Last week I travelled to Israel to celebrate my niece's wedding. I also used the opportunity to visit some army bases and wounded soldiers. Visiting these brave heroes who put their lives on the line during Operation Protective Edge was moving and uplifting.
As we prepared for departure at Newark airport, my brother Yossi realized he forgot to pack his tefillin! In true brotherly fashion I began ribbing him, "How do you forget your tefillin?! It's the first thing you should pack! You've been using them every day (bar Shabbat) since you turned thirteen. How could you forget something so important?" I wouldn't let him live this one down.
Of course, he made plans to borrow from someone for the three mornings we'd be away, making sure the tefillin he'd be using would be on par with his own.
Most of the passengers on our flight were Jewish, so we offered them all the opportunity to put on tefillin during the flight, which gave me ample time to tease my brother some more.
When we arrived in Israel and began to prepare for the wedding, I made a stunning realization. I took a shower, opened my suitcase to take out my Shabbat clothes, and lo and behold I had left my dress pants back in New York! Oops.
I didn't have enough time to go out and buy a new pair, so I had to make do with the same pair of weekday pants I flew in.
To say I felt foolish would be an understatement. Here I'd spent the flight good naturedly ribbing my brother for forgetting his tefillin and here I am pants-less! And tefillin are probably a whole lot easier to borrow. They are one-size-fits-all, whereas pants need to be specific to the individual.
In just one week we'll be celebrating the holy and awesome day of Rosh Hashanah. This is the time to look back, analyze our past behavior and clean up our act. We have to deeply and honestly analyze our faults and sins and resolve to work towards rectifying them.
We are, in fact, experts at identifying faults--those of our family and friends. Most of us can easily fill pages explaining exactly what is wrong with those around us. This one gossips, that one does business crookedly, the other one doesn't treat his wife well. But when it comes to our own faults and imperfections, suddenly we are clueless and blind. Me? Sin? Are you serious? And when someone points it out to us, we have dozens of explanations and excuses.
This Rosh Hashanah, we want to stand in front of G-d with a clean slate. So, as we prepare, let's try to switch things around and look at ourselves with a critical, honest eye while seeing others more gently and forgivingly. Surely this will help us start the new year off on the right foot.