Judaism is Not About Identity or Belief, It's About Covenant

I try so hard to make Judaism accessible to people.

How can Judaism change your life? I feel like I'm the fastest.

I'm like, just give me five minutes and let me pitch.

How can putting down the phone on Shabbat make your individual life better? How can showing up for others, attending services, Minyan, mean that they will show up for you? How can service attendance do for you what it's done for me, which it's humanized me? It's given me the opportunity to change another's life by greeting them with the cheerful countenance and asking them about their week.

It's exposed me to every generation in one room, something I get nowhere else.

So I learn from them, I learn etzah tovah, I learn good advice, I learn wisdom, and I learn to practice compassion.

How can the alcheitz about not gossiping or giving more tzedakah make my life better and make me a better person, and what can it do for you? But is that really what the liturgy is primarily calling for? Is it saying that by not gossiping, say, or not lying, or not being sarcastic, or not casting unwanted gaze, or any of the alcheitz, are they really just to make your life better? Or are they really because of the effect of each of these behaviors on Am Yisrael, on the community as a whole? After all, what is the setting of Yom Kippur and its Al-Khayt confessions? Today it's the synagogue with us all enfolded in one circle.

And tomorrow we read both the biblical and temple period Yom Kippur purification rituals.

The courtyard is full and we reside within its boundaries and we recite that these sins have polluted our community and we want them out.

Not so I can just be a better individual, but so we can be a holy people, a people covenanted together.

So this year, I'm inviting you in your silent in your thoughts while reciting , while taking a break from following along, the in-between moments where direction for the new year may spark, to think of how you can make an intention for this year of being more Jewish, of building from our strength.

I may be kind of homeless on the outside, but I'm very much at home here, even with diversity of opinion.

That I can stand.

In fact, I welcome here.

I don't value it on Substack.

Can you think of how to change to be more a part of the Jewish community? I was struck by an al-Khait written by Rabbi Diane Cohen.

For the sin of seeking God without using a roadmap, God gave all the Jews.

I don't think she even needs to say seeking God.

I think it's enough to say for the sin of seeking spiritual fulfillment without using a Jewish tool.