The Yom Kippur Speech

So when I was a kid, Yom Kippur meant no food, insufferable hours in synagouge and wearing a tie. Somewhere around 1995, I was a cub reporter for the Baltimore Jewish Times, my first real adult job. They sent us all home on Yom Kippur and having no place else to go, that’s where I spent the day. I was pretty miserable guy at that point, hating my job, wondering why I still lived in the city where I attended college. So I spent that day fasting, in mediation, writing in my diary. I awoke most mornings that fall to “Little Earthquakes”, Tori Amos’s haunting debut album about sexual abuse, pain and ultimately, redemption. It seemed a perfect soundtrack for Yom Kippur, the most somber of days on the Jewish calendar.

And that’s what I’ve done since, me alone, no phone or computer. I wake up, ask for guidance and wisdom on this day and turn on Tori. When I hear the opening lines of “Crucify”, I get a little scared then begin my day.

This year, something a little different happened. My friend Jo called and asked if I wanted to spend the afternoon with her. We took a walk, rented “The Deer Hunter”, an appropriate film about loss of innocence and tragedy, themes that hung over this year’s Yom Kippur like a scrim. I relit the set of memorial candles I had placed on my window sill. At 6 PM, we talked a bit about attonement, how we would like to have lived better in the past year, Then we each bit into a bagel and broke the fast.

It’s the first time since I began my solitary Yom Kippurs that I’ve let someone in and it got me thinking. Judiasm is a communal religion, meant to practised and celebrated in public. I haven’t lived in San Francisco long enough to find my spiritual center and the institutional offering haven’t impressed me thus far. But perhaps it’s time to start looking. For six months, I’ve been working for myself, building something I’m very proud of. But I’m starting to feel like life right now is all about work, work I love, but there doesn’t feel like room for much else.

So I’m calling this a turning point. I decided on this day of attonement that what I’ve done the past six years is not enough.

Tonight is Kol Nidre, the holiest night of the Jewish year, the beginning of Yom Kippur.

Tomorrow we fast. We think of who we might have harmed, through action or will, over the last year. We ask for forgiveness. At sundown, the book of life is closed and we begin the year anew.

For the last six years, I’ve spent Yom Kippur alone, thinking, mediating. I usually write a letter to someone I feel I need to make amends to. I break the fast and eat with friends around 6.
It’s a very full and significant day, which I’ll talk more about when it’s over.