The High Holidays bring with them a creative tension: respect for tradition alongside a call for change, a time when we are aware of both our blessings and our responsibilities. We hear this piercing call at the center of our High Holiday liturgy: “Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day,” we pray during Un’taneh Tokef. “It is awesome and full of dread.”

In the past few weeks, some, including William McGurn, a former chief speechwriter for president George W. Bush, have drawn a comparison between the convent built on the perimeter of Auschwitz and the mosque scheduled to be built in the environs of Ground Zero in New York, where pieces of the planes fell. The fundamental argument has been that just as a convent does not belong on the grounds of the largest Jewish cemetery in the world, a mosque does not belong in the place where Americans representing a wide range of religions and ethnic backgrounds were killed. As leader of a group of seven who climbed the fence at Auschwitz in July of 1989 to protest against the convent, I would like to expand upon this comparison.

On Sept. 9, the Jewish community will joyously welcome in the year 5771.

Although Rosh HaShanah is a time of celebration, the holiday also marks the beginning of the serious introspection and reflection undertaken throughout the Days of Awe.

One hallmark of the High Holidays season is the concept of teshuvah, or repentance: the act of acknowledging our flaws and transgressions, of owning up to our errors and dedicating ourselves to self-correction.

My initial response to the Cordoba cultural center was accompanied by fear and anger. But with caution at my side, I asked reason to inform me. Just as I am opposed to family members making statements at the sentencing of a criminal guilty of hurting or murdering their loved one, I object to bringing in sentiment to justify the creation of exceptions to a constitutional guarantee. The rule of law is supposed to insulate justice from prejudice of all kinds. Zoning issues aside or other laws compatible with this guarantee, there is no good reason I have heard that should scuttle the cultural center at its present site. Frankly, what better place to educate the uneducated at a location not far from where political Islamists destroyed thousands of lives, including the countless survivors and responders? Declaring one or many guilty by their association with Islam is not only unfair; it is a product of irrational fear. Am I to be judged because of the Baruch Goldsteins in the world? To require any Muslim to assume guilt for 9/11 is repugnant and xenophobic. Jeremiah’s counsel is relevant. Instead of the sins of the fathers visited on the heads of their children, Jeremiah prophesied that “every one shall die for his own sins: whosoever eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be blunted.”

Over the last few months, I have had a front-row seat to history.

Last May, I spoke at a public hearing of Manhattan’s Community Board No. 1 in support of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan, the husband-and-wife team who initiated plans to build a 13-story Islamic community center two blocks north of Ground Zero.

I admire my colleagues and friends who have shown themselves to be courageous enough to speak out against the anti-Islam hysteria that tends to surround conversations about the Islamic center that is being planned for a property that for many is uncomfortably close to Ground Zero. They have shown themselves to be paragons of religious tolerance, and for this I commend them.

Reports of a fire at Majdanek that damaged the barracks housing hundreds of thousands of shoes of the Jews murdered in the death camp should cause us to shudder. Something monumental has been lost.

A word about Majdanek: The camp is situated in a valley just outside the major town of Lublin, in proximity to Little Majdan, from which it derived its name. It was situated in the Polish territory annexed to the Third Reich. During the war, it was part of Germany proper.