Identity

which the media reports on the disabled community and give a voice to disabled people. I wanted to change the perception of my community, so I decided to attend Emerson College and major in journalism. Through the articles I’ve written and the organizations By Leah Jablo My favorite custom of the Jewish High Holiday season has always been Tashlik. It’s a ceremony that can be done anytime between Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot. For this ritual, one symbolically casts their sins into a body of water. You stand at the water’s edge with bits of bread in hand and think of the ways you’ve done wrong in the past year. Then, toss a piece in for each sin to be rinsed away. Perhaps, I didn’t start the year off on the right foot. Instead of tossing my metaphorical bread-sins away at Boston Harbor or The Charles River Esplanade as one should, I threw them into the lagoon at the Public Garden. My Jew-friends and I were too lazy to walk too far, so we just let the local ducks swallow our sins whole. L'shana Tova and my deepest apologies, duckies. Next year, I’ll repent for that, too. Just a little context for all my gentile friends reading this whilst I’ve joined, I finally found my voice. I don’t fit the Indian standard or the able-bodied standard, and I’m learning to be okay with that. It’s taken a while, but I’m realizing that I don’t need to live up to standards that are unattainable for the body I live in. I do not exist to scratching their heads: L’shana Tova is Hebrew for “Happy New Year.” This year’s Jewish High Holiday be perceived by the abled-bodied gaze. I exist solely for me—by my

L’shana Tova from the Duck Pond

own standards. season has now come to a close. Time to turn your calendars to year 5780.

The High Holy Days mark the beginning of a new calendar year for us Jews and consist of three major religious holidays crammed into the span of just a few short weeks. First, there’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Eight days later, there’s Yom Kippur, the day of repentance. Lastly, five days after that, we celebrate Sukkot, the festival of gathering and the harvest. During these two weeks, we engage in practices such as prayer ceremonies and fasting, meant to foster reflection on ourselves and all the ways we could have been better to others in the past year. It’s the time when I ask myself—what exactly do I need to do to be a nice Jewish girl? Most years, I think about the same old stuff: the ways I could have been more generous, more respectful, more compassionate, and more trustworthy. But this year, my reflection was different, as the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged my understanding of what it means to be “good.” Judaism, in general, emphasizes actions over faith. In my household, we are all practicing Jews. And, while I’ve never believed in the traditional biblical God, I was raised to understand holiness as a consequence of our actions. Acts may be holy or unholy, based on how they affect others. I’ve always thought that an act that brings joy to another releases a holy spark into the world, whereas an act that inflicts pain releases an unholy one. I still believe this, but now

I think it’s more complex than this. My understanding of holiness has become more nuanced, for the pandemic has illuminated some of the ugly facets of human nature. There are so many ways to inflict harm unto others by simply doing nothing at all. This year, I’ve learned how people inflict harm in subtle, selfish ways through willful ignorance. Instead of acknowledging how careless and selfish it is to ignore public health guidelines, we nonchalantly gamble with the lives of others, focusing only on the onus these safety restrictions place on our own shoulders. Instead of offering an ear or warm smile to others in times of uncertainty and grief, we recede into ourselves and worry only of our own anxieties. Instead of speaking up when we see people hurting, we often say nothing because it’s just easier to leave them be.

And what kind of sparks do silence, ignorance, carelessness generate? Inaction is not neutrality. It creates sparks that are their own breed of evil, an unholiness so difficult to discern and easy to ignore because we all engage in its production. Yet, failure to recognize the repercussions of our passivity doesn’t mean harm has not been inflicted. I see people, lonely and hurting, all around me, if not due to the disease that’s defined this calendar year, then due to fear of it and grief over the loss of normalcy. To not uplift them is a choice, a choice I believe is indecent and unJewish. So, during Tashlik this year, I scattered bread crumbs across the lagoon for all the times I ignored my peers’ pain and fear; for all the times I didn’t smile or offer a warm embrace to someone who needed it; for all the times I wasn’t careful to protect the lives of loved ones and strangers alike. Then, I let the ducks consume my sins. I hope they don’t get sick from the bread and their stomachs explode (I had a lot of sins to repent for this year.) In the end, I think being a nice Jewish girl is about trying your best to do right by others. We all could try a little harder.