Well wishes for the new year
It is the end of the month of Elul. Tonight, it will be 5772, as we reckon it, the anniversary of creation and the time that creation is renewed.
It is up to us to change the world. The duty is ours. We all have a part whether or not we embrace it. It is not someone else’s job. To borrow from another tradition, the cup does not pass. The mitzvot that we have in our power, do not belong to others, they are ours, and ours alone to accomplish.
Either we stepped up, or we let the moment pass. The holidays are a reminder of this simple truth. We all have so many breaths and so many heartbeats. What did we use them for? How will we use the precious gift we have been given in the future?
The world is a daunting and terrifying place. It is full of distractions. It is full of lies. There are men so devoid of honor that they do not even recognize honor as an abstract concept. Evil men openly mock notions of charity and kindness. They spit on scholars, deny the worker his wage, and rights of the widow and the orphan. They renounce God by assuming that they have no duties to others, that their blessings were somehow given them by rights they do not possesses, as the fruits of labors, they did not do. These men lie as easily as they breathe. They live in a dark and fearful world where they automatically assume that the souls of others are as empty and worthless as their own. Others are callously expected to die for them, to fill their pockets and to exist to further their own petty ambitions in an impermanent world. They have no shame. They have no remorse. They have no compassion and even see that as a weakness. More and more, those are the men in power. That is what we face. Times of bitter strength will soon be upon us.
Hopelessness is a sin. It is the ultimate denial of God and the gifts of life.
It is all too easy to despair. It is all too easy to think one can do nothing, so why try? It is too easy to rationalize doing something… later… maybe. Please take heart that, the harder the work, the greater the reward. Understand that here and now are great deeds that you can do. Please see all the horrible challenges of the world as an opportunity to do great good by opposing and over coming those challenges. Evil men believe only in their own transient power and like the statue of Ozymandias, impotently trumpet their greatness and proclaim their eternal abilities. Good people know that there is no permanence, kindness or righteousness in the works of such men.
Jews believe at this time, the fates of all men for the coming year are established for blessings and trials; that God sits in review of His creation, culminating in a judgement at Yom Kippur. Whether we like it or not, this is the world we are born into and these are the trials we face.
My prayer this year, for me, and you and all who read this, is that we do take the lofty and hard steps towards repair of ourselves and our world. I pray that we find courage and dig deep and refuse to give up hope. I pray that we fight for what we know is right, like we mean it, like we never have before. I pray that we find the courage to face evils around us and to fight them. I pray that we remember we are not trivial beings. We were blessed from the source of all blessing, with the greatest blessing of all, life itself to do, to learn, to be, to become, to struggle and to prevail.