Erev Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah is one of my favorite Holidays.

Just recently, I celebrated my second Jewish birthday. I had my beit din around this time, two years ago, specifically so that I could celebrate the High Holidays as a Jew. But that is not what makes Rosh Hashanah special for me.

RH is actually the first time that I experienced Jewish life outside of college and Passover Seders. It was the first time I attended a Friday night service, spoken mostly in Hebrew. And I attended it with my then-Fiancé.

The memory is tinged with sadness, too, because it was in fact that weekend that our relationship officially ended. It was so sad to me, in part, because I never even got to celebrate with his family!

The Jury is still out on what, exactly, my motivations were for ending the relationship. Was it that I really just did not like him? Entirely possible. Was he good for me, but I was too afraid of love? That is possible, too. Maybe, in some funny G-d joke kind of way, both are true. And maybe, even though it was an ending and a loss that I experienced at the time, in effect, it was really a beginning.

And truly, it was.

It has now been five years since then, and, looking back, I have come so far, and in some ways, I have not changed at all.

Now, I am Jewish. I have my own Jewish life. I have Jewish friends. I can bake challah, and I have even made my own Shabbat candles. Now I know more prayers and tunes than I ever thought possible.

But one thing hasn't changed. On the positive side, after a period of not believing that I could ever date or love anyone else, I have opened myself to exploring relationships with many different people. Some long and some short. And from each person, I have gleaned something, whether it was pleasant or not. But what hasn't changed is that, for all of my openness and exploration, I still feel closed to love. I don't let love in. When it gets too close I push it away, or I run and hide. Sometimes I do both. Sometimes I hide, even when I stay.

This is a painful process, and a painful way to be. And my awareness of it simply makes me sad. I don't know what the solution is. It is undoubtedly something way too easy, like, "Just relax." But you know how hard that is when you have years of unconscious beliefs and behaviors guiding your every move, with or without your permission.

So, my Rosh Hashanah prayer is this:

May my heart become open this year to the Love that is around me, that wants to be with me, that yearns to give to me. May my eyes become open to seeing it, and my hands become open to receiving. And my mind refrain from rejecting it.

May my soul and spirit relax in the presence of this love, knowing that it will nurture me and nourish me and sustain me through all and any hardships I may bear.

May a wealth of abundance flow in and through me from every angle.

And may the blast of the shofar shock my spirit into resetting itself to my original "default setting" in which my channels to giving and receiving love were not blocked, but open, flowing and fluid, giving and receiving perfectly all the time.

May it be so.