The Day of Atonement

On the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah, God opens the Book of Life and inscribes each person’s fate for the coming year into it. Ten days later, on Yom Kippur, he seals the book, and thus, everyone’s fate for the upcoming year is permanently set. We ask forgiveness of others, of ourselves, and of God during the day-long fast. We refrain from eating or drinking, having sex, bathing, etc. for an entire day. The idea of fasting is to make ourselves uncomfortable, to feel the pain of the people we have hurt by our words and actions the year before by refraining from enjoying the things our body and soul need to feel good.

As I’ve grown up, I’ve separated quite a bit from my religious beliefs for various reasons. I stopped going to synagogue completely, I don’t celebrate any other Jewish holidays, I don’t keep Kosher (although I never really did), I don’t really believe in God. However, for some reason, I still fast every year. Maybe you can chalk it up to Jewish guilt, but maybe it’s something more.

Regardless of if I believe in God or an afterlife, I still believe in forgiveness. I believe in humanity. I believe that our words can hurt (unlike Donald Trump). I believe that it’s important to ask for forgiveness from others. No one is perfect, by any means. We all mess up, we all make mistakes, we all say things we didn’t mean. It happens. It’s inevitable. The beauty of that is that we can ask for forgiveness from those we’ve hurt. We acknowledge that it happened and what we did was hurtful, but we can always try to fix it.

By asking for forgiveness, we relieve ourselves of guilt and sin and if the other person doesn’t accept our apology, it’s now their sin to bear — which I never really liked or understood. Why would someone else now be responsible for and burdened with something that I did? What if I did something unforgivable? Why are they now responsible for that? In some ways, I still don’t understand the logic behind that particular point of Yom Kippur, but in some ways I do. We’re all supposed to be absolved of guilt. It’s not supposed to be one-sided. Even though I said something to hurt you, you said something to hurt someone else. We’re all flawed. We’re all asking forgiveness. We’re all equal.

What I love about Judaism, and why I’ve always considered myself a Jew, regardless of my religious beliefs, is that the community and humanity of being a Jew has always given me such a sense of joy and comfort. Over the centuries, the Jewish race has been put through the ringer. Slavery, excommunication, the Holocaust, even today anti-Semitism runs rampant across the globe. Like other oppressed races, going through any kind of oppression together as a people creates a bond and a mutual understanding. I’ve found that the more conservative and reform sects of Judaism have always been more accepting of everyone before other religions.

When I was thinking about coming out, I thought about my religion. How would they accept me? I always heard stories or saw news reports of devout Christians or devout Muslims shunning their gay children or trying to convert them with counseling or even shock therapy, but I never heard of anything like that happening with a Jewish family. It gave me incredible relief to know that my religion and my community would most likely still support me if and when I came out — and they did.

Judaism, and religion in general, is a very personal thing in my opinion. We all see “God” differently in our heads. Our God is a very personal one. Whether your God is seen in a sunset, or a baby’s laughter, or the Big Bang, or a personification of a man or woman overseeing everything we do, we all have a sense of something greater than us. Regardless of where we see God, or if we see God. We still can all relate with being human. We can still all relate with forgiveness.

If I have done anything to hurt you this year, please forgive me. Have an easy fast. May your name be sealed in the Book of Life for another year.