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Writer's picturerabbijonathanf

New Hope from the New Year in a World of Upheaval



Rosh Hashanah is a time of hope, new possibilities, and new direction as we enter the new year.  Yet I have mixed feelings about the upcoming High Holidays, living here in Israel.  How can we have joy and hope when over 100 hostages are still in tunnels in Gaza, when 50-100 rockets a day come over the northern border, and when 60,000 Israeli souls are displaced from their homes?  We will be saying the Yizkor prayer for over 1500 deaths from the past year.  And how can we celebrate these holidays with the shadow of October 7 looming over Simhat Torah and the whole holiday season? And does the recent spectacular tourn-around in the war in Lebanon change our feelings about the losses we have suffered?

 

One thing we do know is that every Jew throughout the world has been jolted to a new sense of connection to Israel and Jews worldwide.  The feeling of belonging to the Jewish people has been awakened within each of us.  Yet, at the same time, we have been shocked into a sense of vulnerability as Jews and a feeling of worry about Israel that we did not feel before.  Beginning with the horrors of October 7, cascading into the challenges of the war in Israel and worldwide anti-semitism, and most disturbingly, with the internal fracturing in Israel, we have lost our grounding.  We feel dumbfounded but also overwhelmed, overstimulated, and overextended in our ability to process the monumental scope of what is going on for us as Jews and Israelis.

 

Yet, with everything happening, living in Israel, I feel reassured knowing I am home; I am in the homeland of our people, the land that the Almighty promised us as a nation.  From this deeply rooted foundation, I try to direct the feeling of helplessness into a sense of turning it over to G-d.  Otherwise, the chaos around us is too devastating to contemplate, let alone hope to control. Israel's and the Jewish people's entire history is an unfolding series of unsurmountable challenges that we survive against all rational expectations.  Not only do we survive, but we also build and flourish.  And this is where we come back to Rosh Hashanah because the High Holidays is an opportunity to reconnect to G-d's world, to the realization that there is a larger story unfolding; we are not in the driver's seat, and the holiday is an opening to a world of new possibilities for the New Year.

 

How do we access new potential if our Sages teach us that our fate is determined for the upcoming year on Rosh Hashanah?  The words of our High Holiday prayers, 'Who will live and who will die,' have become all the more poignant since October 7 as a result of the war.  Yet that does not mean we are fatalists.  We believe we are partners with the Almighty in determining the unfolding of our lives.  And so, at this time of the year, we go through a process of personal reflection and change to improve our lives and take ownership of our destiny's direction.

 

Before and on Rosh Hashanah, we take stock to see what we can improve and how we can retool to become better.  We reflect on our priorities to see if our lives align with our values and if we are fulfilling our Divine potential and purpose in this world. We pray that the Almighty protects us, our loved ones, and our people. We pray that we merit His blessings; if we do not merit them, we ask for His mercy and that He focus on our positive sides, not our mistakes. We use all our strengths and resources to correctly set new goals and determine the steps to achieve them. We cannot control the world around us, but we can work on mastering the world within us.  And if we do so, we will rebuild ourselves, our families, our community, and the Jewish people.

 

Once we have done the inner work, we will be better equipped to live with uncertainty and trauma and then turn outward and give back to our people and ourselves. Whether it is volunteering, advocating, or supporting someone who is struggling, we can all, in our own way, be part of our people's struggles not just to survive but to strive for greatness. Rosh Hashanah allows us to jump-start that process.

 

In the past days many of our heroic reserve soldiers in the IDF have been called up to the North as Israel is poised to go deeper into Lebanon, and they will be spending Rosh Hashanah in the field.  And last night many of us were in our safe spaces as the Iranians tried to unsuccessfully attack us. We are on the second lines, our chayalim are on the front lines putting their lives on the line for Israel and the Jewish people.  Especially this Rosh Hashanah we have the opportunity to rededicate ourselves and put our trust in the Almighty who has already protected us with miracles.  In the merit of our heartfelt prayers on Rosh Hashanah, may the Almighty keep us and our chayalim safe, may He bring the captives home, as we hope for a better year, and may the Almighty bring strength and ultimately peace to His people.

 

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