A Good Fast

Minutes before the fast begins, a shared fast here in Israel, that good feeling that whatever I'm feeling here and now, everyone around me is sharing in. The highways and roads are absolutely empty. Odd that part of the population goes to Kol Nidre, and the other large part gets onto bicycles, tricycles, strollers, skateboards, walkers, wheeled playpens, and all kinds of wheeled but non motored styles of transportation, and everybody is greeting everybody else and strolling, wheeling etc. together. The key is the sharedness of it.

There is a sharedness to the fist gently pounding the chest, as we chant in unison, using the word "WE" and not "I". For the missing-the-mark we have commited by ignoring a person in pain, for the missing-the-mark we have committed by being too happy, not keeping a tiny tear-shaped space or broken-glass-shaped space in our happiness for the many people who are hurting at this same moment. For the missing-the-mark we have committed by not being happy, because we are told that even our hard work and our pain we should experience with joy. We are here. We are alive. That is a call to happiness. For the missing-the-mark will all commit by not being able truly to feel each other's feelings.

ROSH hashana it's called. For the intentions and promises and hopes for the coming year are in our Rosh, our head. Let us try to bring them into the world of action, over the course of the year. But the very fact that these hopes are in our head, for now, is a blessing.