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5777: Can You Enthusiastically Embrace the Present?

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October 14, 2016

Between Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur, the days of Jewish New Year, it is a time to reflect, remember and decide how to spend the coming year. I participate at Stephen Wise Temple in Los Angeles nearly every Shabbat and am thrilled to be with my family for this time of The Days of Awe. We can all choose to be happy and live in the present. But do you?

From our Erev Rosh Hashannah Prayer Book: “Each year I grow a year older. Have I added maturity to age this year? Have I become wiser since last year? Will I be stronger in the year to come? Will I use my time better?

Where did the last year go? And what can I remember of it? Those daily irritations that so troubled me: I cannot even remember them now.

What do I remember of last year? What do I want for the coming year that will be worth remembering next Rosh Hashannah?”

I want to have realistic expectations for myself and goals that appropriately challenge me. I read this in the prayer book:

“We will never be perfect. Yet what is divine in us is our refusal to desist from trying to improve> We must distinguish between teh important and the petty. We must understand the difference between the permament and the fleeting. And we must develop the desire to live richly, to live nobly and help make possible a society where other people can also live this way.” 

There was a responsive reading that really spoke to me:

If we must face failure, Help us learn endurance. If we achieve success, Help us learn gratitude. If we must face disappointment, Help us learn patience. If we must face danger, Help us find courage.”

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Happy New Year! G'mar Hatima Tova!

May you be inscribed into the Book of Life.

Lisa

 

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