Shofar, from http://templejudeapbc.org/high-holidays.html
Yom Kippur 5774 (2013 in the Gregorian calendar) is a very different one for me than Yom Kippur 5773. Last year I davened with my mother at the shul where she grew up in Philadelphia, Kesher Israel. It’s beautiful and to me has always been the epitome of a shul. I stood next to my mother and tapped my chest as we atoned for our sins and prayed to be sealed in the Book of Life. This year I am 1,100 miles away, and tomorrow I will be standing next to my husband in our home on an Air Force base in Florida surrounded by the boxes that were delivered today. I will still be praying and I will still be asking Hashem to seal us in the Book of Life, but I feel that the major thing I will be repenting for tomorrow is having too much in the way of the material and letting that get in the way of the spiritual and emotional. I have been here in Florida for 13 days, and we were pretty much living with what my husband flew down here with in July and what I came down with in my car 2 weeks ago…and you know what? We’ve been happy. We’ve been blissfully happy just to be with each other. So when the boxes arrived today, I just looked around and went…do we really need all this? Why do we have so much stuff? Now, don’t get me wrong, I am very, very, VERY happy to have a real bed (we slept on an air mattress until we had a futon and then we slept on that for the last couple nights), but the rest of it? I don’t know. My goal when I am unpacking is that, when I take something out of a box, before it is put away, I am going to be asking myself if I need that item, and, if I don’t need it, do I really, really, really want it? If it fits in one of those categories, then I am going to find a place for it. If it doesn’t, it’s getting given away or sold. I loved seeing my house clean and empty, and seeing all these boxes around is driving me nuts and they’ve only been here for 8 hours. I can’t wait to get this house clean and organized and set up so that we can enjoy what is really important – spending time together, having friends over, and just relishing every moment of our life together. For everyone fasting, gmar chatima tovah, and may we all be sealed in the Book of Life for 5774.
A Journey of Discovery 