This book didn’t do much for me, but it’s possible that’s because I always have a hard time immersing myself in the High Holidays. If the author was aiming to imbue readers with existential dread and fear that they’re not going hard enough at Yom Kippur, he succeeded. 

I was also a bit annoyed by the way the author made other people’s extremely personal life events about his own spiritual journey—and then publicized that stuff in a book. I assume he got permission from most of the folks involved, but some of them are dead, so clearly he couldn’t do that with everybody. One particularly frustrating section discussed some visceral details of his wife giving birth to to their first child, during which she had many complications, and he kept trying to meditate. Just, what? Also, every time he talks about divorce, for some reason he says “divorce our husbands” like he’s approaching it from a female perspective when he’s male and has himself been through divorce. Could’ve just gone gender-neutral and avoided difficulties. 

The book also—unsurprisingly but disappointingly—has a whole passage that frames Israel’s occupation of Palestine as a both-sides conflict where each side wronged the other. It’s a common opinion in Jewish spaces, but not one I support or condone furthering by publishing it in a book. In a similar vein, there’s some brief but very weird anti-indigenous and anti-homeless stuff. 

I did take away some helpful things from reading this, but most of it was quotes or thoughts from other people that the author was retelling. The one thing I really liked that seemed purely his was, “But I am a schlimazel, and sometimes I let people down”: acknowledging one’s imperfections and deciding to do one’s best to be a good person anyway. 

tldr; I understand that this is a popular book to read in the lead-up to the High Holidays, but I don’t see the big deal.