Rosh Hashanah, what is it good for…
First, let’s start with shana tovah u’metukah, which in Hebrew is a wish for a good and sweet new year. Symbolically, we’ll eat apples with honey in this house – this is tradition. And on Rosh Hashanah, which starts tonight and also starts a ten day trek to Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, it will be all about teshuva or returning to what is pure inside of us and realizing where we might have gotten off track.
Catholics have confession, Jews have the High Holy Days – everyone needs a good purge and a chance to begin again.
This is a time when we are also supposed to look for the kernel of good in everyone, including those people who have wronged us, those we have turned away from, those we have become indifferent to – and that is a tough row to hoe for even the best of us, but try we must.
This morning I watched a guy carrying a placard on CNN and it said, “Islam will dominate, Freedom will die” – now you know this guy would be hard to love or forgive even in the best of us.
Tonight, I will blow the shofar, but eventually hope Tin will learn how to do it. And I will begin these holy days by saying I’m sorry to those I have wronged, consciously or unconsciously, and I hope when our paths cross again, I will be a better person and a more forgiving person.
Happy New Year everyone, may it be a good and sweet year for all of us.