A Meaningful Way to Spend Each Day Of the Aseret Yemei Teshuva
Reviewing: “Return: Daily Inspiration for the Days of Awe,” by Dr. Erica Brown. Maggid Books and OU Press. 2012. Hardcover: 159 pages. ISBN-10: 1592643639, ISBN-13: 978-1592643639. That’s a harder bar than “sorry,” and it’s also a promise. She reads Rabbeinu Yona in “Shaarei Teshuva” as calling teshuva a sanctuary, and takes him at his word. Not an act you perform. A room you walk into, where the things that usually tear at you cannot reach. What went wrong this year is not merely forgivable. It is recoverable. The Rambam writes that teshuva is accepted immediately in the Aseret Yemei Teshuva, and that the custom of Israel is to give more and do more than the rest of the year. Between Zochreinu and HaMelech HaKadosh, Selichot, Tzom Gedalya on the third, Shabbat Shuva and two seudot on the ninth, you can get from Rosh Hashanah to Kol Nidrei without a free hour. What none of it supplies…
