SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Many of us have had a falling out with someone we love. We think about them and miss them, but the prospect of trying to make things right can be daunting. For many Jews, these relationships are top of mind in the weeks leading up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which starts tonight at sundown. NPR's Sarah Ventre spoke with one woman attempting to end years of estrangement this high holiday season.
SARAH VENTRE, BYLINE: In the fall of 2021, Nancy Piness couldn't bring herself to pick up the phone and call her friend.
NANCY PINESS: I deliberately avoided her street. I deliberately hoped I wouldn't run into her at the grocery store.
VENTRE: Piness is 67, and she's been friends with this woman for decades. Over the years, though, there were disagreements and hurt feelings. And then one day, it was just too much, and they stopped talking. This time of year, Piness thinks about it a lot.
PINESS: I'm just more aware of it in the period leading up to Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur - well, selichot.
VENTRE: Selichot is the service that happens just before the Jewish New Year. The word selichot means pardons. The service is designed to help you reflect on the ways in which you've fallen short in the past year, the mistakes you've made and the people you've hurt.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Let's stand together on page four, as we read these words that we'll hear many more times during this season.
(Speaking Hebrew).
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: The sin we have committed against you...
VENTRE: This is the selichot service Piness went to at Temple Micah in Washington, D.C. And the reason this prayer is said so many times is because the high holiday season requires constant self-examination. Rabbi Chana Leslie Glazer is an interim rabbi in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
CHANA LESLIE GLAZER: Yom Kippur is seen as this really special window where, if you express actual regret and you ask to be absolved, then God will absolve anything - literally anything. There is one little caveat, though. If you don't make right with the other people that you've hurt, then that can't be forgiven.
VENTRE: For Piness, tonight marks the fourth Yom Kippur since she's been out of regular contact with her friend, who isn't Jewish. Piness couldn't reach out for the last three years.
PINESS: And somehow, this closure on this reconciliation with this friend just was carried over from year to year. Now it's time, and I think I'm ready.
VENTRE: Piness has been thinking a lot about what she'll say.
PINESS: I can tell it's emotional now, and I can feel the lump in my throat. And I may burst into tears, which she doesn't always understand. And when I pick up the phone to call, too much time has gone by. I miss you, and I hope we can find some time soon to talk.
VENTRE: Rabbi Glazer explains that, traditionally, there are four steps to repentance. One, admit what you've done wrong and stop doing it. Two, confess. Three, have regret.
GLAZER: And then No. 4 is probably the most important one - is to figure out how not to repeat the action.
VENTRE: For years, Piness was stuck between those steps.
PINESS: I could be in services for hours on end and think about things, but I'm a feeler and I'm a doer. And it's time to act.
VENTRE: So this year, she finally did reach out.
PINESS: I was anxious. I was really anxious, and I didn't want to pick up the phone and call. She's not a phone person, so I texted.
VENTRE: She asked how her friend was doing and if they could talk in person.
PINESS: She wrote back, you know, minutes later, and she said, hi, Nancy. Thank you for being in touch. I'm willing to get together, but right now, I'm the one with, quote-unquote, "too many things going on."
VENTRE: Piness plans to sit down with her friend, but she knows there's still a lot of work to do, and it won't be done before sundown. Still, she's relieved to have taken these first steps.
Sarah Ventre, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOLLY HAMMAR SONG, "SHORTCUTS (I CAN'T WAIT)")
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