Fun and Trembling: Playing Rosh Hashanah Blog Tag

Rabbi Menachem Creditor

[note: This post is a conversation shared with and initiated by my friend and teacher Rabbi Hayim Herring, executive director of STAR: Synagogue Transformation and Renewal, who asked some friends to play a game of pre-Rosh HaShannah "virtual tag", and to invite every blogger we know to play, and to share our thoughts as we prepare personally and professionally for the Chagim. See the links that will be added to this blog entry as they are created! - rc]

1] Life is incredibly precious, and the craziness in any one part can take over the others. The Personal Priority Holiness Code, (in which self must continuously gain as it gives) should be: Family, Community, World.

2] Change for change's own sake is a mistake. Feel the need, allow it to express itself in the voices and faces of others before responding.

3] Birth is a process. It takes time, and rarely goes according to plan. Remembering the "why" of the dream for a "birth-story" helps every partner/labor coach respond with health and calm to the emerging "how's".

4] Newness is both an advantage and a challenge. Rosh HaShannah doesn't mean the old is out. I'd rather see institutional and personal growth within the metaphor of a healthy tree, with new layers healthily connected to the core as opposed to a snake shedding its skin.

5] Religious buildings without windows are dangerous. The world's faith communities need a message of inter-dependence. The central command for the faithful must be the punchline from Douglass Wood's "Old Turtle and the Broken Truth": You are loved, and so are they.

Shannah Tovah!