Happy 5771!

I've been offline for a couple of days because of the flu and the holiday. It is Rosh Hashanah, so we spent yesterday in Temple at services, and then at my MIL's house last night for a delicious holiday dinner.

For those of you not familiar with the Jewish High Holidays, it shares some aspects with the secular New Year, in that we focus on doing better in the year to come. But it also has things that don't exist in the secular version.

We focus on forgiveness. On asking for it, and for giving it. And those requests are made to the people we may have hurt or offended in the past year. Sure, we ask G-d for mercy, but we have to deal with the people first. Otherwise, it's just taking the easy way out. And that doesn't count.

We also have a tradition that says that between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (which is a week from tomorrow), G-d writes our fate for the upcoming year -- who will live and die, who will succeed and fail, and such.

But there is a very Buddhist concept, tied up in the traditional Jewish message, that I am just learning. While we cannot change the heavenly decree, we can and are instructed to work on ourselves, through prayer and charity and learning, so that we can react better to the problems we may face (or even the blessings we may encounter.) It's so similar to the Buddhist idea that while suffering is an inevitable part of life, how we deal with the suffering either adds to or reduces the pain we feel. We have a choice.

I love it when I find yet another way that the great faiths of this world unite and intersect!

So to those who celebrate the High Holidays, and to those who do not, I want to share my wish for all of you. I hope that this year is....

A year of joy and prosperity....
A year of growth and learning....
A year of health....
A year of new opportunities to discover your path....
A year of gaining the skills and perspective to deal with the "downs" in life's ups and downs....
A year of exciting beginnings....
A year of satisfying endings...
A year to take at least one more step to knowing who you are...

Namaste. L'shana tova!