Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech haolam, shehechehyanu, v’kiy’manu, v’higianu laz’man hazeh.
Our praise to You, Eternal our God, Sovereign of all: for giving us life, sustaining us, and enabling us to reach this season.
Richard & I have an incredible amount to be grateful for as we enter the Jewish Year 5775. Two years ago, when we celebrated our first Rosh Hashannah in Brooklyn, we had just moved, and after 35 years in Chicago, we felt like “strangers in a strange land.”
Two years later, we have been embraced by the members of Congregation Beth Emeth, and we have many new friends, neighbors,and colleagues. We have also reconnected with old friends and relatives who have either lived here (meaning the East Coast) all along or preceded us in our transition from the Windy City.
At the same time, we have kept in touch with many of our wonderful Chicago friends who were there to greet us when we arrived for a visit in mid-August. And through the miracle of cyberspace, we have also kept up with other friends all around the world with whom our paths have crossed at one time or another.
We have our health. We have each other. And we both have satisfying work which allows us to continue to contribute to things larger than ourselves. We are blessed.
Wishing you and yours a happy healthy New Year, Jan & Rich
May we hold lovingly in our thoughts those who suffer from tyranny, subjection, cruelty, and injustice, and work every day towards the alleviation of their suffering.
May we recognize our solidarity with the stranger, outcast, downtrodden, abused, and deprived, that no human being be treated as “other,” that our common humanity weaves us together in one fabric of mutuality, one garment of destiny.
May we pursue the Biblical prophet’s vision of peace, that we might live harmoniously with each other and side by side, respecting differences, cherishing diversity, with no one exploiting the weak, each living without fear of the other, each revering Divinity in every human soul.
May we struggle against institutional injustice, free those from oppression and contempt, act with purity of heart and mind, despising none, defrauding none, hating none, cherishing all, honoring every child of God, every creature of the earth.
May the Jewish people, the state of Israel, and all peoples know peace in this New Year, and may we nurture kindness and love everywhere.
The Fiddler © Michele Pulver Feldman. Posted with permission from the artist.
Click HERE for Rabbi Rosove’s Prayer for a New Year.
