High Holiday Poem: This Unit Has Been Refurbished

This Unit Has Been Refurbished 

Teshuvah does not work. 

Beat your heart, confess your sins, reflect on your life for ten days straight if you want - but the statistics are convincing -

people do not make significant changes to their personality after the age of thirty.

Your four-valve sack of nature/nurture hardened long ago.

You got what you got.

Deal, cope, manage.

And the distance between you and everyone else grows two kilometers each year.

Self reflection?

Stare deeply into an empty Pringles can.

Personal transformation?

Change your socks. 

Rabbis teach:

Teshuvah means returning to God

But what about those of us who never were with God in the first place? Or only visited for a rare weekend?

The King sits in the field, the midrash says – God meets us halfway like visiting a friend at the airport during a layover. 

Close your eyes and try for a second to walk in God’s direction – a step closer to the one who is Dayan HaEmet – the judge of all truth.

It ain’t easy.

(It might be easy if you could close your eyes and imagine Santa Claus or that nice old lady from the library – but, fohgettaboutit, that ain’t God.)

God is the truth – with a big T –

what Is.

that which Is.

which includes the truth about you and who you are

– what you are now and what you could be.

Teshuvah might not work. But to God it is the one time of year that the Gates of Righteousness are left opened, the security alarm turned off. Perfect time for a break-in.