Because submission to God’s will is one way to look at bowing fully down on the Yamim Noraim…but what if we are taking a bow, an end-of-the-year curtain call, so that God can applaud us for all we’ve endured? This was written as an introduction to the Alenu during musaf on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Take a bow, my friends. In a moment, we will take a bow.

Take a bow for every moment this year you did not want to live—and somehow, you lived it anyway.
Take a bow for the demotion.
Take a bow for the grades you couldn’t get up no matter how hard you studied.
Take a bow for the oncologist’s office—for sitting in that chair, hearing those words, and getting through what came next.
Take a bow for that day you sat on the tarmac for two hours – in the middle seat. Because some suffering is existential, and some suffering is Newark Airport.

Take a bow
For all the you-know-what you put up with.
For all the meetings you did not want to go to.
For every time your spouse left the cap off the toothpaste and you didn’t say a word.
Take a bow for every time you brought your kid one more glass of water before bed. 
Take a bow for the patience you did not know you had.
Take a bow for the anger you learned to carry without letting it carry you.

Take a bow for the grief.
Take a bow for the nights you lay awake wishing the person who used to drive you crazy was still there to drive you crazy.
Take a bow for learning to sleep with the empty space in the bed beside you.
Take a bow for getting out of bed the next morning.

Take a bow for showing up.
For enduring.
Take a bow because you are still here.
After everything this year brought to your door—
after everything it took from you,
after everything it asked of you,
after every single time you thought, I cannot do this—
Look at you.
You did it.
So take a bow.

The Great Alenu is next. We are going to all take a bow. 
Because yes we bow down to God in submission
for all we have endured 
But you know what? 
I think God is cheering for us.

We have put up with a whole lot this year. God wants us to endure, to overcome. 

Someone once said to me: I wish you could see yourself the way God sees you.

So today, I’m imagining Alenu as a grand curtain call. We bow to God. God bows back to us. And then God rises, applauding: Look at you. Look what you made it through.

And look at you, still standing, ready for another year.