A Good Kind of Assessment!

Here it is, 2 hours before Yom Kippur comes in. Two hours before we spend 25 hours praying to Hashem to give us a seal for a good year.

With that comes the need to assess ones self. And this got me thinking this year. As a future teacher all I hear about and learn about is how we assess kids, why we assess kids, why we assess kids again, again and again, and again. True, these assessments are good and bad, annoying and productive (at times). And help set goals.

But, what about the self assessment we do on Yom Kippur.

We aren't trying to compare to the others around us, we aren't competing for anything, but we are assessing what we've learned in the past year so we can set goals for the coming year.

This assessment is so important. It's not about filling in the right bubble, but about comprehending who we are as a person and being able to have the ability to analyze one's self and figure out what works, what doesn't and what needs to change.

Yom Kippur has always been a hard day for me. As a child and actually up until recently I took the day so seriously and was a nervous wreck. But now, with this new mind set, I think that Yom Kippur will have so much more meaning. I really hope that over the next 25 hours I can really evaluate myself and set some meaningful goals for the coming year.

May this year be a year of growth for all.