Tonight, at sundown, our Jewish brothers and sisters began the two-day festival that marks the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. It is described by Neil Gillman of the Jewish Theological Seminary this way, "This festival has evolved through our tradition to represent a season of personal and universal renewal. Every human being needs an opportunity to begin again, to wipe out the past and dream dreams about what his or her life can become. . . . We say goodbye to the old time and hello to the new. In the process we say goodbye to our old selves and hello to our new ones."
What a wonderful holy day to celebrate - a chance for a new beginning. How many times in life would it be nice to have a “do over” - a chance to do it all again with new found knowledge, experience? I like the idea of “saying hello to a new self” as the initial phase of 10 days of repentance that culminates in Yom Kippur. It is amazing to me how many times I lie in bed at the beginning of a month or at the beginning of a week and think to myself, “This time, I’m going to....” For some reason, I need a mark in the sand, where I can point and say this is where I started the new process. And there is a growing need to forgive and love the old self and the new self in order to continue to grow. Perhaps this is what we do each Sunday in worship, but our Jewish tradition also tells us that there needs to be an intentional process - a seasonal, annual rhythm.
I’ve been thinking a lot about new beginnings in the last few months - new beginnings for this blog, new beginnings for myself, new beginnings in our family, new beginnings in ministry... There are a lot of new things happening. Perhaps tonight at sundown is the beginning - a chance to begin again - a way to say hello again to the new and to you.
May you be blessed in all the new beginnings of your life whenever they occur.
Salt
"Taste and see that the Lord is good." Psalm 34:8
