Rosh Hashanah is the holiday that begins the Jewish New Year. It is a time of celebration, but it is also a holiday filled with prayer, reflection, and planning for the future. There are many rituals and prayers particular to Rosh Hashanah which express these themes and create more opportunities for people to connect to this holiday.

There are also many elements of Rosh Hashanah connected with the fertility journey.  For many people struggling to grow their families, this is one of the hardest times of the year.  The rituals of Rosh Hashanah may offer opportunities for reflection and rejuvenation when used to support the fertility journey. The rituals in this booklet are designed to do exactly that. 

Take time to review these rituals before Rosh Hashanah begins so you can decide if any will help you prepare for the holiday.  You can revisit this book throughout the Hebrew month of Tishrei, anytime you need.

May these rituals help you welcome in a new year, and may they offer you healing, inspiration, and comfort during this time.

This Rosh Hashanah ritual is crafted around the practice of sounding the shofar.  It invites you to create a safe space to express your longing for a child by allowing yourself to express sounds that are similar to the shofar blasts.  You may want to perform this ritual in a peaceful, quiet place where you are alone and free from distractions. 

One of the central rituals of Rosh Hashanah is the sounding of the shofar. There are a number of different perspectives on why we blow the shofar. One idea is that the shofar comes to wake us up to become better people and be more cognizant of our actions.  The loud noise of the shofar can jolt us and propel us toward action.  

However there is another understanding of the meaning of the shofar blasts, which describes it as being a mother’s cry as she worries about and longs for her child.  The mother of Sisera is described in the Book of Judges as someone who is in distress since her son has not yet come home from war.  Sisera, an army general who is the enemy of the Jewish people, is already dead when the text discusses his mother.  However, she does not seem to know that yet.   The verse states:

(Judges 5:28)
And she wailed bitterly
Va’yitabev Em Sisera
 וַתְּיַבֵּ֛ב אֵ֥ם סִֽיסְרָ֖א

If the shofar blasts are meant to mimic the sobs of Sisera’s mother, then there is a deep and intrinsic connection between the sound of the shofar and of a parent longing for a child.  Though the mother of Sisera may have already birthed her child, he is gone and so her heart is longing.  A parent who has not yet met their child and is struggling to grow their family also has a heart that is longing.

There is powerful healing in using one’s voice and allowing oneself to wail.  By emulating the shofar, you can release some of the deep-seated pain you might be holding inside and that may feel constricting and overwhelming.  This ritual offers you the opportunity to release some of that pain though your voice. 

I invite you to find a place in your home where you can be completely alone.  You may choose to do this ritual when you are the only one home, or in a room where nobody can hear you.  You are looking to find a place where you can be alone in order to remove any feelings of inhibition and allow yourself to use your voice without reservation. 

Once you have found the perfect place, I invite you to take three deep breaths.  You can start expressing your voice with the shofar blast called the tekiah .  A tekiah is one long, continuous sound.  When you feel ready, use your voice and make one long continuous sound. You may find that what your body releases is a cry, or a scream, or a note from a song.  Whatever comes, welcomes it. 

When your tekiah is complete, I invite you to try the next shofar blast, the shevarim . The shevarim consists of the three consecutive blasts that are shorter than a tekiyah.  When you feel ready, take a breath and then allow these three sounds to come from inside of you. Allow any sound that comes and welcome their expression. 

When you feel ready, try working with the next shofar blast, the teruah .  The teruah is a series of 9 very short consecutive blasts. Allow these short but powerful sounds to emerge from within you.  Do not feel bound by the number nine, but simply allow yourself to go for as long as you need. 

The final blast is the tekiah gedolah .  The tekiah gedolah is a tekiah that is even more elongated. This sound is the final blast after a long series and encompasses all of the others within it.  Before you express this blast, take a deep breath and see if there are any particular moments from your fertility journey that are rising up.  Are there any feelings you have about your journey that you are not able to express through words? Perhaps you can express them through your shofar blast. When you feel ready, allow the tekiah gedolah to emerge from within you. 

After expressing these shofar blasts, you may want to do something nurturing for yourself and allow yourself to rest.  You may want to journal, listen to music, go for a walk in nature, or engage in any other activity that will allow you to process the ritual you just engaged in. 

When you hear the shofar blasts this year, think about the thoughts and feelings that arose for you.  They can serve as guides as you arise to greet the new year.

This Rosh Hashanah ritual explores the ever-changing relationship you might be experiencing with prayer as you traverse your fertility journey.  It includes personal narratives from others who have gone through this experience and invites you to experiment with a ten day reflection endeavor.  You will want to print out the image included in this ritual. You may want to perform this ritual in a peaceful, quiet place where you are alone and free from distractions.  

Rosh Hashanah is a holiday with a strong emphasis on prayer. There are hours spent in synagogue praying, repenting, reflecting on the year that has passed and dreaming about the new year that just is beginning.  

During a fertility journey, prayer can be very challenging and may evoke any number of emotions.  There may be times when you feel called to pray and express your longing for a child. There may be other times when prayer feels like the furthest thing from your mind. Perhaps you have been praying for a child for so long you are deeply frustrated with such efforts and may feel as though they are fruitless. You may have also had the experience of someone asking you if they could pray on your behalf, and you may have had any number of reactions to this request. 

To begin this ritual, I invite you to read the following personal narrative from Fertility Journeys: A Jewish Healing Guide, a book created by Uprooted and Mayyim Hayyim. As you read, I encourage you to pay close attention to what rises up for you, and what feelings emerge as you listen to Judith share her story.

In the Presence of God
I didn’t even realize I was crying. I was in temple during High Holy Day services years ago, listening to the Rosh Hashanah Torah portion of Sarah’s heartache and anguish about not being able to get pregnant - the lament of a barren woman. Then came the Haftorah portion about Hannah’s anguish about not being able to become pregnant. I was feeling the same bewilderment and pain as the matriarchs from the Torah.  I was moved, and I empathized so greatly with Sarah and Hannah’s plights about not being able to conceive. In my life so far, being able to become pregnant was my greatest struggle.  My struggle was also Sarah and Hannah’s, and unbelievably to me, the struggle of so many other women in the Torah. Listening to the struggle of Sarah, the chosen matriarch of the Jews, then listening to Hannah’s story of desperately crying and praying was too much to bear. God had promised that the Jewish people would be fruitful and multiply, so why was this happening? Why were we women, Sarah, Hannah, me, and so many others, suffering so greatly to have a child? Why wasn’t this easier? I never imagined trying to have a child would be so difficult and become such a test of my faith.

Family and friends close to me advised me to “Ask God.” After all, our matriarchs in the Torah, also struggling with infertility, asked God for help. During the time that I was trying unsuccessfully to conceive, I took a trip to Israel to visit my sister and her family. My sister suggested that I go to the Kotel, the Western Wall. I went on a drizzly, chilly day during the Passover holiday. I gave tzedakah (charity) and a rabbi gave me a blue string. He said to me, “You will have a boy.” Really, did he just say that to me? There were not many people at the Wall that day, just a group of Haredi (ultra-orthodox) women sitting on chairs studying Torah, and me. Being right at the Wall with these pious women made me question whether I was religious enough to speak with God. Would God hear me? I remembered Sarah’s strength and Hannah’s courage, and put my hand on the Wall. I prayed to God for a child, and then I realized that the Haredi women disappeared.  I was completely alone at the Wall, in the presence of God. And I prayed.  I prayed just as Hannah had so desperately prayed for a child.  At that moment at the Wall, I experienced an incredible connection to God and I was spiritually moved and changed by my experience.  

Consider the following questions.  You may want to write your thoughts or explore them in your mind. 
(1) Have you felt inspired, obligated, or interested in praying at any point during your fertility journey? 
(2) Has your journey impacted your relationship with prayer, and if so, in what way? 

The time period from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur is called Aseret Yemei Teshuva/the 10 Days of Repentance, or the 10 Days of Returning. These 10 days are a special time designated for prayer, reflection, and reconnecting. For these 10 days I invite you to engage in a period of prayer-reflection. The goal is to take note of how you feel about prayer. This is a judgment-free observation! You are looking to better understand what is residing in your heart, and then to consider if there are any actions you would like to take in order to achieve greater alignment between your heart and mind. 

You may desire to be a person who is very connected to prayer, but you may notice that many of these days you feel disconnected.  You may have a desire to step away from prayer and place your focus elsewhere, but you may notice you still feel a pull toward it. This self-reflection is for you to give yourself the space to think about and consider what is best for you.

To do so, I invite you to print out 10 copies of the image above.  For each of the 10 days starting from the first day of Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur, you may want to look at this image and place yourself in the image in a location that best represents how you feel about prayer on that particular day.  You can do so with stickers, drawing a stick figure, placing a dot, or any other way that feels right for you.  If it is not your practice to write on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, you can make a mental note, and write after the holidays.

After these 10 days, lay out your images of these peaks and valleys and see what you notice.  You may want to set an intention to take a particular action to move your relationship with prayer in a direction that you desire.  You may also want to save these images, perform this same ritual the following year, and see how your relationship has shifted, if at all. 

May you achieve your desired relationship with prayer and may you remember that it is a lifelong process that will always include experiences of peaks and valleys.

This Rosh Hashanah ritual offers you an opportunity to express your own thoughts and feelings as holy prayers. It includes a hand washing ritual and an opportunity for writing.  For this ritual you will need a bowl of water, a cup, a pen, and a journal/notebook. You may want to perform this ritual in a peaceful, quiet place where you are alone and free from distractions. 

The Rosh Hashanah Services are so abundant with prayers that Rosh Hashanah even has its own separate prayer book called a machzor. This machzor is filled with liturgical writing that expresses a plethora of thoughts and wishes for the upcoming year. There are words that express praise, thanksgiving, requests, and phrases that mark the holiness of the day.  

However, as beautiful as the machzor might be, it was not written by you. What would it feel like for you to recite a prayer that you wrote yourself and expressed your own thoughts and feelings? 

This ritual will guide you toward creating a prayer that is personal and expresses what you are feeling in this given moment.  Throughout this process, think about this in whatever way works best for you.  If you feel like directing your prayer toward God, then do so. If you prefer for your prayer to serve more as an expression of your thoughts aloud to yourself, feel encouraged to do so.  If there is another way you would like to approach this prayer, please feel free to do so.

To begin, gather your bowl of water, cup, and towel.  Have your notebook and pen nearby.

You may want to play inspiring or calming music in the background.     

Take a few relaxing breaths and allow your gaze to rest gently on the water.  When you feel ready, take your cup and begin to scoop up some water and gradually pour it back into the bowl.  Keep repeating this movement until you no longer need to think about it, and your body begins doing it naturally.  Start thinking about what is deep in your heart right now and what you are feeling.  If the water that you are pouring over and over were coming from inside your soul, what words would be floating in the water?  What emotions would be flowing from your cup? 

Read, chant, or sing the following words from the book of Lamentations:
שִׁפְכִי כַמַּיִם לִבֵּךְ, נֹכַח פְּנֵי אֲדֹ-נָי
Shifchi ka’mayim libech, nochach pinei Ado-nai

Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord
(Lamentations 2:19) 

Take a break from pouring the water and spend some time writing and pouring out your soul. Write whatever comes to mind. If you feel it would benefit you to have writing prompts, use the questions below.

*What stage have you reached in your present journey?
*What are you grateful for at this moment?
*What challenges are you facing at this moment?
*What are you praying for, and what do you expect will be granted? 
*What causes your blood to boil and your anger to flare?
*What causes your throat to tighten and your tears to fall?

Take as long as you would like to write.  You do not need to edit or try to create a perfect piece of prose.  Focus on pouring out your heart and just letting whatever comes flow from your heart onto the page. 

When you feel like you have written all there is to write, you may want to recite the following words to conclude your prayer. 

יִהְיוּ לְרָצון אִמְרֵי פִי וְהֶגְיון לִבִּי לְפָנֶיךָ. ה' צוּרִי וְגואֲלִי:

Yihiyu le’ratzon imrei fi ve’higyone libi lefanecha Ado-nai tzuri ve’go’ali.

May the words of my mouth and the rumination of my heart be acceptable in front of You, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Now, think about what you want to do with this prayer. Do you want to bring it with you and recite it at synagogue?  Recite it every night before you go to bed or each morning as you start the day?  Or, perhaps this was something you were called to write in this moment, but is not a prayer you would want to recite again.  

May each coming day bring new words and fresh ideas that you can pour out like water. 

This Rosh Hashanah ritual centers around the inclusion of fertility narratives from the Torah in the liturgy.  Through a personal narrative, a guided mediation, and an opportunity for self reflection, this ritual invites you to consider who you share your journey with and how much of your journey you wish to share.  You may want to perform this ritual in a peaceful, quiet place where you are alone and free from distractions. 

Rosh Hashanah can pose many challenges for those struggling to grow their family.   It might be very painful to be reminded that another year has passed.  It may be painful to see people you have not seen in a while, who may ask questions or make comments about your familial status.  It may also be hard to be surrounded by families and pregnant people who may be alongside you in synagogue or at family gatherings. 

It may also be challenging to be in synagogue when the fertility narrative of Hannah is read aloud.

To begin this ritual, read the following personal narrative from Dorit, which is included in Fertility Narrative: A Jewish Healing Guide.

Hiding from Hannah: Struggling with Fertility on Rosh Hashanah
For many, the High Holiday season is highly stressful and deeply emotional.  During my own fertility journey, this season brought up many feelings–pretty much everything from hope to despair. One moment in particular that always has an effect on me  is the reading of the story of Hannah on Rosh Hashanah. Early on in my journey, I found that story comforting; seeing another woman’s suffering in her struggle to conceive and having her prayers answered resonated with me and gave me hope.  But, as the years passed and my prayers were not answered, hearing the story of  Hannah no longer served as a comfort but rather began to cause me greater pain.

One year, as I was in synagogue and I knew the story of Hannah was approaching, I felt my heart start to race and my cheeks start to flush. I knew the tears were about to fall.  I was not looking to be “reminded” of my fertility struggle and did not want to hear about Hannah and her “happily-ever-after tale.”  So I did what I felt like was the only appropriate choice – I bolted out of the synagogue before I could even hear the first line of the story being read  and went to cry and pull myself together in the bathroom.  I could not allow those tears to fall in synagogue, in public, without the shelter of the bathroom stall door to protect me.  

As I reflect on that experience now, I realize a deep irony: Hannah too struggled with the pain of infertility, and she too shed tears. “And Hannah was of bitter spirit, and she prayed to G-d and cried and cried.” (Samuel I 1:10)  Hannah, however, did not leave the synagogue. She stayed, with the tears streaming down her face, and she prayed.

How do you feel about showing emotion in public?  Would you prefer to cry in public or in private? 

For many people, the question of whether or not to make their fertility struggles public is complicated.  Some people are completely open, sharing on social media and with family and friends.  Others have specific people that they will share details of their fertility journey with, but they choose not share with the general public.  There are others who want to keep their entire journey private.  All of these are viable and honorable options, it is simply a matter of personal choice.  

Rosh Hashanah is a time for self-reflection, but it is not a time to cause ourselves unnecessary pain. Before Rosh Hashanah, I invite you to reflect upon the question of whether or not the amount that you are sharing about your fertility journey is beneficial to you at this very moment.  Do you wish more people knew what you were going through?  Do you want a break from the public for a little while?  What would be the best way for you to spend Rosh Hashanah?  Would a more public space be preferable or one that is more private? 

Explore the guided imagery above to reflect upon these questions further. 

After completing the guided imagery, journal about the following questions, or consider them in your thoughts. 

(1) Did you feel more comfortable being alone or with others in the room?

(2) Were you surprised by who you chose to bring into the room?  

(3) Were you surprised by anyone that you did not invite into the room? 

You may want to consider if the way in which you share your fertility experience with others is beneficial to you.  Would it be helpful to tell more people?  Would it be helpful to take a break from sharing with certain people, or in certain settings?  See if you can decide what is most nurturing for you at this time—you can always change in the coming weeks—and commit to making that a reality. 

In preparation for Rosh Hashanah you may also want to spend some time considering what would be the best setting for you on the holiday.  Be intentional about the setting you will place yourself in this year.  This does not mean there will not be surprises, and we certainly do not have full control over everything, but having kavanah /intention to place yourself in situations where you are most likely to feel safe and comfortable is ideal.  Remember what it felt like to sit in that warm and inviting bean bag chair.   Design your Rosh Hashanah so you can experience that feeling as often as possible. 

This Rosh Hashanah ritual centers around the custom of eating foods that carry symbolic wishes for the upcoming year.  It invites you to be reflective and creative and think about what you wish for the coming and how you can craft symbolic objects to express these dreams. You may want to print out the chart and have a pen with you.   You may want to perform this ritual in a peaceful, quiet place where you are alone and free from distractions.

On Rosh Hashanah there is a Sephardic custom to eat certain foods called simanim, which are symbolic for wishes expressing what one would like for the upcoming year. This includes apples dipped in honey for a sweet new year.  Some people have a ritual of eating many of these foods in a sequence and calling it a seder, like the Passover seder, which means order. 

As you think about your upcoming year, creating a similar ritual for yourself may offer an opportunity for healing and personal expression. 

The typical structure of the seder is that each food is matched with a blessing that expresses its particular symbolism.

For example:
Carrots

Blessing: Yehi ratzon mi’lefanecha, adonay elohaynu ve’elohay avotainu, she’yir’boo zchu’yotay’nu  

May it be your will Hashem, our G-d and G-d of our forefathers that our merits increase

Start this ritual by brainstorming and creating a list of your hopes for the coming. I encourage you to try to think of at least five things.  

You may want to experiment with the following phrasing or something similar to it: 

May this year be a year that is filled with ________________.
May it be your will G-d that this year is a year of _______________.

After you have created a list of what you hope for this year, be as creative as you can to come up with something that could symbolize this wish.  Choose foods and items to place on your Rosh Hashanah table, or create yourself. Anything that feels meaningful to you is perfect. Feel free to use the chart above. 

Before Rosh Hashanah, gather these items and designate a time and space when you can use them and acknowledge what they represent for you.  You may want to invite others to your simanim seder, or if you prefer, feel free to perform this ritual on your own.

This Rosh Hashanah ritual offers you an opportunity to reflect on any feelings of loss you have experienced and to mark them in a meaningful way.  With a thoughtful twist on eating challah with honey on Rosh Hashanah, this ritual invites you to express your wishes for this coming year and to symbolically ingest them.  For this ritual you will need pomegranate seeds, a round challah, a bowl of honey, a bubbly drink –alcoholic or non alcoholic–a paper, and a pen. You may want to perform this ritual in a peaceful place with a surface or table.

Rosh Hashanah is a time for reflection, introspection, and personal growth.  It is a time to look back on the year that just passed, and note what we experienced and what choices we made.  

Reflection is rarely easy, but this year you may find it to be particularly challenging.  As you look back on this year, you may be reviewing a year filled with fertility struggles.  You may also notice that you are looking back on a year overshadowed by loss. 

If you were deeply engrossed in your fertility journey this past year, it is likely that you have suffered loss.  Your loss may or may not have been an actual pregnancy loss, as loss comes in so many forms along this journey.  Let’s take a moment to acknowledge these losses and reflect on how they impacted our year. 

To make space to acknowledge the loss you experienced this past year, begin by simply counting the number of losses.  This may be impossible since you may have experienced loss in so many areas, but for the purpose of this ritual, come up with a number.  This will become clear as we progress with this ritual. 

Here is a list of some losses that you may have experienced to help you work towards a number. Count how many of these you experienced this year.

1) Pregnancy loss
2) Late -term pregnancy loss
3) Loss due to a birth defect
4) Loss of one twin
5) Loss of the experience of conceiving without assistance
6) Loss of agency over your body
7) Loss of a feeling of certainty or security
8) Loss of your peace of mind
9) Loss of peace in your marriage or partnership 
10) Loss of the timeline you envisioned for building your family
11)Loss of a closeness with a particular friend
12) Loss of your ability to be fully present
13) Loss of your ability to succeed professionally 
14) Loss of confidence or connection with your body
15) Loss of a dream
16)Another loss not on this list 

If there are any other losses that are not on this list, please feel free to add them. 

Feel free to write the number down on your paper, and then shift your focus to the next step of this ritual.  

Rosh Hashanah is also a time during which people express their thoughts and wishes for the upcoming year.  This too may feel emotionally challenging, particularly if you have hoped and prayed for the same thing year after year and you have still not been able to build or grow your family. 

Rosh Hashanah is replete with rituals to express these desires for the coming year, most famously, dipping the apple in honey.  

How can we perform this and other such rituals in a meaningful way when our feelings about another year are so complex?

Begin with your pomegranate seeds.  Please count out one pomegranate seed for each of the losses you counted from the list. 

Pomegranate seeds are a traditional Rosh Hashanah food, but they have a bitter taste.  Hold these seeds, these memories of what you have been through this year, and drop them gently into the honey.

We are dropping them gently in the honey to express the idea that just because a new year is beginning, the losses from the previous year do not simply go away.  The pain still resides within us, it can stick to us as we walk a tightrope between loss and hope, between pain and joy, between the bitter pomegranate seeds and the sweet honey.   While honoring these losses, we are still looking to add sweetness into the coming year and hoping that this year will be sweeter than the last.  The honey represents this sweetness, and so we mix the bitter and the sweet. 

With the pomegranate seeds mixed into the honey, dip a piece of round challah into the mixture.  The round challah represents the cycles of the year and the cycle of life.  For our ritual the challah also represents you – the center of it all – you, the strong foundation that can carry both of these elements, and take them with you into the New Year.  You can still pursue sweetness even when you are carrying loss in your heart.  You are resilient enough, strong like that challah carrying the pomegranate seeds and honey at the same time. 

Finally, pour yourself a glass of champagne or something non-alcoholic with bubbles.  Allow yourself a moment of appreciation for all you have endured and feel profound respect for your strength, wisdom, and compassion.  Allow your drink to bring you new breath through its bubbles—new air for you to breathe, new energy to keep you going, along with a flair of celebration, allowing you to celebrate the person you are despite and because of this struggle.

Before you drink your bubbly drink, you may want to offer a compassionate phrase to yourselves.  This phrase is part of the Avinu Malkeinu prayer, which is a central prayer recited on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur:

 תְּהֵא הַשָּׁעָה הַזֹּאת שְׁעַת רַחֲמִים
Tehei hasha’at hazot sha’at rachamim
May this moment be a time for compassion

You may want to allow yourself the opportunity to recite this phrase and fill in the blank to express whatever is in your heart.  Feel free to recite it as many times as you have answers to place in the blank.  

May this moment be a time of __________

(for example: May this moment be a time for understanding) 

May you enjoy your bubbly drink and your challah and honey/pomegranate seeds.  May the world be compassionate towards you and may you be compassionate towards yourself.

This Rosh Hashanah ritual offers you an opportunity to reconnect with elements of yourself that you have turned your focus away from during your fertility journey. Through a personal narrative and a mini-vision circle, this ritual invites you to reawaken these parts of yourself and to craft actions which will help you to do so.  You may want to perform the first part of this ritual in a peaceful and quiet place and then invite others to join you for its conclusion.

One of the central themes of Rosh Hashanah is t eshuva.   Teshuva is often translated as repentance, but the root of the word really means to return.  It is the act of returning to God, to our community, and to a better version of ourselves.  It is the process of returning to the person we were meant to be before we veered off in another direction. 

When considering teshuva within the context of a fertility journey, we might think of teshuva as the reawakening of some of the positive aspects of ourselves that we may not have been able to nurture during this struggle. You may have been so busy with all of the things you are doing in order to grow your family that you have not had time to care for other parts of your personality, your social life, your interests, and your soul.

Consider which aspects of yourself have you placed aside and ignored as you progressed in your fertility journey?   

Ex. I used to love cooking and no longer have time for that.  My social life is vastly diminished since all my friends are pregnant or have kids and it’s too difficult to hang out. I used to paint, but now I don’t feel inspired to do so.)
 

Perhaps this Rosh Hashanah can be a time for you to explore teshuva , and return to this aspect of yourself.   Begin this teshuva ritual by reading Jill’s personal narrative which appears in Fertility Journeys: A Jewish Healing Guide.  

Returning to Exercise
Before I started my fertility journey, I was a very active person.  I went to the gym multiple times a week, and I especially loved taking yoga and dance classes.  Staying healthy in this way not only benefited my body but it also nourished my soul.  I remember so many times, walking out of a dance class feeling alive and energized.  

I was very surprised when I found myself having trouble conceiving. I was so active and healthy, I never thought I would have a problem. I felt so angry at my body for failing me.  How could it betray me when I treated it so well? I’m not sure if I did this as a subconscious act of revenge or if it just was a result of my circumstances, but the deeper I got into my fertility journey, the less I exercised.   By three years in, I was no longer going to the gym at all. 

When speaking with a friend of mine, she gently asked me why I no longer danced or worked out?  When I replied with the same excuses I always said when people I knew from the gym said that they missed me--I am too busy, I am too tired, I have too much else going on etc.--she seemed sad.  She said, “but being active always made you so happy and fulfilled, what are you doing to fill that void?” That was a question for which I simply did not have an answer.
 

Consider any elements of yourself that you have set aside since you began your fertility journey.  You may want to make a list on your paper and see how many you come up with. For each item that you add to your list, ask Why did I stop doing this? How do I usually feel when I engage in this activity? How could I integrate this aspect of myself back into my life?  You may want to explore these questions by journal or thinking them through. 

Next, select one that you feel you would derive the most benefit from reengaging.  Design a plan for how you will introduce this element of yourself back into your life. 

To help these plans become a reality, create for yourself a mini-vision circle. A vision circle is a gathering in which people share visions that they have or plans that they are going to carry out, while others listen, witness these commitments and circle back to check in on these plans at a later date.  You do not need to gather a whole group of people, but think about how you can share your plan to reintroduce this element into your life with others so that you can have this kind of support. 

You may want to send out an email to a few people and ask them to check in with you in a set timeframe to see how you are doing.  You may want to post on social media – you can share this endeavor without explaining that this is a result of struggling to grow your family.   Tell at least two people, but if you are able to share this with more people, that can strengthen you further. 

As you take the time to perform this act of teshuva , notice how it changes and impacts you.  Do you feel more like your authentic self? Do you feel more alive?  Do you feel more soulful?  If so, perhaps you may want to select other elements from your list and find ways to bring them back into your life as well. 

The rituals in this booklet are intended to support you and offer you opportunities to connect to the themes of Rosh Hashanah no matter where you are along your fertility journey.  The New Year may offer you an opportunity to immerse yourself in greater self care, and allow you new opportunities to reflect upon and process your fertility journey.  As you look back on this past year, and envision the one ahead, consider how you may want to use these rituals and how they may guide you toward the next step in your journey. 

A fertility journey may feel quite lonely, and you may want to grasp onto this prayer which expresses deep longing in the plural.  You are not alone on this journey, and you are held in the heart of so many others who know this path and who wish for your dreams to be fulfilled.  

רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם מַלֵּא מִשְׁאֲלוֹתֵינוּ לְטוֹבָה בְּרַחֲמִים, וְזַכֵּנוּ לָבֹא לְכָל מַה שֶּׁבִּקַּשְׁנוּ מִלְּפָנֶיךָ, שֶׁנִּזְכֶּה לִהְיוֹת בְּשִׂמְחָה תָמִיד
 (ליקוטי תפילות חלק ב’ תפילה מ)  

Ribono Shel Olam, malei m’shalotainu le’tovah b’rachamim, ve’zacheinu la’vo lekol ma she’bikashnu m’lfanecha, she’nizkeh le’hiyot bi’simcha tamid. (lekutei tefillah, section 2, prayer 40) 

Sovereign of the Universe (feel free to substitute this phrase as you see fit), fulfill our requests for good in a merciful way, and may we merit to come to experience everything that we have requested and may we discover a life filled with abundant joy. 
May the rituals in this booklet bring you comfort, inspiration, and a pathway toward beautiful new beginnings.