New Year’s Sucks More Than Rosh Hashanah (This Is Not An Inspirational Post)

Rosh Hashanah

In theory, Rosh Hashanah should suck more than secular New Year’s. Rosh Hashanah is a liturgical marathon. Service length depends heavily on which synagogue you go to, the mood of the cantor and the rabbi, and how much of the service you actually attend, but going from 8 AM – 1 PM is plausible. Conveniently (not), the longest service of the year is also the one service of the year that isn’t followed by a kiddush (snacks/light lunch after Shabbat services). Well, aside from Yom Kippur, but that’s a fast day. Of course, the day that the service is already unbearably long and there’s no food afterwards is the day the rabbi picks to give the longest, most preachy sermon of the year.

“Oh boy, a captive audience of hungry congregants who aren’t getting food afterwards on the longest service of the year. This is the perfect time for my worst sermon”. I kid. I’ve heard Rosh Hashanah speeches that weren’t all bad, and I don’t think most Rabbis actively try to think of more ways to torture the congregation on Rosh Hashanah. Photo by Reimond de Zuñiga on Unsplash

Then the liturgy itself. Rosh Hashanah is a “happy” holiday, in the sense that we’re celebrating the Jewish new year and we (eventually) get to eat food. But the liturgy has this tone of “this is the day of judgement because G-d is about to seal your fate in the Book of Life soon, so start repenting now”. Hallel, the set of psalms of praise added for holiday services, is not said on Rosh Hashanah, because it’s thought that Hallel is too joyful for a somber day of judgment. Also, there are opinions that one is not supposed to have sex on Rosh Hashanah because it’s considered too serious of a day. That alone should make Rosh Hashanah a worse holiday than secular New Year’s.

Yet I generally experience Rosh Hashanah as a pretty fun holiday, even during the pandemic, because it’s pretty much all family obligations and shenanigans. I’m sure that if I spent the holiday actually doing the serious introspection, it would be dreadful. But there’s too much family stuff for me to focus on this at all.

New Year’s

The problem with New Year’s when you have COVID is that there is nothing to do but introspection and reading the toxic positivity of everyone else on the internet. Instead of one terrible long preachy sermon, it’s like suffering through an entire internet’s worth.

Instead of just one Rabbi failing to read the crowd, the entire internet thinks this is a great time for humblebrags about the year and toxic positivity. I changed the photo that was here originally to represent the fact that the social media version of this shit is more colorful and Insta-worthy. Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels

My 2021

My 2021 was not great. I’m not the first person to say this. The difference is that the suckiness is 98% my own fault and only about 2% the fault of the pandemic.

I made bad career and life decisions. My work ethic completely disintegrated. I ruined my professional reputation. I behaved badly in my marriage. I’m not sorry I quit keeping Shabbat and I don’t particularly want to go back to it anytime soon, but quitting Shabbat did not improve happiness or quality of life in any way. I reached new lows of unhealthy habits. I reached new lows of depression; I fell further down the rabbit hole of depression and I don’t know how to get myself out. Blogging and therapy have proven to be unhelpful strategies towards this endpoint. I think my greatest accomplishment of 2021 (and what will probably be my greatest accomplishment of the coronavirus pandemic) was/is not developing a drinking habit. And that’s only because my body decided to quit tolerating alcohol, not because I actually developed coping or problem-solving skills. This would have been a much better New Year’s if proper drinking had been more of an option.

What kills me is that I was literally in this exact position at this very same time last year. In therapy, talking about how unhappy I was with job, marriage, living situation, etc. And one year later, it’s the same. Like I wasted an entire fucking year. Our wedding anniversary is coming up and it feels very similar. I’m not going to say how long we have been married because it is embarrassing to be married this long and have accomplished so little. It’s like celebrating a year of unemployment or something. Not something a person should be proud of.

2022

I’m supposed to write something hopeful, but to be honest, I feel extremely meh about 2022. I hate resolutions. I suck at goals. I don’t believe for a minute that 2022 will bring any improvements on a macro level, nor that I’ll manage to improve things on a micro level in my own life.

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I’m sorry, blog-friends. I wish I had a better post, but I just feel drained.