At the time of my growing up years in the small town of Burlington, New Jersey, where synagogue life was an important part of the close-knit Jewish community there, I looked forward every year to the approach of the High Holidays. Not that I claim to have been a pious youngster, but a couple of days free from the rigors of schoolwork, when my non-Jewish friends were conjugating verbs and calculating the areas of circles and triangles, held a certain appeal.

But there was more. And I often wondered if new clothing at the New Year was universally Jewish or particular to my family. Either way, come late summer or early fall, I would accompany my mother to Philadelphia, where the preteen departments at Strawbridge & Clothier and John Wanamaker & Sons were awash with the latest fall colors, styles and fabrics. In my elementary school years, I didn’t make a connection between Rosh Hashanah and a new outfit. Later, however, my father, in full instructional mode, would make sure my brother and I understood that new clothing did indeed belong meaningfully with the New Year — why he needed a new suit, not only because of a growth spurt that rendered the pants and coat sleeves of his current suit laughably short, and why I needed  a dress (no pants suits in those days) and a fall coat with a matching hat, yes a hat, to come to shul.

Happily, a hat for me came from a rack in the children’s or the teen department, unlike my mother, who sat me down next to her in the hat department, where she would try on various styles in front of a bevy of carefully positioned mirrors so that each possible selection could be viewed from all angles, ably assisted by a salesperson who dutifully admired each one. I just couldn’t picture myself doing that — ever. Not as a youngster, nor as the current senior citizen I have become, or any of the years between.

Why am I telling you about my mother and her hats and my new clothing? Because my father, who it seemed to me had a lifetime assignment as president of our shul, took his responsibilities seriously, particularly during the High Holidays, when a president’s duties quadruple, as I can attest. My father believed this was a time for inspection as well as for introspection. His family, including his tomboy daughter, would be properly outfitted for inspection, and properly schooled in the intentions of introspection — to look inside ourselves and determine for ourselves where we could do better as family members, community members and, most importantly, as Jews.

To begin a new year with a clean slate meant inside and out, he said, hence the new clothing. Why we couldn’t clean our slates in last year’s togs (well, I could understand about my brother, who had grown six inches), but why me, although who was I to argue, except maybe about the hat.)

I can’t vouch for my brother, but I took the clean slate assignment to heart, and tried to do better, at least for a few days. And truth be told, I think new clothing helped the cause. Because I looked fresh and new, I felt fresh and new, and didn’t want to sully my new togs with last year’s transgressions.

Now, more decades later than I care to count, I still enter shul carrying the past year’s indiscretions on my shoulders and, although more than likely in last year’s outfits, which still fit and hardly have had any use thanks to a spotty social calendar, but I leave feeling fresh and new after an honest assessment of the past year and my place in it.

I hope that you, too, look forward to the onset of the High Holidays and the opportunity to leave shul feeling fresh and new, unburdened by what cannot be undone, and looking positively ahead at new opportunities to connect more closely with those we love at home and in our neighborhoods and communities and, most importantly, as Jews — particularly now with escalating threats to the Jewish homeland, and antisemitic activity increasing around the world. May each of us be a missionary for peace.

Shanah Tovah to all. May your days be sweet throughout the year.

—Sara Bloom