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Rabbi Michael Strassfeld

ON ROSH HASHANAH

Rosh Hashanah is about possibilities and births, new beginnings. In some ways that’s the potential of cyclical time. You think you’re just a year older, but you can start again.

Jonathan Blake

ON ROSH HASHANAH

It’s like you’re on cruise control, mindlessly going down the highway, when suddenly you’re confronted with lights and sirens and you have to think fast and take control of the pedals or you’re going to end up part of the emergency situation up ahead.

That’s Rosh Hashanah to me: Yes, it’s a sweet time, a time for apples and honey, but even more it’s alarm-clock time: the piercing wail of the shofar that shakes us out of the stupor of the daily routine. We understandably crave comfort and convenience: the chaos of the world around us practically demands that we insulate ourselves with regimen and regularity. Rosh Hashanah bolts us awake. It says: “Life doesn’t have to be like this.” You can change. Your hurting relationships can be better. Your unfounded anxieties and petty fixations need not strangle you forever in their grip. Your accumulated, tough scar tissue need not keep you from feeling. Your life holds possibilities—beautiful opportunities—some of which you’ve falsely assumed out of your reach, some of which you haven’t even dared to dream up. That’s Rosh Hashanah to me, a blast of the possible.