This is the second Rosh Hashanah we’re celebrating under a cloud of Covid uncertainty. For far too many, there’s the continuing struggle to cope with loss and grief, financial insecurity, and mental health challenges. For all, a kind of fatigue as we confront another stage in what is now an 18-month-long pandemic.
How do we reconcile this weariness with what is supposed to be a time of renewal and new beginnings?
On a personal level, as Rosh Hashanah starts, my wife and I are blessed with no shortage of new beginnings: the joy of welcoming our first grandchild and witnessing our eldest son become a father. Another son and daughter-in-law making aliyah, starting new lives in Israel. Our youngest daughter off to college (admittedly, 36 blocks away…), leaving us official empty nesters. Some changes are wonderful, others are bittersweet. And we are reminded that even in a pandemic, life marches on.
On a more universal level, Rosh Hashanah arrives to awaken us all and upset our sense of stasis. Here is an opportunity to assess and restart individually and collectively — to imagine the world as we want it to be, and how we might transform that vision into reality.
After a year and a half of Covid; rising antisemitism; catastrophic fires, hurricanes, and flooding; and growing challenges in Israel and across the Middle East, we can feel overwhelmed by distress and exhaustion. But the new year reminds us that renewal is possible, and we are empowered — in fact, obligated — to be agents of change.
We ask ourselves how we might respond to some of the most pressing issues of our times: What can we do to help our community and our region recover from the pandemic? To address the undeniably dire matter of climate change? To fight antisemitism as a united front? To help refugees build new lives, welcoming the stranger as we were once welcomed? To help ensure a vibrant and democratic Jewish State where peaceful coexistence flourishes?
How do we come to this moment next year with the knowledge that we did what we could to make a difference?
As we usher in the year 5782, UJA remains committed to mobilizing our community’s response to these and other critical issues. Personally, I’ll be thinking about these questions with an eye toward my granddaughter, and all those born in the middle of a pandemic, bringing us enormous light in a time of darkness. And I’ll pray that we have the courage and wisdom to do what is needed so that we may leave this new generation a kinder and safer world than the one we inhabit today.
Shanah tovah, may this truly be a good year, a year of peace, health, and new beginnings.
Shabbat shalom