Squinting into the sun on Sunday afternoon, we gathered on the rocky beach at the bottom of South Street with crusts of stale bread dug out of cabinets and freezers to participate in the annual ritual that is Tashlich.
The Tashlich ceremony takes place during Rosh Hashanah. The service occurs near a moving body of water, and in many traditions, including my own, involves throwing pieces of bread into the water to symbolically cast off your sins as part of the ten days of repentance leading up to Yom Kippur.
Tashlich has long been the most moving part of the High Holidays for me. Standing at the edge of the water, I feel myself not only present in that moment, but also all of the years before. I can see the small group of people with bags of bread congregating at the Music Garden in Toronto, feel the wind on the bridge in Seoul where I stood watching the crumbs of bread fall into the Han river, and hear the children running around while I strain to hear the rabbi reading out the prayer in London.
Tashlich is also the service that, for me, most definitively closes the year. Watching the ripped off pieces of bread float away brings a sense of closure. It is, for me, a time to accept the things that have happened - the wrongs I have written over the past year, and that while they can be apologized for, they cannot be undone and that it is time to let them go and move forward.
The time between Tashlich and Yom Kippur is a time for reflection and repentance.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of reflection. The Days of Atonement leading up to Yom Kippur provide the perfect opportunity to engage in reflection on our lives and our choices. There is a lot of talk about the importance of introspection - taking time to ask yourself the difficult questions about your life and how you feel about it. But finding the time to do this can be difficult. The Days of Atonement bake this time into our year, and we should be taking advantage of this opportunity.
As we prepare to ask to be written into the book of life for another year, it could be beneficial to take some time to reflect on what we want that year to look like. We have this perfect opportunity to think about the things we want to apologize for, and those that it is time to simply let go of. We also have a chance to ask ourselves what choices we can make over the next year that will make us happier and more fulfilled in addition to asking what choices will prevent us from causing pain and confusion to others.
Thank you Sadie!