We are in the midst of the High Holy Days of the Jewish year. Rosh Hoshana, the Jewish New Year was celebrated last weekend and tonight at sundown the celebration of Yom Kippur begins. The first commemorates the creation of the world and marks a ten-day period of introspection and repentance that culminates on the second, also called the Day of Atonement. In the Hebrew sacred texts, the Book of Leviticus mandates this time and this day – the tenth day of the seventh month

The Danish author, Karen Blixen, well known for her books “Out of Africa” and “Babette’s Feast” which were ultimately made into movies, wrote under several pen names depending on what country her audience was located in. In 1934, as Isak Dinesen, she published a short story collection entitled, “Seven Gothic Tales.” In “The Deluge at Norderney” the story is told of a man who discovered that his father, a ship’s captain, was not his biological father. In his unhappiness he