Shalom

Isat in my seat, watching women and girls silently file out of the shul. Kol Nidrei was over, and we had officially ushered in Yom Kippur. The sounds of men downstairs, reciting Tehillim, learning, or saying Shir Hayichud, wafted up through the mechitzah in a steady background noise.

For the last few years, I’ve stayed in shul on Kol Nidrei night after the ezras nashim empties out. I’m drawn in by the cavernous, quiet space and the rows of empty benches. I move to the first row of seats by the mechitzah, and between chapters of Tehillim, peer through the slats at the sea of white talleisim below. There’s something grounding and calming and safe about letting the sounds wash over me, and I find it easier to connect to the day when I have the shul to myself. It’s my favorite Tishrei tradition, and I secretly look forward to it as Yom Kippur gets closer.

This year was different. It had been a strange few years: a short marriage, a quick divorce, and the cliché “finding myself post-divorce” phase. Looking back, it was hard to say when exactly it happened — but somewhere along the way, I lost my relationship with Hashem.

Don’t get me wrong, I did all the things. I constantly spoke to Him out loud, I was a frequent visitor at my rebbe’s kever, I made time to daven from a siddur, I listened to shiurim. But “Baruch Hashem” and “Thank You, Hashem” had become empty clichés, like a, “Hey, how are you?” thrown out to a passing acquaintance as they walked on.