new year

Here it is again – my favorite time of year.

Leaves crunching underneath my cowboy boots.

I always take stock each Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year.) The holiday begins today when the sun goes down. I am in Kentucky with my father, and tonight the two of us will eat slices of apple dipped in honey, hoping to usher in a sweet new year.


We Jews look hopefully toward the future at this season, while we also look back at what we could have done differently in the past.

Mostly, though, we begin to think about forgiving those who have hurt us and asking forgiveness from those we have hurt. Ten days from now, on Yom Kippur, the most important Jewish holiday of the year, we will implement that task.

It’s a pretty simple concept, really. And a nice exercise to go through.

As I take stock here in my childhood home, it’s easy to see my life from an expansive vantage point. I can rummage through my bedroom drawers here and read notes I passed with my girlfriends in 5th grade. I can thumb through stacks of family photos going all the way back to my first birthday. Toys I played with when I was little still sit on the shelves in my father’s basement. My piano lesson books, complete with gold star and notes from Mrs. Huddleston, are piled in the piano bench. It’s all here.

But my thoughts turn more to my own children, my sweet and happy children. I think about what lies ahead for them in the coming year, what lies ahead for them in the coming YEARS and what lies ahead for their children even further down the road. With the shaky financial situation and with the uncertain upcoming election, the divisiveness in the country coupled with an undue amount of mean spiritedness...

I think I’ll eat a few extra slices of honey dipped apples tonight.

Happy New Year to all!