I'm a Stephen Sondheim fan. In the world of musical theater, if you want something that's going to go right to your heart, you can count on Irving Berlin. If you're looking for light-hearted camp, look to the numbers sung by the second female lead in a lot of Rogers and Hammerstein productions. But if you're looking for someone who accurately describes the human condition, look to Sondheim.

Not every Sondheim show enjoyed a long run and there are certainly duds among the musical numbers, but there are also classics: "Send in the Clowns," "Comedy Tonight" and "The Ladies Who Lunch" to name a few. The last song in the list is featured in "Company," a show about love and relationships in the 1970s. My favorite Sondheim song is featured in this show as well.

In "Company," the majority of the characters in the play are in romantic relationships and worry that the main character, Bobby, a single man, will never find a mate. Bobby, wondering if monogamy is for him, asks one of his male friends what it's like to be married. Because it's musical theater, his friend breaks into song. The result is a wistful number called "Sorry-Grateful."

The cycle of fall holidays for an American Jew can be described using Sondheim's words: "You're sorry-grateful, regretfulhappy." We move, sometimes jarringly, from Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to Sukkot, Simchat Torah and Thanksgiving. Vowing to do better and be better in the new year, we don't leave our regrets and sorrows behind, instead bringing them forward in the hopes of achieving atonement. Just a few days after intense reflection and in some cases self-flagellation, we move directly into gratitude and then downright glee.

I'm not particularly good at this transition. In the weeks after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I find myself revisiting the thoughts and feelings brought up by those observances. I savor this time of self-reflection. Additionally, I find that I don't experience emotions serially. Rather, as Sondheim suggests, I'm perfectly capable--perhaps even suited to--states such as sorry-grateful.

This multiplicity of feelings has been on my mind as we've marched through singularly focused holidays. With the exception of a handful of mitzvot (eating matzah on Passover, shaking the lulav on Sukkot) the practice of most of the commandments in the Torah is not confined to a specific day. Though the greeting card industry may have concentrated honoring one's parents into a small, late-spring window, the Torah expects it all of the time. Though giving thanks and confessing guilt were not necessarily daily practice in a society that used animal sacrifice as a way to express both these emotions, neither were they confined to one or two days a year.

Today, in a Jewish world where ritual sacrifice has been replaced by prayer, we have even more opportunities to express gratitude and regret. In fact, Jewish liturgy gives us the opportunity to express these feelings daily. Not because we're working toward a goal or gearing up for a special day--just because. Judaism--like one of its more poetic sons--recognizes that these emotions are an essential part of the human condition even when they conflict.

Perhaps it would feel less jarring, more natural, if we stopped to acknowledge them more often. As we begin our journey toward the next American celebration--that of the secular New Year--this is what I'm thinking about.