My aggregator has yielded some thought-provoking posts of late. Here are three of my favorites:

Danya has a post called Unetane tokef and collective responsibility, which takes a good hard look at the "Unetaneh Tokef" prayer and the theology it encapsulates. She writes:

What if it weren't about my individual repentance as it affects my individual fate? What if our repentance as a society (which demands that each individual do his or her part) is the thing that affects our collective fate? What if the reason a person gets cancer is not because he or she personally has done something wrong, but because we as a nation and a globe have poisoned our air, our water, and our food with toxic chemicals and negligence?...

(Read the whole thing here.)

And we have Cole Krawitz to thank for Revisioning Unetaneh Tokef, a post which reprints a new version of the classical prayer (as written by Jack Riemer) alongside some of Cole's commentary. Here's an excerpt from the prayer as Riemer revisions it:

How much time did we waste
In the year that is now gone?

Did we fill our days with life
Or were they dull and empty?

Was there love inside our home
Or was the affectionate word left unsaid?...

(You can find the post at Jewschool here.)

Meanwhile, over at Reb Blog, there's a post called Poems for the Days of Awe 5767. I like all of them, but the penultimate one, "Second Day of Rosh Hashannah Afternoon," resonated the most for me, perhaps because it reflects how I spent the afternoon of the second day of the holiday, too, at least once I got home from shul. (Of course, had I written the poem, the anonymous POV character would have been a Packers fan...) Here's a taste:

Have compassion on this team.
They have an aging quarterback.
Their special teams aren't so special.
They are already expecting a losing season.
Answer them.
Do with us charity and lovingkindness.
Simple acts --
A nice wind for a fifty yard field goal,
when the sideline refs bring the chains on the field,
let them stretch just a bit, a two-point conversion now and then...
Our Father, Our King
Help us make it into the end zone.

(Read Rabbi Daniel Brenner's poems here.)

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, teshuvah.