The Sokoloff family of East Windsor sees the High Holy Days as a time to reflect on the past year and look forward to the new one ahead.
By: Michael Arges
EAST WINDSOR For the Sokoloff family the High Holy Days are a time of looking back and looking forward.
It is a time of remembering centuries of Jewish heritage and looking back over the past year to reflect on behavior and relationships. But it is also a time for looking forward to a new year of striving for improvement.
"It’s a time of renewal; it’s definitely a looking back over the past year and looking at my behavior and things I’d rather do differently especially changes to myself that I’d like to make in the coming year," noted Gail Sokoloff. She resides on Shrewsbury Court with her husband, Todd; 7-year-old son, Jarred, and daughters Sarina, 5, and Cassie, almost 3.
In cases where Ms. Sokoloff feels she has made mistakes with other people, the holidays are about wanting to change and start over again, she added.
In the midst of the busyness of the new school year, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur provide moments of quiet reflection on mistakes of the past and hopes for the future.
"I usually don’t actually have time to think about that until I’m in synagogue at Rosh Hashana at that first service," Ms. Sokoloff explained. "The kids are in the day-care room that they have there during services and I can finally have time to be quiet and think and talk to God and look inside myself."
The Sokoloffs have been attending East Windsor’s Beth El Synagogue for about a year.
Celebrations of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, and Yom Kippur, the great day of penance, are important times for remembering Judaism’s rich history and heritage, the Sokoloffs noted. Ms. Sokoloff enjoys sitting down and sharing the holiday tradition with her children.
"Last year I remember sitting down and saying that we say ‘sorry’ to people for the things that we’ve done," she said.
Mr. Sokoloff derives great joy from sharing this heritage with his children and helping them to think about themselves and their own growth. Ms. Sokoloff shares her husband’s love of Jewish tradition for example, the blowing of the ram’s horn at Rosh Hashana as a cry of repentance and announcement of God’s kingship.
"That’s one of the things that I love about my religion," Ms. Sokoloff said. "There are things that we do that have been done for hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years."
One very special time of shofar blowing at Rosh Hashana last year was Beth El’s enactment of the Tashlich ceremony by Bear Creek at Anker Park.
"You go to a body of water usually flowing water and you throw pieces of bread into the water, and you’re throwing away all your sins from the past year and letting them flow away," Ms. Sokoloff explained.
As part of Tashlich, congregation members had a shofar-blowing contest.
"Everybody was taking turns seeing who could hold a note the loudest," Ms. Sokoloff said, noting it was wonderful to hear the sound of the shofar across the water.
Noting how impressed she was by her visit to Jerusalem, she noted, "I hear the blast of the shofar and I can just picture someone standing in front of the Wailing Wall in Biblical times blowing the shofar. You can just close your eyes and listen and feel the sense of pride and connectedness to your whole past history."
Like many residents in a diverse suburb like East Windsor, the Sokoloffs are bringing together diverse backgrounds as they chart their family’s religious life, Ms. Sokoloff noted. The Conservative Judaism of East Windsor represents a kind of compromise between Mr. Sokoloff’s Orthodox background and Ms. Sokoloff’s Reformed background.
Mr. Sokoloff grew up in a very traditional Orthodox community in Roosevelt, his wife noted.
"So everything’s in Hebrew," she said. "When he was young, the men and women didn’t sit together, and it was a very close-knit, small-town community. I came from the opposite end of the spectrum: Reformed Judaism, which is very laid-back not a lot of rules.
"The conservative is kind of in the middle," Ms. Sokoloff added. "It blends the two in a way."
For example, at Beth El men and women can sit together and girls can speak from the "bimah," the pulpit from which congregation members read the Torah, the Hebrew Bible.

