Rosh HaShanah 5770

I remember kitchen pomegranate picnics from my youth. During those adventures, my mother placed my younger sister and me on a towel in the middle of our kitchen floor. We were dressed in old shirts and were warned over and over again of the pomegranate’s unique ability to stain any article of clothing. The pomegranates of my youth were delicious and dangerous.

In recent years, my Rosh Hashanah celebrations have centered around a single piece of fruit, the pomegranate. My New Year ritual began eight years ago with one beautifully formed, homegrown pomegranate. This piece of fruit, sticky and deep red, was grown by my close friends, who live on a kibbutz in Israel. My Rosh Hashanah pomegranate was cut open on an outdoor picnic table in Kibbutz Gezer. This pomegranate was enjoyed with total abandonment. It was the complete decadence of the act, an exuberant shehechiyanu and then kernel after kernel of the fruit scooped into our mouths, that made it so powerful. Fruit picked off the tree, brought to the table, cut open, and eaten. Enjoyed in holyday white shirts. Stains and all.

Why was this particular piece of fruit so memorable? First of all, its intense sweetness, color, and form were a palpable reminder of the intense life that exists in the world, even in its darker moments. Second, it was an edible souvenir of the cycle of nature, to which Jewish time organizes itself. I ate that pomegranate in 2001, in the midst of the Second Intifada, in the wake of September 11th. That pomegranate was a tiny beacon of hope and life in a particularly dark time.

I have found myself thinking of that pomegranate this year.

As 5769 draws to an end, we close the book on the year gone by. This has been a year of global loss and instability. We have all experienced rapid change. None of can say that the world looks the same this Rosh Hashanah as it did the last. And yet, here we are.

And yet, here we are.

I think of that pomegranate, a reminder of goodness and sweetness in the world in a time of chaos and pain. And I find myself searching again this year. Looking on my neighbor's tree, down the aisles of a supermarket. I am searching for the perfect pomegranate.

This morning, I spent a few minutes in one of our TIOH Nursery School classes. Together, we looked at a shofar, and I talked to the students about its meaning. “This is the alarm clock of the Jewish people,” I told the students. “We use it to wake ourselves up.”

This year, I believe, the message of the alarm is more insistent. It is ringing loudly, reminding us, as we read in this past week’s Torah portion, “I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life!” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

This is our challenge in the coming year! We must ask ourselves, despite what life has brought us, despite what chaos looms, despite the loss, and despite the change (and maybe even because of them): Am I living my life the way I want to live it? Our purpose over these next ten Days of Awe is not just to pray and contemplate, but to do nothing short of create a paradigm shift in our lives! “Wake up,” the shofar screams. “Choose life,” it wails. We are celebrating a new year, a new beginning. Our tradition teaches us that it was on Rosh Hashanah that the world was created. It is time to allow ourselves to access that first world of hope and color and light. Existence will always be a mixture of life and death, curses and blessings. Despite it all, choose life.

The Hebrew word Kaddish has the same root as the Hebrew word Kiddush. That root is Koof, Daled, Shin, and it means “holy.” Kiddush, a blessing of holiness, is said over the fruit of the vine, a sweet and juicy reminder of joy. Kaddish is said in order to praise God for our lives, especially as we remember those loved ones whom we have lost. The message of both is clear: We should choose life and be grateful for the Holiness that infuses all life, that infuses each our lives.

On this Rosh Hashanah, I pray that each of us is able to awaken inside of ourselves the spark of life. Wish the people around you a shanah tovah u’metukah, a good and sweet year, and mean it! Focus on that hope, that undeniable desire for life, and live it. Find a perfect apple. Dip it in fine honey. And feel the crisp, sweet possibilities that this New Year holds for you.

Shanah Tovah! May this be a Good Year for you!