A group of people gathered on Monday at CBI to watch the eclipse. The light changed to bronze and odd when we reached a thin golden sun crescent. The spring peepers were loudly singing their twilight song, the one we hear at seder when we open the door to recite, “This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt…” When the sun began to grow, the peepers all stopped singing in the same instant, as if hushed by a celestial conductor.
Rosh Hashanah begins the morning following the eclipse. HJust two weeks remain until Pesach. Rosh HOdesh Nisan may be the oldest of the Talmud’s four new years. It’s a good idea to start the new year in spring. The spiritual energy from the leaves and blossoms is combined with the Exodus story which makes us what we are.
The fact that it’s now Nisan also means we’re at the midpoint of the Jewish year, halfway through 5774. The 7th of October came three weeks after the start of this Jewish year. We were just about to end our Jewish holiday marathon. The war, and the humanitarian disaster that has followed it, have compounded many times our pain. Time has felt…
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