I’m going to start by telling you the truth. It’s been at least a decade since I’ve celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the traditional Jewish new year, the day the Book of Life is opened. Some of you know that my mother is Jewish and comes from a very close, large family from the Lower East Side where some of them still live. My memories of Rosh Hashanah as a kid are vague, although I remember Yom Kippur in great detail. Hundreds of people, dressed in black, walking from Delancy Street to the East River to pray and bow and throw bread into the water. As a kid, it was one of my favorite holidays and long after my intentional entrance into the Roman Catholic world of my father, I would still fast on Yom Kippur.

My memories of Rosh Hashanah are mostly filled with playing on a neighbor’s lawn and eating kugel. The idea that God would spend the next 10 days determining the coming year for me seemed a little ridiculous. Many in my family are atheists, with the exception of my father who believes God exists, but my father doesn’t think he can be trusted. So, my choices were either that this whole book-signing thing didn’t happen or it did happen and that’s not a good thing.

Interestingly, the idea of signing a book as a prediction of the year to come has recently taken on new meaning for me. Over the course of the last 10 days, two people have signed our membership book. This might seem small in comparison to the idea that God is signing your name in the Book of Life, but I’d like to suggest it’s not so dissimilar.

The Jewish idea is that both God and the individual do a little inventory taking at this time of year. The hope is that we see ourselves the way God sees us, that we understand our responsibility to those in need, to our families, to our communities, to ourselves. We have ten days to recognize those parts of ourselves that are still in process, the things we’ve let slide and even some successes we can celebrate. At the end of this period of introspection, we repent our wrong doing and commit ourselves to doing better in the coming year. And God, having witnessed our moral inventory, decides whether or not to include our names in the Book of Life for the upcoming year.

Some believe being in the Book of Life, means that if you die this year and are worthy, you will go to Heaven. For some, if God puts your name in the Book during this ten day window, your fate this year will be good. There is a tradition that says God opens two books on Rosh Hashanah: The Book of Life and the Book of Death. I’m sure you can guess which one you want your name in.

The theological principle of taking moral inventory is common. Christians do it during Lent, Muslims do it during Ramadan. To tell you the truth, that UUs haven’t calendarized this kind of spiritual discipline is a little worrisome for me. I think it’s because we shy away from spiritual disciplines, that many of us continue to observe those practices in other religious traditions. If Unitarian Universalists made room for the human need to pause and look inward and institute some sacrifice, our members might be less inclined to seek refuge in the Jewish or Christian high holy days of our personal pasts.

I’ve become very aware of our own Book of Life recently. That is, I’ve spent some time with our membership book, the book folks sign when they want to join this congregation. When we join a UU society, we are entering into a covenant with the other members of that community and it’s a covenant many of us take very seriously.

A lot led up to the day I signed the book and officially became a Unitarian Universalist. I was not only Catholic, I was a college chaplain and theology teacher- a professional Catholic. And, remember that there was already a process of explaining to my Jewish family that I was choosing the faith of my father. Leaving Roman Catholicism meant leaving my career which, because of the nature of my work on a college campus, also meant selling our home and moving elsewhere. It was a long and complicated process and most of my attention was on the dismantling of my life rather than on the reconstruction. When I came to a place where I could consider a new commitment, I had to ask myself important questions about who I am at my core, how I want to live my values, what role community can or should take in my life. Because I was paid to be a good Catholic, I had financial concerns to consider and all the implications of walking away from a successful career which I had worked hard to create.

There was no fanfare when I signed that Membership Book. It wasat the Mt. Kisco Fellowship and I just popped into the minister’s office with a pen and my husband and we put our names down. But, having done that, we soon learned there were all kinds of implications. It wasn’t long before someone came asking for money and someone else came asking for time. Within a few months, the Committee on Ministry and the Board negotiated a resignation from that minister and when the new year started, Lyn was on her way out. We were lay led from Christmas until the next September and as a member of the Worship Committee, I became very active in holding that congregation together. We met weekly as we navigated our way through those uncertain, but very exciting times. I also chaired the pledge drive and my husband started a wildly successful artists group in our home, serving as both adult RE and small group ministry. There were 20 people in our new house every Monday for whom I cooked dinner and Graham lead into important conversations about the spirituality of risk taking and music making. We made deep and abiding friendships that continue to feed us all these years later.

Don’t tell me what we signed wasn’t a Book of Life. Signing that book was a letting go of the past, for better or for worse and a moving forward into a new way of being alive. It opened up a world that continues to define us and now our son who, because we signed that book, was dedicated and celebrated after his birth by the new minister of that same congregation and 60 people in our home and who will continue to be raised in that welcoming community. Because I signed that book, I was able to pursue ordained ministry, something I’ve known I was called to since I was 19. UUs have our own Book of Life and most of us have signed it.

But, we don’t have our own time for moral inventories. We take inventory of our Society and of the Association and possibly even each other, but we haven’t institutionalized inventory for ourselves. So, I’d like to suggest that we do that. We have a perfect opportunity to begin today and to come back in ten days from now when Ron Katz returns and will preside at the Yom Kippur service. Maybe we can each commit to serious consideration of our lives and even become willing to repent our wrong doing.

I will spend some time between now and Yom Kippur considering things like whether or not I’ve taken on too much, promising things I cannot complete. I will wonder whether my time is being used to do the things I believe need to be done in the world. I’ll consider times I’ve helped and chosen not to help those in need and whether I can be a better wife, mother, daughter, sister or friend. I’m hoping some of you would be willing to do the same.

Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of this time of introspection, but it’s also a celebration of the end of the last year and of all the good things that have come from it. We praise the living God for all that has gone well and we rejoice in the hope of a new year. Part of that practice in Jewish tradition is to eat challah that has been baked in a circle to represent the cycle of life, seasonal fruit to represent the generosity of the land and honey to represent the sweetness of the lives we share with one another. So, I have brought these things for us to share.

BLESSING OF THE BREAD
Ba-ruch A-tah A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu Me-lech Ha-o-lam, ha-mo-tzi le-chem min ha-a-retz.
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe, Who brings forth bread from the land.

BLESSING OF THE APPLE
Ba-ruch A-tah A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu Me-lech Ha-o-lam, bo-rei p’ri ha-etz.
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe, Who creates the fruit of the tree.

BLESSING OF THE HONEY
Ye-hi ra-tzon mil-le-fa-ne-chah A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu vay-lo-hei a-vo-tei-nu sheh-t’cha- daish a-lei-nu sha-nah toe-vah oo-m’-too-kah.
May it be Your will, Adonai our God, and the God of our ancestors, to favor us with a good and a sweet year.

Rev. Peggy Clarke