With that question, the window has slammed shut on my hand. I pull back in pain and find myself out on the street. There are so many houses out there with welcome mats. I desire only this one. Yet I know I cannot enter until the door is opened for me.
Life seems uncertain.
I feel frightened, not knowing if I will live to see the time when I can come home. Had I every Siddur ever written, I could not do so. How I wish that I were. On Yom Kippur, I've always imagined that as each Jew approaches Hashem in judgement, behind him stand Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, that Hashem thus remembers the merits of the Avos as He passes judgement. This year there was no reason to look behind me.