A New Year Goes

Julius Lester wrote, “I don’t like it when gentile and Jewish friends greet me at Rosh Hashanah with “Happy New Year.” Rosh Hashanah is not the equivalent of January 1.

“I have never understood what “Happy New Year” is supposed to mean. I’ve never been sure that I want to be wished happiness. I’m not sure I know what happiness is, or that it is as important as we think. Happiness feels better than misery, but some of the most important periods of my life have been the ones of profound unhappiness. For all the feelings of well-being that happiness bestows upon us, it is not the goal of life.”

The holy days are over.  Families gathered and returned back to their homes.  The rushes of gatherings, holiday meals, and good wishes have long receded into thin memories.  We have pleaded for life and forgiveness. We starved ourselves on Yom Kippur as we imagined God surrounded by each soul and myriads of Angels waiting in turn for judgment.  A stay has been granted. 

Sukkot have been put away for another year.  Etrog and lulav are already turning brown.

Now comes the hard part. Longing for real change, it comes upon us in most mundane ways.  Judaism is a religion of faith in action.  Professing our belief in the God of Abraham and the importance of Judaism is nice, but for us God is not in the details; God is in what we do.  

That is why this is the hard part.  The Hebrew month we are in is Heshvan.  In Heshvan there are no holydays: it is empty of the numerous cues reminding us of God and self that dot the calendar for the rest of the year.   To fully realize our Jewish identity we must reach toward the promises we made last month and aspirations we vowed on Kol Nidre and begin to embody them.  This is our time to be tested, our Akeidah of sorts, determining whether the faith God trusted to us when our life was in the balance was well placed.

“After ecstasy, the laundry,” states an ancient wisdom.

Folding the clothes and putting them away we can sing a song to God.  In rising each morning we can say the Sh’ma and praise God for another day.  Instead of throwing papa’s tefillin away we can learn to put them on.  Perhaps mama’s tzedaka box can be retrieved from the cardboard boxes in the attic.  We can remember our parent’s yahrzeit and come to shul to say Kaddish for them this year.  From blessing our children to lighting Shabbat candles this is our time, our test.

Theologian Eugene Borowitz wrote, “No philosophy today empowers and elevates conscience, while economics, sociology, psychology and particularly psychoanalysis make man distrustful of it.”  So what can elevate our sense of wellbeing if not lofty ideas?  Doing the right thing.  Doing the godly thing.  Following and acting on the faith of the ages.  We are what we do.  We are not what we think. 

We have 613 mitzvot.  Pick one, any one, and start there.

Like Julius Lester, I did not wish you a “Happy New Year” on Rosh Hashanah but I did wish you a fulfilling one where you can become God’s vision of you.  My wish for you has not changed.

Some people call Heshvan, Mar-Heshvan, meaning the “bitter” Heshvan because of the lack of holidays.  I think of Heshvan as the month of opportunity.  It is a testing ground to determine whether we have changed or only aged another year.