September 22, 2025 – I’m a Jew but not a believer. I gave up most ritual observance years ago and I don’t attend services. But I do still hold on to a few things. One is the Passover Seder and the other is the self-reflection we are supposed to engage in during the Days of Awe—that is the 10 days spanning from the start of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) this evening to the end of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).

This year, my focus is on the sin of exhaustion.

You probably never heard of the sin of exhaustion. That’s because I just made it up. But I would argue that the sin of exhaustion is implicit in the Jewish tradition. And it is something for which t’shuva (turning or repentance) is required.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the sins Jews confess during this season of atonement. Do we confess to violations of ritual? Not so much. (Whew!) The focus of Jewish confessions are sins we commit against others. This is a short blog post, so I’m not going to list them all here, but here are links to two of the main confessions: Ashamnu (We Have Sinned) and Al Chet (For the Sin [We Have Committed]). Very little here about ritual failings. It’s all about our failings in our relations with others.

Just reading these lists is exhausting.

The Days of Awe have a dramatic arc. They begin solemnly with the start of Rosh Hashanah and reach a crescendo with the Kol Nidre (All our Vows) prayer that is said at the beginning of the Yom Kippur fast on Yom Kippur eve.

For those who attend (not me), the fast and the service continues the next morning. By afternoon, the congregation is exhausted—and hungry from the fast. At this point, a passage from Isaiah 58 is read that is highly critical of those who follow ritual fasts, proclaiming that the “true fast” is to “share your bread with the hungry,” to “take the wretched poor into your home,” and “when you see the naked, to clothe them.”

This is a passage that speaks to our time. A passage that (like so many other similar passages) is ignored by so many. Why?

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There is another passage that comes to mind. It circulates on the internet and supposedly comes from the Talmud. You won’t find it there in its complete form, because it is apparently a mashup of several sources (including Pirkei Avot 2:[16] and Micah 6:8—I’m not going to try to untangle it). However, it seems to point to the existence of my sin of exhaustion—and offers a bit of advice:

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

In other words, if you are exhausted, just realize that you can’t do it all. You can’t solve the problems of the world by yourself. It is beyond exhausting. It is impossible.

But you can do something rather than nothing. Just don’t give up. “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

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So, last week Kit and I took a little vacation in western Wisconsin to ride our bikes on the Sparta-Elroy Trail (round trip 70 miles) and the Sparta-La Crosse River Trail (round trip 46 miles).

These long rides are exhausting. For several years, at this time of year, I rode the North Shore Century (100 miles), sponsored by the Evanston Bike Club. Their ride was yesterday. I didn’t ride it this year.

What I’ve learned from long rides is that, often, you are most exhausted from the thought of them. Yeah, obviously, you can’t go from not riding to riding in a day. Kit can do this, but not me. When she started riding  with me, we did 60 miles on her third ride. My third ride—I don’t even remember it, but it was a whole lot less than 60 miles.

Sometimes, when the weather is bad, we can go some time without riding. And when the weather clears up, it can be exhausting to get going again. But weirdly, the exhaustion goes away in one mile or five miles, but rarely longer than 10 miles.

And our regular rides are 20 or 30 miles. So I almost always finish invigorated. But it took some practice to get there.

If you listen to my Talmud (mashup) quote, you might think that maybe your moral muscle works kinda like your actual muscles. So don’t give in to exhaustion. Do what you can. Doing something, rather than nothing, is what keeps you from exhaustion.

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Happy New Year!