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Oct 10 min read

Finding Words for this Rosh Hashanah | Merna Ann Hecht

Finding Words for this Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year (beginning at Sunset, October 2, 2024) I am attempting to bring words to this moment. War, violence, climate crises--have we ever needed more the beautiful symbols of these sacred ten days of awe—dipping an apple in honey to hope together for a sweet year—blessing a round challah as a symbol of the round of the ongoing cycles and seasons of the year and of our lives? Across borders and countries, globally, Jews who gather on this Rosh Hashanah will acknowledge, no matter their widely different feelings and perspectives, a profound sense of sadness for all the destruction happening in this increasingly violent world. Even as I say this, my hope is that during these ten of awe we can summon our reflections on the many ways of knowing the world, beyond its anguished suffering--how do we know the world in its bounty, how do we want to know it, this is in answer to the call to “choose life” we read during these sacred days. For me, passages from Deuteronomy are my “go to” sources for the guidance and solace that partly inform what I think of as our Jewishness in action. There is this: Justice, justice shall you pursue. Also, the compelling edict You shall love the stranger for you were strangers…”(Deuteronomy 10:19). It is said we are told 36 times in the Torah to love those who are strangers. Do we know these days of awe through memory, a fragrance from a grandmother’s kitchen, a melody from a grandfather’s nigun, (a wordless melody bringing us closer to spirit), do we know the world and who we are through who we’ve loved and lost, as much as through who is next to us precious and alive? What do our hands touch, our eyes see that we come to know the world? Who and what do we carry with us that offers us solace and gives us strength? I am blessed to know part of the world through the stories of the hundreds of young people I’ve worked with for over fifteen years who have directly experienced exile. When I think of the Torah portions for this morning, Sarah, Abraham's wife, giving birth to Isaac at a very old age, and then the exile of Hagar and Ishmael, to touch now on the anguish of this story that speaks of two nations wounded by generations of exile, is a story I can only hold in silent thought. But, what it gives to me and I hope for many others is a way to look at the other side of exile, the better side, the hospitality side, anchored in both cultures, Muslim and Jewish, that of welcoming the stranger. The global youth with whom I have worked and learned from have experienced violent conflicts forcing them and their families to flee from home. These are young people who’ve seen sisters, brothers, and friends mistake a land mine for a toy; or who have witnessed a trusted childhood friend transformed by coercion into a child soldier; or who have ached with hunger and lost loved ones to guns and bombs. Yet, they continue to search for the courageous words that will shape the daring required to imagine peace and to call for it with honest outrage and fierce clarity in the language of poetry and prayer. In short, they have taught me to cultivate hope and to believe in the possibility for peace. Merna Ann Hecht Founder, Stories of Arrival & Word Travels

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