselves.

Perfectionism is perhaps a particularly, although far from exclusively, Jewish trait. The need to perfect is both built into to the culture and is a response to intergenerational trauma, as an effort to control persecutory situations beyond our control. The High Holidays can exacerbate this perfectionist tendency, so we need to counteract it with gentleness. This way, we can access the opportunities offered by Yamin Hanora’im: opportunities to reflect on ourselves and to commit to new ethical goals in all areas of our lives.

The process of writing this piece has made the High Holidays feel more manageable for me. I hope reading it has done something supportive for you too. Perhaps, following Rabbi Margles, during the Vidui this Yom Kippur, you can try tapping gently on your heart and receiving it as a message of love, a connection from the Divine, and let that soften the intense self-criticism that can so often arise at this time of year.  Shana tovah umetukah, G’mar Chatimah Tovah.