An accounting of the soul

This week, Rabbi Miriam Lorie joined BBC Radio 2's Pause for Thought.

Listen here

This week, I’m going to open a vault that has been sealed for an entire year. Its contents are not made of gold, jewels, or family heirlooms, but they are still precious. The vault I’m talking about is not physical at all - it’s an online repository that opens only for ten days each year. During those ten days, I’ll be prompted to answer a set of daily questions: “What are you most proud of from the past year?” “Describe an event in the world that has impacted you. How and why?” “What is one thing you’d like to achieve by this time next year?”

At the end of the ten days, the vault closes, and my words disappear into the depths of the internet. A year later, they return by email, like a time capsule of my own reflections and hopes.

The timing of this exercise is no accident. Next week marks Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. The ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, known as the Ten Days of Awe, are set aside for deep introspection. It’s a period devoted to repentance, to righting wrongs, and to seeking forgiveness from those we may have hurt.

So I love that someone has created an online tool for soul-searching, measuring the year gone and capturing dreams for the future. You too can find it at https://doyou10q.com/ 

The real fun comes when the answers return, revealing where I’ve grown, where I’m still stuck, and how the world has changed around me. 

Jews have a distinctive way of marking the New Year. As one comedian joked, the Western world begins with wild parties and drinking, then wakes up to regret and mortality. Jews, by contrast, start with regret and mortality - on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur - and only later reach the stage of dancing and celebration, at our next festival, Simchat Torah.

In the end, the order matters less than the practice itself: an intentional pause to take stock, to do what we call a cheshbon nefesh - an accounting of the soul. So, that’s what I’ll be doing this week, in between writing sermons and baking honey cakes, before the vault clangs shut and a new Jewish year begins.