Blessings for Rosh Hashanah & Ramadan
September 12, 2007
Rosh Hashanah begins tonight at sundown, and with it the new year 5768. I'll be spending today tending to a variety of details both personal and congregational, so I'm signing off now -- this is my last post of the old year.
To all who celebrate the Days of Awe, I wish a shanah tovah! May we all have a good and sweet new year, and may we find it in ourselves to make teshuvah and re/turn in the right direction.
And to all who celebrate Ramadan, which I understand will begin tomorrow at sundown (along with our second day of Rosh Hashanah), I wish a Ramadan mubarak! May the coming month bring us all closer to holiness, and may all we children of Ibrahim be blessed by our connections.
Each year, Ethan and I send, as our new year's card, one of my poems written during the month of Elul. This year's poem is enclosed (below the extended entry link), and I offer it with warmth and good wishes to all of you. May we all inscribe ourselves in the Book of Life for the coming year.
ASPIRATION
What matters isn't
who I am on retreat,
singing the day into being,
but who I am
when I've come home
to the cat and the bills,
to-do list as long
as the yoga mat
I too rarely unfurl.
The real work
is living my intentions
at my desk, the laptop open;
in a slow-moving line
at the grocery store
past screaming tabloids;
when someone I love
loses a job or a partner
or a body that works.
Elul, this moon
cycling its phases
before the days of awe,
is a string on my finger
tefillin on my arm
a winding reminder
that I don't need
the addictions of ego
or self-importance.
Every instant
is a new year, a new chance
to bear again in mind
that every sunrise
is the light of creation
in sweet reprise
and every moment
is a prayer I'm blessed
to be able to recite.