Rabbi K’vod Wieder’s Rosh Hashanah Message for 2026

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate that doing my children’s laundry is an apt metaphor for the High Holy Days, especially Yom Kippur. I ask my kids to bring all the laundry down to the basement. Now you really have to love someone to touch their dirty underwear and turn their smelly socks right side out.
During the 40 days preceding Yom Kippur, we are asked to renew ourselves through introspection. The result is the realization that we are far from clean and pure. We have criticized, insulted, and gossiped. We have cheated. We were selfish.
If, after 40 days of self-examination, I haven’t seen places for growth and improvement, then Judaism doesn’t just say I’m not a good Jew. Judaism says I’m not even a good human being! It’s only through recognizing our mistakes that we grow and develop our humanity.
Just as a parent launders his children’s clothes, so does G-d wipe out our stains. All the parent needs and all G-d needs is for the child to bring his clothing down to the basements where the washing machine is waiting. That is the recognition that the clothing is indeed soiled – that we are not without blemish.
In exchange for the recognition of our mistakes and the commitment to change, we receive clean clothing. Clean clothing is a second, third, fourth, fifth (or more) chance to share beauty with the world through our words and actions.
For me, this metaphor is an accurate description of the phenomenon of Yom Kippur in a few ways. First, the realization that healing and growth is a partnership between us and the Holy One. It’s our responsibility to be honest and vulnerable about our inner reality and how our inner experience has translated into choices and actions that affect ourselves and others. It’s our responsibility to make the courageous and sometimes terrifying decision to do things differently. And it’s the Holy One’s responsibility to wipe away our dirt and stains, to flood us with a renewed awareness of ourselves and the world – a renewed awareness where the sins that we commit are out of place and don’t make sense anymore.
The second element of this laundromat metaphor that works for me is the love that is present in the process. While we may have additional motives besides doing our children’s laundry besides love, the deepest motivation for all acts of care for our children is our desire to give, to share our life energy, to nurture, to love. In the same way that our love wants our children to grow to their fullest potential and be glorious expressions of beauty, so does the Holy One desire each one of us to be our most beautiful selves, and is willing to help us on that journey.
As we approach the year 5787, I want to wish us all the deep realization that there is nothing more important than our honest engagement with our striving to be more authentic, more loving, more present with others, and more connected to this miraculous creation that we are a part of. Creating the world we want to see starts with us!

Rabbi K’vod Wieder is the Rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom.