\”Why are Rosh Hashanah and especially Yom Kippur so important to my Jewish partner? He almost never attends services the rest of the year, isn\’t observant and doesn\’t even know what he believes about God. Yet, at this time of year, he insists on attending services. What\’s the big deal with these holidays?\”

There are both \”official\” and \”unofficial\” answers to these questions. Perhaps not surprisingly, the unofficial explanations are often the more significant ones. The official answers (to which I\’ll return shortly) speak in terms like judgment, sin, repentance, life and death. The unofficial answers have something to do with the complicated puzzle of American Jewish identity.