L’shana Tova Tikatevu  Happy New Year 5768. Tonight is the start of Rosh Hashanah,, The beginning of the new year and one of the two most important days in the Jewish Calendar. (?     Tonight is also the beginning of the Islamic festival of Ramadan)

Over the next 10 days, Jews all over the world gather to start thinking about the last year, what they did right, what they did wrong.. and are their intentions for the new year. The intent is to make atonement for past transgressions and set goals for the future. At the end  of 10 days, on Yom Kippur,  you  are hopefully written into the ‘book of life’ for a good and safe coming year. Why  couldn’t  it work last year for us.  I’m in Washington DC right now for an IBM Academy meeting.. This is the same gtroup of close friends that I get to see every couple of months. I really love these guys. Tonight we were all supposed to go out to a nice dinner, but my buddy Edie and I skipped the big dinner, grabed a bite at the food court

then found a local shul, (ie a synagogue or temple) to celebrate the new year.

I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to go this year. Sam’s passing has caused me to really rethink my own metaphysics.. I’ve always felt a great cultural affinity for my faith.. but I’ve never really thought that much about the beliefs. I know since Sam’s death that we are part of something much bigger.. at the same time I feel very much in my heart that none of the organized religions, including my own,  have a lock on describing what that is. In the end I decided to go for the sake of tradition.. and as a way to mark yet another milestone since Sam’s passing.

 
I found a nearby Reform Jewish Congregation  that would let us sit in. This one shared space with a Presbyterian church. I guess that works out pretty well, since the days of workshop only overlap very occasionally.  This was a pretty big group.. maybe 300 folks..many who looked like me..( go figure )

The service started at 8 PM. It was quite a bit different than the ones I’ve attended for the past 25 years… .this one had an organ and a full choir..

it reminded me of the congregation I used to go to in Houston. It’s much different than the more conservative and more informal places I’ve one to in Vermont over the past 25 years . This service was nearly all in English…  the Rabbi lead the service and did double duty as the chazen (or Cantor).  The music was much more… flowery than I was used to.. in some ways I missed the simpler familiar melodies that I’ve become used to.. at the same time.. the fact that it was not to familiar probably helped make it less painful for me…

 
And parts of it were painful.. Two parts in particular.. The service opens and ends with the saying of the shecheyanu.

 

Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha’olam shecheyanu v’kiy’manu v’higyanu lazman hazeh. 

 This  prayer is typically said whenever 3 or more people come together for worship to thank  …( who ?)  for bringing you safely to that point in time. As soon as I heard it.. I was reminded that we had not all arrived safely … I really broke down.. The middle of the service was pretty good.. they had a funny youngish rabbi, good voice etc. Another interesting difference is that all the liturgy here was in English.. The good part about the places I usually go is that most of the service are in Hebrew.  Which I can read OK.. but not translate well  That makes it easy to drift off into my own thoughts.   Here I had to pay attention.. I did manage to contain my fidgeting for the two hours.. I took a few discreet pictures, made an impromptu paper SamStone..

….and reflected on my past year… Somehow that didn’t seem as necessary.. because that’s basically all I’ve been doing for the past 10 months… Even so.. it was nice to sit their quietly and think of all of my nuclear and extended family.. I spent the time sending them all love..

 The end of the service includes a recitation of the Mourners Kaddish. The prayer for those who  have died… . That was hard for me..  yet somehow not as hard as I had expected. I’d been thinking abut that moment for several months.. dreading it.. I actually felt some degree of peace. I felt Sam so near me…

 

The service broke up around 10 and Edie and I drove back to find the others.. We met them in the bar for a beer then everyone drifted off to bed..

 

I need to do the same.. Again I want to wish everyone reading a  sweet and peaceful coming year. L’Shana Tova..  Oh.. the story is.. each one of us has 2 angels standing on his or her shoulders. Each time someone tells us ‘L’Shana Tova’ (happy new year) the two angels fly up to G-d and ask him to write you into the book of life this year… So.. pass it on. 

Lshana tova my family… l’shana tova my friends L’shana tova Sam

-me