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Sep
23
Last year was my first year of blogging. For Rosh Hashana (going from 5765 to 5766), I wrote these entries:
This year, as I enter 5767, isn’t all that different. I managed to control how much food I made last night so that I didn’t throw much away. Matzoh ball soup for lunch today was as good as last night for dinner, likewise the homemade mac and cheese and I turned the leftover chicken into chicken salad, which my husband paired with some herring in wine sauce and sour cream. I indulged in a piece of apple pie with some french vanilla ice cream just a short while ago and now, my kids are all playing quietly while the SO naps and I’m sitting here with the newspaper open, half read, catching up on blogosphere happenings.
In our lives, what’s different? A lot can happen in twelve months, qualititatively as well as quantitatively. And I guess I’m feeling happy that I notice that. Because, as the Rabbi said today in his very good sermon, based on the notions behind the movie, Click, this is the only time we have and we need to tend to the balls we’re juggling in our hands and in the air now, and not place a higher priority on the one’s we think we want or that worry us though they have yet to enter our lives.
The siddur used for the high holy days is different than the one used for Shabbat and includes numerous prayers in Hebrew and English. Here’s one that I found particularly relevant.
From the Musaf portion of the service:
***
Each of us is an author
“You open the Book of Remembrance, and it speaks for itself,
For each of us has signed it with deeds.”
This is the sobering truth,
Which both frightens and consoles us:
Each of us is an author,
Writing, with deeds, in life’s Great Book.
And to each You have given the power
To write lines that will never be lost.
No song is so trivial,
No story is so commonplace,
No deed is so insignificant,
That You do not record it.
No kindness is ever done in vain;
Each mean act leaves its imprint;
All our deeds, the good and the bad,
Are noted and remembered by You.
So help us to remember always
That what we do will live forever;
That the echoes of the words we speak
Will resound until the end of time.
May our lives reflect this awareness;
May our deeds bring no shame or reproach.
May the entries we make in the Book of Remembrance
Be ever acceptable to You.
*** [itals in the original]
I believe that contemplations like this having meaning whether or not you believe in a god or religion. Because the book of remembrances is the same idea as your deeds and words being etched in any memory – your own, those who observe you, those for whom you act, those against whom you act, those who read about you, those you want to vote for you, those you serve.
No kindness is done in vain and each mean act leaves its imprint. No deed is insignificant that isn’t recorded.
I’ve always believed that, even though I’ve never been sure if I believe in God or a god.
And to be reminded about this concept during services this morning was a lovely thing.
Good shabbos and Yom Tov, L’shana tovah.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:11 pm September 23rd, 2006 in Politics
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