Meditation and prayer lead to Day of Atonement

The Jewish world is in a 10-day period of meditation and prayer with the start of the Jewish New Year. According to the chronology of the Bible, Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, is the anniversary of the creation of humanity.
These 10 days culminate in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which is the most sacred day in the Jewish calendar. We pray that every soul will fulfill its part in making the world a better place.
This was the day that the head priest, dressed in white, in the most profound spiritual state, would enter the most sacred sanctum of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. There he would pray to God for the welfare of all of humanity.
Continuing in that tradition, the Jewish world today engages in our most intense time of prayer and spiritual action to merit another year of life. We pray that, with God's help, our efforts will bring health, happiness and peace for all people.
Fasting
The serious tone of our pleas is underscored through a process of complete fasting. For 25 hours there is no food and no drinking to distract from the day's intense spiritual focus. There is even a feeling that the heavens specifically open to receive these prayers as God makes life-and-death decisions for the year.
Matters that usually seem trivial are now more seriously understood. While on a regular day one might greet a friend or acquaintance with "How are you?" or "What's new?" from the month before Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur, Jews traditionally add a focal expression: "Ketivah veChatimah Tova -- May you be inscribed in the Book of Life."
That is the book in which God inscribes an individual's name with his corresponding fate. Judaism does not wait for a political election to become suddenly sensitive to the importance of character.
The High Holiday season reminds Jews that right conduct, as defined by God, and sincere atonement for wrongdoing are required for true happiness, health and mature wisdom. The Yom Kippur greeting expresses hope that one is now included and sealed in God's Book.
The sounding of the ram's horn, known as the Shofar, culminates the fast day as Jews throughout the world hope that prayers have been answered fully to herald in a better world where all people live in peace.
XRabbi Joseph P. Schonberger is the rabbi at Temple El Emeth in Liberty. Yom Kippur begins at sundown Sunday.