Self-Aggrandizement: shana tova

Tonight I head over to Jerusalem, to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, with Avigail Sperber (our exceedingly nice, talented, and - fortunately - English-fluent cinematographer) and her family.

While Rosh Hashanah is a time of celebration, it's also a time of contemplation, as it marks the start of the week that runs up until Yom Kippur, the day or atonement. According to Jewish tradition, on Rosh Hashanah, the Book of Life is opened; before it's closed on Yom Kippur, God inscribes in it who will live and die over the following year.

So, in the interim week, Jews seek forgiveness - from other people they've wronged over the past year, from God, and from themselves. While I've taken the idea of t'shuvah - asking forgiveness - at varying degrees of seriousness in the past, this year, I'm jumping in whole-heartedly. I've screwed up a lot this year, but also have a better sense then ever of how I can fix any of those problems, of what I need to do to put my life in line with the way I'd like to be living.

Over the next week, I'll be shooting emails (and, when schedule and international call costs permit, phone calls) to a lineup of people who deserve specific apologies. To anyone else I've wronged over the course of the last year, my sincere (albeit blanket) regrets.

If nothing else, I'll be doing my best this year to reach next Rosh Hashanah with a shorter list of apologies to make.

shana tova Filed Wednesday, September 15 2004.

shana tova
Filed Wednesday, September 15 2004.