Yom Kippur

Time to starve!

Tonight is the beginning of Yom Kippur; the holiest day in the Jewish calendar; the day of Atonement. Every year we think about what we're sorry for, we consider our transgressions, we bang our chests, we don't let anything pass our lips, and we pray to be sealed in the book of life. It's a hard day, it's a beautiful day, it's a really rewarding day. I love it. I enjoy sitting with myself and allowing myself to feel at peace with it all because it's the past and the future lies ahead, and what are we if not travelers through time trying to keep up. On Yom Kippur, I really feel the weight of time. Time is slower than it is on any other day; this one day in the year where everything just stops for us while the rest of the world keeps running around oblivious.

Most people will tell you that Yom Kippur is about asking for forgiveness, but it's also about giving forgiveness. Giving forgiveness – to me – is actually more liberating than being forgiven. Forgiving the person who hurt you, forgiving the person who wronged you, forgiving yourself instead of feeling a shame that refuses to die… all these acts help me feel free. I have to come to believe that one of the key facets of the most important relationships is that you have to be able to fall apart in front of those you trust. That’s where unconditional love lives. And to me, Yom Kippur is a day when we're allowed to come undone, and we are granted with the same opportunity to let ourselves feel whole again, and to be loved without caveats. That's what I'll be ruminating on this year.

Every year, I fast in honor of my parents, who dislike me writing about them publicly so I won't say anything further about them other than that they will forever be able to depend on me using this day to strive to be a better person than I was the year before; to keep growing, to keep healing and to keep imagining.

G'mar chatima tova. May your judgment be sealed.