Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed the high holy days this year.

I was dreading them, because I often feel so disingenuous, going to shul and reciting the words, when I’ve actively avoided religion for the rest of the year.

I used to sneer at twice-a-year Jews, and wonder what the point was, what they hoped to get out of it – and now I’ve become one of them. And, what’s more, my current lack of association feels even more painful on the days which used to be the most important to me.

But somehow, they weren’t that bad this time around. I enjoyed the sermons, thought-provoking and intelligent as they always are from our rabbis; I found it easier, as ever, to follow in my machzor, which in itself lends me a sense of achievement; I engaged with the singing and found I could take it seriously even without fully believing it. I managed to not bicker with my family, faint during the fast, or snap at the people chatting behind me.

All in all, the festivals surpassed my expectations.

The cynical part of me says it’s only because my expectations were so low that the reality couldn’t be any worse. In comparison to the awkward, over-heated, nostalgic days I anticipated, even the most unholy of holy days would seem relatively wholesome. I think there’s some truth in that, but there are other things, too.

Part of it was that somewhere during the Rosh Hashana sermon, I remembered that lots of the things we think about on those days, connected to God though they be, do not necessarily require the belief in a deity to function.

We talk about hopes for the future, regrets about the past, our struggles as human beings and ways in which we can improve ourselves. We read important stories, the Arcaidah and Jonah, which remind us to think carefully about right and wrong, and challenge the moral complacency which will have inevitably developed since their last readings. And even if you don’t believe that anyone is listening, the words “forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement” after a long list of sins which you know you committed, particularly when sung at full volume by a community standing around you, is deeply moving.

But also it was okay because, really, I didn’t go just for my own atonement and satisfaction for this one year. I went and I partook because if at some point I do need it again, it mustn’t be too alien. I know that the further I stray from the derech the harder it’ll be to find my way back, and these festivals, significant as they are, can be used as anchors for me. I can’t miss them – they’re too important.

So I go to shul, endure my discomfort and repress my qualms, just for these days, so that I have something to keep hold of. And maybe it won’t be next year, or the year after, or the year after that. But surely at some point it will all hold some promise for me again, and when that time comes, I don’t want to feel like it’s not my religion anymore.