Over 60 days! If you’re reading this on August 1st, we are more than 65 days away from the new year, Rosh Hashanah. It’s a weird thing about the holidays. When talking about when the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur fell on any given years, most of us will say that they’re either “late” or “early” this year. Have you ever noticed that we never say the holidays are on time? Maybe it’s because we’re completely comfortable with what the holidays mean.
As I sit here in July, trying to write an article for August, I’m reminded of a Staples television commercial that ran for years. In it, a middle-aged man danced through the aisles of a store to the lyrics, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.” Dragging behind him were sad looking children whose depression was only worsened by their father’s happiness. The announcer then came on to declare, “that’s right, they’re going back to school!”
For many of us, it’s an exciting time, a time of transition and expectation, a time of anxiety and anticipation. The new school year is beginning, and the Jewish year is ending. While you’ve no doubt read it before, this is a time for us to sit back and to take stock of our lives.
While the calendars for the rest of the world won’t change for a few more months, many of us are feeling some sort of beginning. Students are getting ready to go back to school, buying their binders and back to school clothes. For some of us, it’s a natural time to reflect on where we were a year ago and all that has transpired in the last 12 months or so since last Yom Kippur.
There is simply too much that has happened to us as a Jewish people over that last year to properly delve into in a bulletin article. Instead, I want to invite you to take a moment and reflect on what has changed for you. Are you where you wanted to be a year ago? Are you where you thought you’d be? If the answer to one or both of those questions is no, then it might be worth exploring why our lives are something other than we’d want for ourselves.
When I was a student, I dreaded the fall. I loved the freedom and undemanding days of summer and was always reluctant to let them give way to the structure and stricture of the school year. Even as a parent, I don’t relish my children going back to school. I don’t get excited about getting them up and to school on time, of all the practices and rehearsals, the meetings, and the parties to which they’ll be invited.
In many ways, it’s a stressful time of the year. But for me, personally, there is one way in which this is the “most wonderful time of the year.” I love the High Holy Days. I love the obligation we feel to take stock of ourselves and our lives. I look forward to the difficult task of introspection that is demanded of us during these holidays.
May it be a year of blessing and happiness for us all.
Rabbi Ben Goldstein