For Jews, the month of September is more or less one non-stop religious holiday. Our calendar is woefully imbalanced- leaving four major holidays to occur within four weeks: Rosh haShanah (the New Year), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), Sukkot (Feast of Booths) and Simchat Torah (Celebration of the Renewing of the Torah Cycle). 

Every year our community collectively has the same debate: have these holidays (which we collectively call the High Holy Days) come too early, or too late? The question itself is bizarre as they happen the same time every year- or at least, the same time in the Hebrew calendar. Yet, because ours is a lunar-solar scheme, versus the solar-only Gregorian calendar, the result is that the High Holy Days appear to move: some years they begin in late August, some years they don't start until October. 

Yet the sensation of 'earliness' or 'lateness' is obviously an illusion! These few weeks are the time when we as Jews are asked to ask forgiveness- from God, from each other, and from ourselves. That process, what we call Teshuvah (Return) is not an easy thing to do, and as a result, every year we find ourselves caught off-guard! Yet, it is never *too* early and, perhaps more critically, it is never *too* late to say sorry– to apologise and to atone. 

Whenever the holidays fall, for us, the opportunity to make amends and improve our lives is always, without fail, right on time.