With Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur approaching, Shalhevet students and staff have begun repenting more intensely for sins they committed during the year that is ending. Rosh Hashanah is the first day of the Jewish New Year, on which God reviews each of our actions and traits and decides our fate based how we’ve behaved.
It is crucial in Judaism to try to improve, and also to apologize to and be forgiven by whomever you have wronged, in addition praying to God. This is the time of year when we turn toward the future, in hope, regret and resolve. There are feelings of fear mixed with celebration.
A sampling of what students and staff are thinking about found various areas in which people feel they underperformed. Responses ranged from the broad to the specific, and resolutions ranged from saying more brachot — blessings, acknowledging God’s gifts such as foods — to davening (praying) more often, and most of all, to cutting down on lashon hara, which is gossip or slander. In an informal survey, each of those was mentioned by at least two people. (Not all responses are included in this article.)
The new Jewish year is 5773. We wish you the best as you move through this time of teshuva, returning to Hashem and his ways while atoning for one’s sins.
Shanah tova!
9th Grade
Jake Benyowitz: I got in a fight at Coffee Bean.
Shirel Benji: I am repenting for all the times I did not serve Hashem to the best of my ability and for all the times I said I would try harder to fulfill a certain mitzvah but did not.
Eric Bazak: I need try try to give more tzedakah, and be a better davener.
10th Grade
Sarah Elspas: Getting angry with my siblings.
Rina Katzovitz: I want to have an hour when I dn’t say lashon harah.
Avishai Rabin: I was very impatient with my parents at certain times.
11th Grade
Melissa Ohana: Lashon hara.
Justin Nemanpour: For my sexual temptations and relationships with my friends and disrespecting my parents.
Anonymous junior: For lying once to my brother.
12th Grade
Leora Nimmer: My uncompleted goals that I made for myself.
Max Lipner: I’m repenting for all the things that I do that are immoral.
Avi Marcus: I usually don’t figure out what I’m repenting for until I’m actually praying on Rosh Hashana.
Brianna Marshak: I’m repenting for anything I might have done to hurt a friend.
Staff
Mr. Frankel: “For a whole year.”
Morah Michal Davis: “If I hurt people’s feelings unknowingly.”
