How the Jewish New Year actually flies in the face of toxic positivity

I’m obsessed with the idea that for Jews, the New Year is not a big celebration, it’s not a party, there are no streamers or confetti or kisses. Nope. The biggest culmination to the Jewish New Year is a solemn, sad, bummer of a day. It’s all fasting and repentance for the sins that you have committed in the last year. The result is a beautiful idea: that you have cleansed yourself, body and soul, and are ready to move forward with a clean slate into the New Year. But as a Jew, you can’t do that without fully embracing, in detail, all of the things that you have done wrong.

And it’s not a question of acknowledging that you’ve done wrong and moving on. That would be too easy. It’s literally the process of reflecting on each of the things you’ve done wrong, processing them, and then only after that agonizing process, moving forward. People have different traditions and different ways of doing this, but a friend of mine recently said that in her temple growing up, they used to go through every letter of the alphabet with the kids and name a thing they did wrong. Have you A-nalyzed something too much? Have you B-lurted something out when it wasn’t appropriate? Have you been too quick to C-ancel? It’s a modern, albeit childish, but helpful framework to reflect, in detail, on our wrongdoings.

Here’s the deal. God or no God. Higher spirit or not, I really don’t know, but I also just don’t wrestle with this idea. Because to me, it’s about re-focusing on the idea of intentionality. Instead of just acting on instincts and assuming we have no power in our actions, we have control over ourselves and our worlds. We have so many words, we do so many things….which of them matter? Which of them are meaningful? What is actually important?

We often go into auto-pilot. We wake up, brush our teeth, semi-focus on our kids, our work, our responsibilities. And that’s ok. It’s a matter of self preservation. But to be given the opportunity to reflect through really critical thinking that forces us to examine every inch of our lives is honestly a gift. I, admittedly, have a proclivity towards questioning, thinking, studying, and wondering about everything. But even for me, I find meaning in this. Mostly because I think that in our society, we are oriented elsewhere. We are oriented towards “It’ll be ok!” “Look on the bright side!” “We can fix that problem!” and an overwhelming sense of toxic positivity, when what we are really feeling is a desire to be understood. To me, it is refreshing, it feels rebellious, it feels good to focus on the bad.

This year was fucked, but we also personally did things that were fucked as well. I most definitely fed my ego more than it needed to be fed. I focused on outward facing goals, but buried my inward issues. I judged myself for my anxiety, and judged myself for judging myself. I took selfies at an angle that projected flattery, I spent too much time doom scrolling and feeling generalized doom. I didn’t ask for enough for myself. I let myself be small so that others could be big.

I’m a good person, but I did all of not-good things.

Every year we are forced to pause, painstakingly apologize for our misdeeds, use that as an opportunity to shed them, and then return to who we are. The question I’ve asked, that I will continue to ask is — who would you be if you released your narratives that don’t serve you? Who can you be if you were grounded enough to recognize the things that could go wrong, but then focused on what was possible?

What could you do, and what could you be, then?

L’Shana Tova, my friends.