The High Holiday season is a time for introspection, but introspection is not easy. Volumes have been written about it by the best minds in the history of Judaism, yet  no one has ever found the key to making it an easy and straightforward process. Piercing through all the psychological layers we use to protect our egos is neither easy nor straightforward. It has to be done slowly and methodically, or else there exists the danger that people will choose unhealthy paths in their search for repentance and atonement.

It is not healthy for a person to be overwhelmed with an exaggerated sense of sin and worthlessness, thinking that everything they do is wrong. It is just as dangerous for a person to be filled with a mistaken sense of perfection and complacency, thinking that everything they do is right. The careful process of teshuvah, of repentance, linked to the High Holiday season, is meant to turn us in the right direction and move us away from an unhealthy path, back toward the goals which G-d and our inner self have set for us. To do teshuvah, we need balance, the ability to recognize accurately what is wrong and what isn’t, what is admirable and what isn’t.

What is true of our individual personalities is true as well of our Jewish religion and civilization. Judaism is in constant need of teshuvah, just as we are. And just as we sometimes can misread ourselves, so too can we misread Judaism. There are those who imagine that Judaism is perfect, unchanging, unchangeable, and in no need of change. There are others who imagine that Judaism is profoundly, almost unredeemably flawed, archaic, and even cruel. We all know that human beings are rarely so extreme as this. It should therefore come as no surprise that Judaism isn’t either. It is neither perfect nor malevolent. Instead, Judaism through the ages has done exactly what we are supposed to do — especially at this time of the year: React to changing circumstances and make better choices for the future.

Consider, for example, the Jewish tradition relating to women. There are those who imagine that the position of women in rabbinical society was just, well, divine. There are others who maintain that women were, at best, second-class citizens whose needs and concerns were roundly ignored by the rabbinical powers-that-be. History teaches us that both these positions are simply wrong.

An examination of the Talmudic discussions about women indicates three things. First , the rabbis of Talmudic times did not delude themselves into thinking that the status of women in halachah (Jewish law) was without problems. To the contrary. They sensed that in almost every area in which women were involved, women were in a socially inferior position which was an affront to their human dignity. Second, and equally important, the rabbis knew that the most profound principles of the Jewish moral tradition demanded a response to this inequity. The rabbis had to take a stand, even if they were taking a stand against traditions that stretched back a thousand years to the time of Moses. They did so, and could do so, precisely because the Jewish tradition explicitly assigns us this very task, insists on this kind of reasoned perspective, and demands this kind of courage. The third thing we learn is that, flaws and problems notwithstanding, the rabbis cherished and celebrated their — our — tradition, recognizing in it a sincere and continuing struggle to put G-d’s words into concrete terms.

We can learn from their example, and not only as regards the position of women. We, too, need a reasoned perspective about what is right and wrong, in ourselves and in Jewish society. We, too, need the courage to change that which needs to be changed, in ourselves and in Jewish society. And, finally, we, too, need to learn to cherish and celebrate all that is right and good, in ourselves and in Jewish society.

—Robert L. Wolkoff