Tomorrow marks another new year. Wrong time of year, you might think…if you aren’t Jewish. If you are Jewish, like me, you’ll be ringing in the new year tomorrow evening and all of Thursday not with noisemakers and bells but with the sound of the shofar and lots of prayers. If you’re lucky, you’ll get some candy apples, too.
For the last few years, Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Repentance, which follows just 10 days later, have felt like an inconvenience in my already too busy schedule. They feel a little bit like that this year, but not as much so. I’m not so busy at work…although I need to be.
Not that I’m not at my desk many hours a day. I am. I’m not getting any writing done on my books, though…not yet. And I’m not making any money…not yet.
So, what are my new year’s resolutions? I’m not making any. In true Jewish manner, I am simply looking at how I set my targets last year and if I managed to hit the bull’s eye. I’m resetting my targets, asking for forgiveness for missing some targets (too many, I fear), and figuring out how to take better aim – what and how to practice to be better at hitting that bull’s eye. Yes, that’s what the holidays are about — archery practice. After all, “sin” is just a “missed mark.” The terms comes from archery — al chet. Did you know that? It’s not something that dooms you to hell. And true repentance, good deeds and charity go along way toward ensuring that at least you live to make the most of the next year.
I did read something this week that was interesting, though. I admit, it came from the Kabbalah Centre…not most Kabbalists favorite source of information. However, I liked what they had to say. The basic idea was that whatever we do from sunset on Rosh Hashanah until sunset two days later (the end of the holiday) sets the tone for what we will manifest the rest of the year. It’s like a two-day conscious creation exercise or Law of Attraction workshop. Pretty amazing, huh? I thought so. Now…can I manage for two days to really act the way I want my new year to be?
No worries. According to Rabbi Berg, if you mess up and yell at your kids or overspend, you need only repent, do good deeds, give charity to fix your mistakes…or something like that. The basic idea was that you can fix your mistakes…write in your Book of Life again…cocreate some more…attract in a better way the next day. You get the idea. It’s not all lost if you screw up during Rosh Hashanah. You can fix it afterwards. But…don’t miss the big opportunity to do some major conscious creating on the Jewish New Year!
