Good yontif you’re celebrating Yom Kippur. And to everyone, what is your day about today? What’s your intention for the day? And are you experiencing suffering?

Not, are you experiencing pain and sorrow? We are all experiencing that, if we’re paying attention, given the world. But are you experiencing the suffering that happens when we clench our fist or grasp for something to be other than it is, or rail at the world - are you experiencing that? If so, then letting go is the classical answer to the question of how to stop suffering on a personal level. But how do we let go when there’s so much at stake?

If we mean letting go of caring, we can’t. And we never should. We should care, always, and act as well, in all the ways that we can.

If we mean letting go of wishing the moment or friend or lover or leader or world, was different, we can. It can be hard, for me at least, because it means unclenching my fist, my jaw, my mind. I can come up with so many reasons why not to do that.

But if I let go of those reasons, too, and open my hand anyway, and place it on my heart, and say to myself, this moment is like this, then I can do it. And then I can get to work.

This moment is like this, I care, we all do. There is work to do, that is always, and we need to roll up our sleeves, now more than ever, and do it. And always as well, this moment is like this.