Happy new year

Happy new year everybody…
Or rather, not to everybody…mainly to all my Jewish family and friends.
Happy New Year because this weekend was the start of the Jewish New Year – not the regular New Year that is celebrated with fireworks and such on December 31 but the one that we, the Jewish people celebrate – usually in the fall.  This year, we are celebrating the beginning of year 5784. That’s a lot of years.

For me personally, it was a pretty busy weekend, preceded by a couple of pretty busy weeks preparing for this weekend.

On Saturday, my group of J.A.P.S. as I call them (Jewish American Parents in Stockholm…not the kind of JAPS who always have perfectly polished nails), arrived with their offerings of food at my apartment almost promptly at 2pm.  We were 22 people crammed into my open-plan kitchen-dining-living room. Håkan and I had spent the last 2 or 3 days, cleaning, vacuuming and dusting the place – putting the miscellaneous crap we always have lying around in the kitchen-dining-living room out of sight in other parts of the apartment. It wasn’t spotless but good enough. Our small entry hall became filled with shoes, backpacks, jackets and empty bags. The kitchen counters and buffet table were filled with brisket, tzimmes, honey chicken wings, salads, cooked veggies and assorted drinkables. All the desserts were off to the side on the window sill. The large dining table was set up with candles, a bottle of red wine, a round challah, dishes of honey and a big plate of apple slices.  Once all the hugs and hellos were done and the food organized, shoes were found and the disorderly group was sent scurrying down the stairwell (I took the elevator) to the front door and out across a ramp to a floating dock on Pålsundet. It was a beautiful day – warm and sunny with a feeling of still remembered summer. Motorboats of various sizes kept passing us as we gathered on the dock, probably wondering what this unruly group was doing there. Some of them waved to us. We were there to do Teshuvah and Tashlich as we have been doing every year for many years already.

Teshuvah can be seen as the process by which Jews atone for the bad things that they might have done in the past year and it requires a good amount of self-reflection. The Jewish philosopher Maimonides said there are 3 steps in this process: first one must adopt a sincere feeling of regret for one’s bad actions, then one needs to ask for forgiveness from those one has harmed and finally one vows to not do so again. We follow this process of atonement with Tashlich which is a symbolic “casting off” of the sins we have carried around with us for the past year. We do this by tossing something into flowing water – we used to toss bread crumbs but that’s now thought to be bad for the ducks who might gather around us. So this year we used defrosted corn kernels.

I passed around the papers that explained what we were to do and which had a few prayers on them that we spoke together. And then we threw away our sin-carrying corn.

Back upstairs again, we gathered around the dining table, passed around wine-filled small plastic cups and said the blessing over the candles I lit and then over the wine, the round challah Håkan baked, the apples and the honey and finally a prayer for a sweet new year. And then we could eat!! And schmooze and eat some more.

On Sunday, I managed to drag myself out of bed before noon and by 3pm I was at the Jewish community building with my neighbor and good friend Eva-Britt for a Progressiv Judendom i Stockholm activity. We had planned to hold a short afternoon Rosh Hashanah service followed by a shiur/discussion. Tim Kynerd led the service with his beautiful voice, helped by Monique Nilfors  and Sonja Kalmering and with Nathaniel Glasser Skog and his son contributing with the music.  Afterwards, Noa Hermale led the discussion. He talked about how thousands of years ago, the sighting of the new moon determined the start of the new year. And how it was not always self evident to the different rabbis of the time when the new year actually started. The natural phases of the moon was the calendar they used, not having a printed version to refer to. But what he also talked about is how Rosh Hashanah, a day when the moon is new is made into a holy day. How we humans can take an ordinary recurring event like the phases of the moon and give it meaning.  And that idea spoke to me.

Rosh Hashanah is one of the most important days of the Jewish calendar – one of its most holy days, if you will. It is the time when most Jews, regardless of how “religious” they are, go to the synagogue to sit in communal prayers with their fellow Jews. I don’t go to the synagogue for Rosh Hashanah any more – I haven’t done so for many years now. I don’t find meaning there. And without meaning, can it truly be holy?

One of my guests at my Saturday Rosh Hashanah dinner party was explaining to me that since Rosh Hashanah was on a Saturday it was the custom to not blow the shofar like it usually is done. And since it was a Saturday, candles should not be lit and he went on to tell of other things that should or should not be done on this holiest of days.

But I don’t really care about all those guidelines or rules. We didn’t blow the shofar I own mainly because I forgot to get people to try. But I like the idea that Noa Hermale was talking about. He talked about how a wine cup on the sabbath is only an ordinary cup until we give it meaning. A candlestick is only important at chanukah because we give it meaning. I have been celebrating Rosh Hashanah with my J.A.P.S. in basically the same way as I did this past Saturday since my son was 6 years old. The Jews of long ago decided to give meaning to the new moon, to the day that started the month of Tishrei – they said that was the start of the new year and was holy. Every year I call my J.A.P.S. to gather with me to celebrate the arrival of the new Jewish year with a few prayers and a lot of food. For me this gathering has meaning and by giving it meaning it becomes a special day.  It becomes holy.

And may this coming year bring sweetness to all of you. Shana Tova!