Rosh Hashanah/Eid al Fitr/Navaratri

Seeing the emergence of a new moon signals the end of Ramadan, but for me, at the appropriate time, the moon remained hidden by the remains of a just-ended storm.

I stood on the sidewalk outside my apartment building and scanned for lucky breaks in the clouds, but, finding none, decided that I would break my Ramadan fast the next day anyway. All the Muslims I had met during the holiday were planning for Eid al Fitr on Wednesday, October 1. Plus, two other religious groups for whom the beginning of the lunar month triggered a holiday -- Jews and Hindus -- were already celebrating by September 30, while the moon was covered. Most of my Jewish colleagues had taken the day off from work for Rosh Hashanah, and I'd heard on NPR in the afternoon about a deadly temple stampede in India where the eight-day Navaratri celebrations had begun.

We had entered the following lunar months:

Shawwal, the tenth month of the Muslim calendar
Ashwin, the sixth month of the Hindu calendar
Tishrei, the first month of the Jewish calendar

So, happy New Year. Shana tova. And happy birthday too, to the human race, since the first day of Tishrei is the day on which YHWH created Adam.

Anyway, I had thought I might convince Mohammed to celebrate Eid with me (on Wednesday), but he was too busy. I myself was too busy on Tuesday to find a temple service celebrating Rosh Hashanah, because I had non-celebrant friends scheduled for a different occasion at my own house. Still, I served fresh apples and good honey to them, in recognition of the Jewish New Year, and looked for other ways I might mark the occasion by myself.

Through reading about Rosh Hashanah, I had discovered the Jewish custom of tashlikh, a form of repentance and symbolic casting off of sins at the new year. It derives from a verse in the book of Micah that states: "You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."

The idea is that you proceed on the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah to pray by a naturally flowing body of water, and cast your sins therein. Some observers also cast in stones or bread to symbolize the sins. I had missed the afternoon, of course, and had missed Rosh Hashanah altogether for those who hold that it is a one-day holiday. But, there is Jewish disagreement on this point, so for those who celebrate Rosh Hashanah as a two-day holiday, it was still on. I had some stale pita leftover from the Equinamadan party, so I decided to rise early on Eid (or, Rosh Hashanah, day two) and cast my pita into a flowing stream.

Luckily, I live right next to one.

I rose before the sunrise again the next day, and performed my yoga-Fajr before dressing for work, bundling the pita into my backpack, and walking downhill from my apartment into the huge urban park that stretches from the DC-Maryland border all the way to the Potomac River.

I have worked in downtown Washington, DC for nearly six years, and had always intended to rise early and experience a leisurely stroll to work through the park. I will now have to credit Rosh Hashanah with finally making that happen for the first time.

In the center of the park, Rock Creek flows south. I had envisioned standing on the first creek bridge I would come to, and casting my pita from there, but when I got to the bridge I felt exposed, and I wanted to be closer to the water.

So, I walked into the park, in the direction of downtown, following the footpath until a clearing opened up between the path and the creek. Then, I walked over to find a creek bank lined with smooth stones, and I pulled the bread out of my backpack.

Joggers and bicyclists and other walkers continued passing on the path, and for a moment I wished I had just planned to cast stones, which would perhaps look like a more normal activity than using the bread. I started quickly ripping the bread into pieces and flinging it into the creek, before I realized I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing. Also, I wasn't praying. No focus, no attention, no mindfulness to the ritual: What's the point of this, I thought.

I realized I hadn't looked up any particular Jewish prayers to have in mind, and I felt like a jerk.

So, I slowed down, and peeled pieces of the bread less frantically into the water. I held a stack of four rounds. I would break four pieces off at a time, and then drop them singly into the shallows at my feet.

I had tried to plan ahead and think about what "sins" from the past year I might place on the bread, but as I dropped the final piece into the river I realized hadn't been thinking about sin at all. The floating pieces remained uncharged and meaningless in my imagination and just sat there, bobbing, soggy.

I realized that the focus of my attention had been divided between the creek itself (listening to the water flow) and an awareness of the people on the path (wondering if they were curious about the figure by the creek ripping up the unknown breadlike substance).

Why hadn't I just chosen to throw stones!

I turned my focus to the right, where the water burbled over rocks producing a soothing sound, and I watched the sunlight trickle through the leaves overhead. The experience didn't feel religious in any way at all, though it felt like a good excuse to be out in the park in the early morning.

When I looked back to the left, the pieces of bread, which had been floating together directly in front of me when I had last seen them, were spread out in a long line down the creek, and they were all moving away from me. Some were hung up on rocks nearby and were making slower progress; others were far enough away to be on the verge of disappearing from view.

What if I had succeeded in charging the bread with my sins, I wondered. How would I feel right now?

Or…

What if those breads were to represent other things: insults I can't let go of, failures over which I might obsess, patterns of bitterness that might be unhelpful to retain.

Is bitterness a sin?

What if watching this bread float away on the water represents what it feels like to let those things go, with minimal effort, and with barely any mindfulness. Just tear them into pieces and drop them in front of you and look away and listen to the water. And when you wait a few minutes and look again, they're leaving -- not under their own power, but just through the passage of time, they flow away.

I felt suddenly emotional, and very happy I had not chosen stones.

(I walked the rest of the way to work through the park, stopping in a coffeshop by my office to purchase a coffee and a bagel -- in broad daylight! -- as my own private Eid.)