It is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and throughout my Jewish life I have been taught that this holiday is a time to celebrate, to appreciate what has come before us, and to seek fulfillment at-one-ment, toward the future, our personal future and for those in our lives. Spirits are high, hope, as it is supposed be eternal, is just waiting to be caught right at our fingertips, and the sweetness of apples and honey, the brightness of dreams, the ability to inhale, deeply await us. I so much want to believe all OF THAT, but cannot do most of that, with an honest heart, for this New Year!
It seems that hatred for the most basic concepts of life abounds destroying the lives as would the preverbal bull in a China shop. Republicans, in the midst of one catastrophic event after another, are insisting to create their own hardships as they plan to dismantle affordable health care. Party of course before people, and trying to appease a small minded, bigoted, self loathing group of people while making life miserable for everyone else. I think of my friends in Houston, and Florida, I think of the strangers in Mexico, Montana, Bali and those living in South Asia.Can the sweet aroma’s of apple and honey float freely above the rank odors of floods, the crumbled concrete, the lives lost, the lives forever shaken. Was their Book of Life to include a chapter in it of devastation, disillusionment, and even death?
It is the Jewish New Year, and I know I am supposed to ask for forgiveness, to demonstrate kindness, but honestly with a lying, con artist in the White House, a crop of Republican politicians selfish and self-serving, disregard for the planet, disrespect for minorities, all I want to do is scream. I will pray to my God, but i will, in earnest, ask, why, what is next and when. Life around me is in such disarray, I don’t want to despair, but I am desperate for a miracle. My Grandma Buncher, very much a pragmatist, told me (I was the male grandchild, the prince), God just doesn’t make miracles, he ignites your abilities to make them happen. You want something like a miracle, then you make it happen, and God will assist!
