The sun shone through the clouds like a Renaissance-painting. I broke the bread into smaller and smaller pieces for increasingly abstract sins but ran out before I got to lying, like the way I told my former roommate I was doing taschlich because I didn’t want to go to services, unable to admit I liked the ritual. Riverside Park was packed – Reform Jews took Rosh Hashana selfies, little Orthodox boys tripped on their fringes, a group of mostly older women danced the Hora and beat tambourines. An earnest blue-eyed rabbinical student said, “there was once a rabbi who put a piece of paper in each pocket: ‘I am but dust and ashes,’ and ‘the world was created for me.’” “Is that enough for you?” asked the rabbinical student. “Because it’s not enough for me.”

*Illustration by Cameron Lee and Lily Ha*