Ariel Horn: Don't forget life's details-the lesson of Rosh Hashanah

For the past week, I've been worried that life has lost meaning.

I have found it difficult to go to classes and pay attention -- my mind is elsewhere. I can't concentrate on my readings, and I really don't want to anymore because they don't seem important.

I can't hang up the phone with my family in the same carefree way I used to -- I think twice about the "what if"s that I never before thought about. I get nervous when I don't hear from my sisters in Manhattan twice a day. I hear sirens that I never would have thought about before, and I get a lump in my throat, a sick feeling in my stomach and tears in my eyes.

And every night since last Tuesday when I lie in bed, I have terrible pictures in my head that I can't make go away. When I do sleep, there are nightmares. And when I'm awake, they're worse.

I'm worried that in light of everything that has happened in the past week, every day life has irreparably grown insignificant. Life just may have lost all its meaning.

Ironically, only a week after the terrorist attack of the World Trade Center and a time when millions of Americans are questioning whether life has a purpose, it is also Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the Jewish New Year. Millions of Jews across the country who hardly feel like celebrating will gather in synagogues this week to do just that -- and more importantly, to have a day of reflection and self-evaluation.

During the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, days of judgment and reckoning, Jews are supposed to consider the seemingly unimportant minutiae of their everyday lives. We are supposed to think reflectively about all the things we have done in the past year -- how we've treated other people, how we've lived our lives and how we can be better people. It is our chance to examine our actions of every day, and carefully consider every aspect of our lives. It is our time to reevaluate who we are. God, as they say, is in the details.

But this year, on this particular day, it is harder than usual to remember the little things. We have seen such horrible devastation that it's difficult to think of anything else. We are haunted by images that will never leave our minds, and the simple thought of living everyday life "normally" -- of going to classes, doing our work, thinking of anything other than the World Trade Center and the victims--as we did two weeks ago seems almost impossible.

Life, in fact, seems meaningless. What's the point of thinking about anything anymore if the only tangible outcome is devastation and horror? What is the point of self-reflection in a time like this?

Last week as I was trying to shove horrible images out of my head, lying in bed trying to sleep that I realized, thankfully, that there is a point. For both Jewish Americans and Americans of all other religions, this Rosh Hashanah-type reflection -- this self-evaluation and meditation on the minutiae of everyday life that seems so difficult right now -- is more essential than ever before.

To lie in bed at night -- scared of the future and horrified by the past -- is to give up, and to make life meaningless on your accord. Edward Hopper once said, "There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are alive, and those who are afraid."

It's reflection -- considering ways to make life better, which makes life meaningful again -- that makes you alive.

On this eternal day of mourning and on Rosh Hashanah, take some time to think about yourself and the world you live in. You can't end terrorism on your own. You can't bring victims back to life. And you can't, unfortunately, change the past. What you can do, though, is change the future. Do not lie in bed tonight thinking of despair and tragedy. Think of how you can be a better friend, a better son or daughter, a better person. And then, you will be able to bring the meaning back into your life.

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