HAPPY ROSH HASHANAH 2024 (OR RATHER, 5784)

Rosh Hashanah, which is our Jewish New Year, actually begins tomorrow night, but I figured I’d get a day ahead of it this year.

I wish you all a good one!

First I need to discuss the apologizing we’re supposed to do for this holiday. Jewish people are expected to apologize to the folks we may have wronged throughout the year. Not everyone does it, although most should, and many who do are insincere about the hurt they’ve caused. But at least knowing they owe others an apology is a step in the right direction.

So please everyone of my ethnic persuasion, apologize and mean it this year!!! Not just to me, (though several people do owe me one, some for many years now!,) but to everyone you may have hurt. Take a few minutes to really think it over, please.

Now on a very serious note, as we celebrate the new year, I hope that it’s not just my people who are praying for peace in the Middle East. We need all the horrors to end immediately. My heart is broken for everyone concerned. I have no idea how the families of the Israeli hostages and murdered loved ones are going on in life.

Let’s all hope that our Rosh Hashana prayers help heal the world.

I just pray that these Jewish holidays bring some peace to the world, including, of course, Ukraine. What a wonderful miracle world peace would be, at any time.

But to end on a somewhat happy and possibly frivolous situation, I recently realized that my team revamped ItsNotAboutMe.TV ten years ago during this same period of Rosh Hashanah. So this time of year also signifies for me not just a sweet new year, (which we celebrate by eating something round, such as challah and/or apples with honey,) but also a big milestone anniversary of INAM’s new look. I appreciate that symmetry.

And now I want to wish all my Jewish readers an advance L’Shanah Tovah. (That means “Happy New Year,” and is probably the only Hebrew that most of us use all year!) Please be happy, vigilant, and safe. And perhaps pray for world peace.