Last year, with Rosh Hashanah falling one week after Sept. 11, it was especially difficult to get into the High Holy Day spirit.
This year, of course, it’s similarly timed to the one-year anniversary. And even for those of us who have been hearing the shofar on a daily basis — as we’re commanded to in the month of Elul — our souls have been difficult to rouse.
It is hard to reflect and look inward at such a time; to think about our own shortcomings when the shortcomings of our world are so present.
And as if one disturbing anniversary weren’t enough, we are soon to mark another — that of the al-Aksa intifada. Later this month, it will be two years since the Mideast violence began anew, claming so many lives of Israelis and Palestinians.
And yet, there’s more. War with Iraq seems all but inevitable; the question is no longer if the United States will attempt to topple Saddam Hussein, but when.
So how do we overcome all the heartache in the world, to do the proper internal work that this sacred time requires of us?
Alas, as long as we as a people have been on the planet, we’ve had periods in which we’ve had many reasons to despair. With warlike conditions in the Middle East and the continued threat of terrorism here at home, this seems to be just such a time.
But it is also an opportunity. The new year is a period upon which to project all our hopes and dreams.
With the blank slate of 5763 standing before us, it would be a good time to recall “Pourquoi je suis Juif,” or “Why I Am a Jew.” Written in 1928 by French playwright and writer Edmond Fleg, it, like much of his work, tries to answer why a modern intellectual like himself should remain a Jew.
“I am a Jew because wherever there is suffering, the Jew weeps,” he wrote. And perhaps even more relevant for these times, “I am a Jew because whenever there is despair, the Jew hopes.”