With the Days of Awe under way, we now turn our attention to Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

While holidays like Purim and Passover offer the comfort of family traditions, Yom Kippur is different. The religious ritual may be fixed, but the internal experience can never be duplicated.

That’s because we are different every year. We’ve each aged and, ideally, grown. We have embraced new joys and triumphs, endured new shocks and sorrows. None of us is the same.

Thus the experience of tshuvah — of repentance and restoration — is never the same. Going into Yom Kippur each year, we invariably confront the unknown.

Some things about Yom Kippur do not change, one of them being the requirement to make amends to those we have wronged during the year.

This is never easy or fun. But it must be done to make things right between us and those around us, as well as right between us and God.

We at j. also need to make amends. And we don’t want to offer up one of those non-apology apologies either. You know, the sort in which a wayward politician or celebrity says something like, “If I offended anyone, well, then I’m sorry.”

That just doesn’t cut it. There’s no responsibility with such an apology.

So, with that in mind, and in the true spirit of the season, we wish to make specific apologies to our readers and advertisers.

In the past year we at times inadvertently made factual errors in our reporting. For that, we apologize.

There were instances when we did not properly reproduce an ad placed by any of our valued advertisers, or failed to get them in the paper on time. For that, we apologize.

Whether due to haste or lack of space, we at times neglected to report on a story that would have been of interest to the Bay Area Jewish community. For that, we apologize.

It’s possible that someone on staff might have been brusque or dismissive to those placing a story, op-ed, photo or calendar item in j. For that, we apologize.

And for anything else we did to hurt, diminish or divide the Bay Area Jewish community, however unintentionally, we humbly apologize.

We could make excuses. Putting together a quality newspaper is tough. There are a million moving parts, and any one of them can — and often does — go wrong.

None of that matters. We are here to serve you, and as professionals we make every effort to do so. Sometimes we fall short of the mark, and for that we beg your forgiveness.

A meaningful Yom Kippur experience, an easy fast and a sweet new year to all of our readers.