PANDEMIC DIARY
ROSH HA-SHANAH
September 17, 2020
You may wonder why a religious cynic would even take up the subject of the two Highest Holy Days on the Jewish calendar? However, here we are, one day removed from the start of the Jewish New Year, ‘Rosh Hashanah’, literally translated, “the head of the year’ or ‘the beginning of the year’, and I thought I’d give it a shot.
I think it was the great psychologist, Scott Peck, who said, “You can remember the past, but don’t ‘re-live’ it; you can plan for the future, but don’t ‘pre-live’ it”. Sounds very Buddhist to me. And, very good advise. I bring this up because Time is an important element in Judaism. Most religions, indeed the average individual, imagines time to be a straight line with infinite unique points that have never existed before and will never exist again. Ergo, George Santayana’s prophetic reflection, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
In the Jewish faith, time is more of a spiral where time moves ahead and each year passes through seasonal cycles, coordinates on the cycle that are imbued with certain qualities and spiritual meanings and potentials. Or, if George Santayana were Jewish he might have noted that, “Those who remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” OY VEY!
In truth, the holidays in the Jewish faith are guideposts. They are intended to reminds us of the spiritual opportunities that exist as we remember and reflect on the historical significance of the events that took place in our history. An example would be the Passover celebration when the Jews escaped the oppression in the Land of Egypt. Passover reminds us of freedom, a lesson not to be forgotten. So, on Passover we retell the story of our journey to freedom.
Rosh Hashana is the beginning of the new year and together with Yom Kippur we are provided the opportunity to reflect on our behavior the previous year and to make amends for our wrong doings. We celebrate the sweetness of life and the forthcoming year in which we can live a more perfect life. We dip apples in honey - the apple a symbol of harvest and abundance with the taste of honey that adds sweetness. It is also a reminder that when we were born, we we conceived in a state of innocence. Yom Kippur is a ‘cleansing’ from past mistakes and a chance to return us to ‘a clean slate’.
I have ignored most of the purely religious aspects of this holiday to keep this message simple and straight forward. I wish to take this opportunity to wish my friends of the opportunity to that life offers these beginnings everyday of our lives. I also want to extend my sincere appreciation for having you all in my life that makes my blogging of significant meaning to me. This blog provides me the opportunity to realize what is important to me and how I wish to exist in the world.
So, although today is the start of the Jewish New Year, may we all reflect on our lives for this moment and appreciate that we are all seeking to make this day and each day a possibility for better times ahead,
L’shanah Tovah! May we each have a good, sweet, peaceful and loving New Year.
