The Book of Life Is Long and Boring
On Yom Kippur, a lapsed Jew reckons with guilt, grief, and the holes in our rituals around mortality.
I was raised Jewish.
Jews are famous for guilt, but unlike Catholics we don’t get weekly confessions. No sliding into a booth, whispering our sins through a screen, collecting a handful of Hail Marys and walking out absolved. We bottle it up all year until the High Holy Days — Rosh Hashanah and, ten days later, Yom Kippur.
The Day of Atonement. That’s today.
As my decades-old Hebrew school memory recalls: on Rosh Hashanah the Book of Life opens for the coming year. For ten days we’re meant to examine ourselves and atone for the previous year’s transgressions. On Yom Kippur, before sundown, the book slams shut. If you haven’t done the work — well, sucks to be you.
I paraphrase, but that’s the gist.
Because Jews hold traditions and grudges forever, our new year isn’t in January. It drifts somewhere in September (sometimes October) on the Gregorian calendar but lands unfailingly on the 10th of Tishrei. Take that, Pope Gregory.
(I’ll probably have to atone for mocking the calendar.)
I’m a terrible, non-observant Jew — Bat Mitzvah’d but mostly lapsed. My ancestry is 100 percent Ashkenazi. So with that limited but bona fide authority, here’s my heresy: Judaism has no real mechanism for mourning.
We have no heaven, hell, or redemption myth. No Judgment Day. Most of my life I’ve liked this. We’re taught to focus on living, not speculating about what comes after. Even our death rituals keep the living among the living: sitting shiva for a week while friends bring food; washing your hands when you enter the house of the bereaved to leave the cemetery dirt behind. No open caskets, no embalming, burial as soon as possible.
I’ve always appreciated that clarity. But as I age, I feel the absence of wisdom around dying and death.
My grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at 73, out of nowhere. One week she was running on her treadmill six days a week; the next, she was in chemotherapy — not for a cure, but for borrowed time.
The chemo stalled the cancer until it didn’t. Her oncologist recommended palliative care. My mom tried to talk to her after the visit; my grandmother replied that she was still weighing her treatment options.
I flew home — by coincidence, my ticket booked months earlier — the night before she died. I didn’t realize how close the end was until I saw her: withered, gaunt, skeletal, but with her nails perfectly manicured, as always.
I’m not sure she knew I was there. I think she stirred, maybe smiled. I hope I told her I loved her. Mostly I was stunned. I had no frame of reference, no belief system to guide me. She was about to not-be-inscribed. And I had no idea how to comfort her, or anyone else.
My mom said it was time to go, and we left. Later my grandfather left too. At 4 a.m. he phoned to say he’d gotten the call: she was gone.
I still can’t believe she died alone in that hospital bed, never — at least outwardly — facing her own mortality. Mostly I can’t believe we all left.
Dana in 1996 didn’t know what to do.
Dana in 2025 would never have left her bedside.
My mom once sent me a New York Times opinion piece entitled Rosh Hashanah Can Change Your Life (Even if You’re Not Jewish). The author argues that around 50, people start to confront mortality and shift from status and money to meaning and connection. He praises Rosh Hashanah for combining thoughts of death with a new year’s fresh start.
I don’t disagree. I’m 55 and it resonates.
But here’s what the article missed: it stops at “giving life more meaning.” It never addresses what happens if we’re not inscribed in the Book of Life — or how to face our own mortality, or mourn others’. Once again Judaism gives us tools to embrace life, but not to face dying or grief.
I find that immensely unsatisfying.
I’m an agnostic Jew at best, atheist really. When it comes to holidays, I’ve had to carve my own traditions. I suspect I need to do the same for death and grief — for myself and for my children.
As I write this it’s Tishrei 9, 5785. One day left to atone. I’d better make it count, because I still lack the emotional tools to confront my mortality. I’m not ready to go. I’m mid-flight in finding my writing voice, in finding my way to serve others. My kids still need me.
So I’ll atone, hard. And because I’m obsessed with New Year’s resolutions, I’ll also resolve. What’s atonement without a plan to do better? I don’t believe in Hail Marys. I believe in doing the work.
It’s very Jewish of me, actually.
This year my focus is twofold: atone for not making my life as meaningful as it could be, and take steps toward facing mortality — my own and others’ — even as I hope we’re all inscribed in the Book of Life. If I believed in that book.
Which I don’t.
So here it goes: my atonement for 5785. I hope it’s enough, as it’s about all I’ve got.
I’m sorry I broke someone’s heart by staying too long. I resolve not to let partnership turn into complacency. I’m sorry I let my own heart get broken when it was clear my affections weren’t returned in the same way. Connection is rare; honesty is essential. And my foolish heart needs a strong protector.
I’m sorry I live 3,000 miles from my parents. Time with them is precious. I’m proud of the stories I’ve written about my father, even as dementia makes him unable to read it. I will keep showing up to do the work, whatever it may be.
I’m sorry I can’t keep on top of it all — parenting, tech work, writing, podcasting, friendship, suitors, pets. Meno brain fog makes it worse. I forget things, double-book, let housecleaning slide. This might be chronic. Sorry, Book of Life.
I’m sorry I neglect my body. Writing has been a gift to my mind but a detriment to my physicality. I’m sorry I joined that fancy gym and barely go. Sorry I sit and type for hours. Sorry I carry extra weight. I resolve to take better care of myself — and to confront the fallibility of all bodies.
I’m sorry I don’t exercise my dog enough. She deserves a family of hikers. But she’s mine, and I love her. I promise more walks — and maybe runs if my ankle heals. I know our time is short and will love her every day of it.
I’m sorry I sometimes forget my cat’s insulin shots. But I promise to do better and to do right by her when it’s time. I’ll involve my kids, to show them — unlike what I was shown — that mourning and letting go are part of love.
I’m sorry I can’t afford to take my kids back to Europe. I’m sorry I can’t likely afford my daughter’s top choice for college. I’m sorry we were born American, so it’s normal for college to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m sorry for the world my daughters will come into adulthood in, that my advocacy couldn’t protect them. I’ll never not be sorry for that.
G’mar Chatimah Tovah. May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life.
5785 is gonna be lit.
Or at least, manageable.
I hope.
I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.
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