Since dropping out of rabbinical school in Spring 2021 I’ve had many feelings about Judaism- sorrow, rage, resentment, disappointment, sadness. As you can probably tell, generally negative feelings, fitting for the very long story of why I left rabbinical school. I’ve also been almost complete uninvolved since that time and put some serious consideration into ways to have a more formal and ritualistic separation and mourning. Judaism and I, or at least the Jewish community and I, were done with no real hesitation, or so I thought.

But then the other day I watched a video that happened to have a Yom Kippur song, probably the first time I’d heard the liturgy since Yom Kippur 2020 (I worked last year). Immediately I remembered just how much I loved the liturgy and ritual of Yom Kippur and, not long after, noticed how conflicted I felt that another Yom Kippur would come and go without it. For the first time in over a year I found myself considering getting involved again.

There is a beauty to Yom Kippur, both in terms of spirituality but also liturgy and ritual, that is hard to match. As someone that is basically obsessive about introspection, I would look forward every year to the taking stock that comes with Yom Kippur and doing t’shuvah (making amends) for the harm done in the previous year. While of course I can still do that on my own, it carried an extra power to have it tied to a larger community and cycle. I also found a healing and comfort in the structure and routine of the “confession” parts of Yom Kippur. As someone who metaphorically beats myself up for my mistakes, it was helpful to instead have a limited time each year to literally (but delicately) beat myself up and commit to doing better.

All of this was imbued with the deep emotionality of the day. Part of the reason I enjoy the day so much is the intensity of the liturgy and its performance. The theatricality of the minor key, heavy music of the day speaks to my intense, overly dramatic soul. How can you not find yourself moved by any decently well done Kol Nidre service? The rituals only add to this, including fasting (despite mixed feelings about fasts). I loved spending the majority of the 25 hours of Yom Kippur in synagogue, praying and reflecting. I still look back fondly to the downtime between services in the afternoon spent relaxing and napping with a small group in synagogue while we waited for the next service to stop. There was a lot of good.

And yet I find myself unable to return.

There are, of course, the many negative experiences I’ve had since moving to NYC that make it hard to reengage, maybe even impossible. But more than that are the relationships. My falling out with Judaism and withdrawal from rabbinical school took a toll on many of relationships, changing some drastically and ending others entirely. It’s been deeply painful and I haven’t even begun to heal properly. I can manage during my day to day, but it’s hard to ignore on days like Yom Kippur. I don’t know how to even try to experience the day when every piece of liturgy reminds me of the most important person I lost by separating from Judaism.

Yom Kippur has become a day of immense yearning, with an ache deep to my core. I yearn for the early days where I had an uncomplicated love for Judaism, enabled by naivety. I yearn for the music that penetrated to my soul, while I sat with an empty belly focused on my soul rather than my body. I yearn for a community that welcomed me and valued me, or at least a version of me. I yearn for those relationships since ended, and one in particular. Most of all, I ache, knowing that I can’t have a Yom Kippur like that again.