What are your Jewish goals?

A Rosh Hashanah reflection and a poem!

This week’s newsletter is in memory of 32-year-old Emma Ingual, a Jewish aid worker who died in Ukraine this week after her vehicle was hit by a Russian shell. Emma, originally from Spain, was the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor and co-founded the organization Road to Relief last year to provide humanitarian aid to villages close to the front lines. May her memory be a blessing and may this senseless war come to an end.

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First, mazel tov to Mark from Harlem Moishe House on your winning kugel. I hope you enjoy it!

Now… it’s crazy to think that two years ago I had a panic attack on the Subway because I didn’t have any Rosh Hashanah plans right when it was becoming important to me to have them.

And look at me now! I’m writing a Jewish newsletter about my Rosh Hashanah plans which include a Shabbat dinner with friends and family, services, a local synagogue happy hour (because heck yes free appletinis), and a Jewish Brooklyn meditation and Tashlich. It’s not casting my sins away into the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur last year, but it will do. What are your plans this year? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

I have a lot of goals for 5784, mostly related to this newsletter which include hosting more events like my upcoming book club. I also want to give MJE Wednesday night classes a try again or continue my Jewish learning in some way. I want to strengthen my Jewish meditation practice (more on this soon!). I also want to finish reading Jewish Literacy by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. What are your Jewish goals for the new year? (I have a few questions in this post as you can tell.)

My last question for you: Do you 10q?

Reboot runs this cool site which is a free digital vault of personal reflection questions around self-development. It opens up every year around the High Holidays and asks you a question each day for 10 days, and you can look back on your answers from previous years as a great way to mark your progress. I’ve been filling it out since 2019 and always forget my answers from the previous year. I highly encourage you to fill it out.

I love Rosh Hashanah because it’s part celebratory, part introspection. If the holiday were a human in my mind, she’d be wearing a cocktail dress holding a spiked cider in one hand and a journal in the other, reflecting on her hopes and dreams, on dying (like Barbie during that dance scene), and how she can be a better person. Sounds like an interesting person! Which reminds me of a quote I recently heard at work:

Judaism is striving to become a better version of yourself.

And lastly, a poem.

The air is finally starting to cool here in New York, but I found this poem on a hot day earlier this week when I was craving chilled autumnal weather and looking for poetic inspiration. I love this poem because it ties nature to personal introspection, using the changing of seasons as a metaphor for the changing of one's spiritual state. I hope it carries you into the new year and into pumpkin spice lattes. Shanah tovah u’metukah!

The Late Year
By Marge Piercy

I like Rosh Hashonah late,
when the leaves are half burnt
umber and scarlet, when sunset
marks the horizon with slow fire
and the black silhouettes
of migrating birds perch
on the wires davening.

I like Rosh Hashonah late
when all living are counting
their days toward death
or sleep or the putting by
of what will sustain them—
when the cold whose tendrils
translucent as a jellyfish

and with a hidden sting
just brush our faces
at twilight. The threat
of frost, a premonition
a warning, a whisper
whose words we cannot
yet decipher but will.

I repent better in the waning
season when the blood
runs swiftly and all creatures
look keenly about them
for quickening danger.
Then I study the rockface
of my life, its granite pitted

and pocked and pickaxed
eroded, discolored by sun
and wind and rain—
my rock emerging
from the veil of greenery
to be mapped, to be
examined, to be judged.

Found on https://pickmeuppoetry.org/the-late-year-by-marge-piercy-2/