It’s difficult to write this article.  Writing this in early September, my attention is far more focused on the High  Holidays.  How is it that I can be so gripped by something a month away?  Without even looking at a calendar, I’ve felt the clock ticking since Saturday, August 17.  What is so important about that day?  Shabbat, August 17, Shabbat Nachamu, was the first after Tisha b’Av.  The name comes from the first word of the haftarah.  More importantly, It was the first of seven shabbatot of consolation leading to Rosh Hashanah.  Tick-tock.

 

Sermons and service planning aside, the rabbis were on to something.  They realized that it is difficult to make yourself properly present and ready if you don’t prepare.  All of our biblical holidays have a lead-in period:  Counting the Omer before Shavuot, the four special shabbatot leading to Passover, and the seven shabbatot leading to Rosh Hashanah.  (Some scholarship sees Sukkot originally being part of the high holidays, rather than a unique holiday.)  The same principle is applied to mourning, with each stage preparing us for the next one (aninut, shiva, and shloshim).

 

What is the preparation for the Yamim Noraim?  Is it apologizing?  I don’t think so.  (What!)  Jumping to say ‘sorry’ can be a hollow  experience, to both the one who offers it, and the recipient.  It threatens to skip an important foundation.  Looking at children, it isn’t until age four, at the youngest, that they understand what an apology is. 

 

If we rush right to, “Say you’re sorry,” we skip right over some really valuable learning opportunities. First, we zoom past the moment in which our child could come to understand that their actions caused an emotional experience for another person. This is a huge piece of the puzzle, and it is the foundation on which a real, genuine “I’m sorry” actually rests. Second, if we rush to resolution, kids miss the chance to slow down, study the other person’s response, and learn about emotions. What is their face telling me? What are their actions and words telling me? Just how have my actions made them feel? This is the perfect way to learn affective empathy—our capacity to sense the feelings of others.

 

Even worse, if we push a child to say sorry before they have processed the moment, and before they can feel genuinely sorry, we ask our child to act in a way that doesn’t reflect how they are feeling inside, which is both confusing and counterproductive to kids developing affective empathy.

 

(taken from tinkergarten.com: At What Age Should Kids Say I’m Sorry?  by Meghan Fitzgerald)

 

Replace children with yourself.  Do you take advantage of the seven weeks, or do you rush to the finish line.

 

I ponder how I’ve interacted with the Beth Emet congregants and community.  I hope that I can find space and place to be more caring, and more kind, in places where I have fallen short.

 

As we start Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I look forward to sharing much of it with you. 

L’shanah tovah u’metukah.    May we find a good and sweet year.