L'shana Tovah

I tried really hard this Yom Kippur to confess all my sins, but although the list is incredibly comprehensive and includes many things I did not do and for that matter will never do, there are some serious omissions. There is the sin of inpatience which is more a way of life than a particular transgression, which might also be lumped in with the sin of the serious attention span deficit (which was particularly true during the Rabbi's sermon when I found myself thinking about preparing for an upcoming party and kept administering the silent verbal equivalent of a slap...stop it...a few seconds of concentrated listening..and then back to the party), the sin of ridiculous self-doubt and the sin of worrying unnecessarily.

The last one might actually be covered in the official listed category of foolish chatter, which in my case could not be stopped even during the Kol Nidre service. I had the opportunity to speak for one minute about a meaningful experience (see text below of my minute) during our recent trip to Israel. But when the Rabbi complemented me after services, I still couldn't help myself from quipping that if I'd known that everyone else was going to speak for 5 minutes I would have as well. Perhaps we should call this the sin of being Larry David. I just can't let go.

I was just thankful that at the end of services the following day the time between last confession and closing the book of reckoning was less than two minutes. I held my breath, and phew, made it, at least for 2007. As for this year, well we're trying harder, but we may have to post the top 10 sins on the desk top as a personal growth reminder.

Yad V’shem, the Holocaust History Museum, was so deeply moving, that I found myself at several points unable to continue, hunched over on a bench or standing in a corner sobbing.

Yad V’shem was different than other Holocaust museums I have been to.

It was the heartbreaking stories told by the survivors themselves that affected me so strongly. What would I have done I kept asking myself, would I have had the courage to take just one more breath? I stood in shock when I saw the same purse as my grandmother’s in a case of valuables confiscated by the Nazi’s. It was no longer just a museum.

It was the story of my family. At the end, I found my great-grandfather, Sandor Vida in the database of those who did not survive, and weighed down with this final piece of information, like a last piece of a puzzle, I climbed on the bus and we were on to our next stop, the Chagall windows at Hadassah Hospital.

In the waiting area, I whispered to Scott “I saw my great-grandfather’s name.” and once again I sobbed for all that we lost, but also all that we will lose if we do not remember.

"And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (a "yad vashem")... that shall not be cut off."
(Isaiah, chapter 56, verse 5)