Yom Kippur thoughts: Our choices do matter

About the photo. The image of blowing the shofar is from a reproduction of a greeting card from Eastern Europe, early 20th century. Courtesy of the Fund of the New Synagogue Berlin, Centrum Judaicum.

(Hat tip to Uriel Adiv who forwarded the photo from Jerusalem, where he opened it in an e-mail his friend Myra sent from Berlin. Ah, the gifts of cyberspace.)

The shofar calls —

Awake, you sleepers from your sleep, rouse yourself you slumberers . . . Examine your deeds, return in repentance and remember your Creator. Those of you who forget the truth in the follies of the times and go astray the whole year in vanity and emptiness, which neither profit nor save, look to your souls, improve your ways and works, abandon your evil ways every one of you! [Maimonides, in Hilchot Teshuvah, The Laws of Repentance 3.4]

And, another riff on the shofar, from Unetaneh Tokef, a Hebrew liturgical poem —

. . . And when the great shofar is sounded, a small quiet voice is heard, and the heavely beings are thrown into fright, and, seized by a terrible dread, they declare: Behold, the day of judgment has arrived, when even those in heaven's court are judged for none can be exempt from justice's eyes! . . . you do not desire a person to die, but only to change and to live. . . . [Translation from Mahzor Leyamim Nora’im, Prayerbook for the Days of Awe, The Reconstructionist Press]

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Now, just hours before Yom Kippur begins, the shofar is calling me, its sounds ringing in my ears since Rosh Hashanah. And I am eager to continue the difficult spiritual work of this awe-some mandated pause in Jewish time. Guiding the congregation will be the High Holy Day machzor, a rich anthology of prayers, hymns, and passages from the Bible, Mishnah, Talmud, and Zohar that tell the history and mirror the spirit of the Jewish people.

The hard part of the spiritual work is essential — reflecting on my specific deeds and thoughts (including their absence), intentional and not, and critically assessing my mis-takes (split word intended) the preceding year. Without this work, how can I recognize my choices and discern the possible consequences and results each choice entails? How else can I identify my responsibilities and make good choices attempting to shoulder them wisely?

It is this ability to choose that makes us human. And I want to know: How will I make choices that matter?

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Last month, the popular author of the children's classic ''A Wrinkle in Time" died, at age 88. From The New York Times' obituary of this deeply faithful Christian:

Why does anybody tell a story? [Madeleine L'Engle] . . . once asked, even though she knew the answer. . . . It does indeed have something to do with faith, she said, faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically [emphasis mine].