Looking forward and back

Most of the time, it’s easy not to see similarities between Rosh Hashanah and the secular New Year. The Jewish new year is marked by soul-searching, repentance, family, and food. New Year’s Eve traditionally is celebrated with partying, exuberance, friends, and drink. The resolutions — a lame version of teshuvah- — don’t come until the morning after.

But that doesn’t mean that there is nothing profound about the secular New Year, coming as it does soon after the winter solstice, when the days have started getting longer but that change is still so slow as to be imperceptible. The symbol of the new year is the double-headed god Janus, looking both ahead and behind.

That two-directional look has been sticking with me this season.

This has been a hard year. The hostages still are held in Gaza. We don’t know how many still are alive, and what condition they might be in. The war still goes on; soldiers still go to fight, and some of them die, and others are traumatized. Israel has gone from being secure in the support of American politicians across the spectrum and instead has become a wedge issue. It’s becoming a pariah state in much of the world. And antisemitism is rising, from both the left and the right.

In this country, rancid politics have divided us as never before, or at least never within living memory. (None of us knows what it felt like during the Civil War.)

It’s made me think of “Achot Ketana,” the Little Sister, the Ladino piyyut that’s sung just before Rosh Hashanah.

It begins grimly, and goes on in that style for most of its verses.

“The little sister — her prayers she prepares and proclaims her praises. O God, please, heal now her ailments. Let the year and its curses conclude!

“With pleasant words she calls upon You, and with song she praises, for such befits You.

“Why do you avert Your eyes? Look! Enemies devour her heritage! Let the year and its curses conclude!”

But then there’s the last verse.

“Be strong and rejoice for the plunder is ended; place hope in the Rock and keep His covenant.

“You will ascend to Zion and He will say: Pave! Pave her paths. Let the year and its blessings begin!”

As I hear the melody in my head, I think about two of the stories in this week’s paper.

The cover story is about the instruments that somehow survived the Holocaust. Many of them still are beautiful, even though they’re battered. Some still produce stirringly beautiful music. The program that brings them to New Jersey, Violins of Hope, teaches about the Holocaust and offers a way forward.

Our story about Yachad is about what happens when neurotypical people accept the non-neurotypical around them with love and hope, rather than with disgust, fear, or even boredom. Like the Sinai Schools, which works with non-neurotypical children and teenagers during school hours, Yachad provides its non-neurotypical participants with life skills, sometimes with job skills, activities, goal, and friendship.

All these organizations fight against the prevailing assumptions — the Holocaust happened such a long time ago, and so far away, and not to us, so who cares; people with special needs don’t resemble me in any way and they aren’t interested in me, so why should I care about them? They replace them with empathy — which is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position. They replace fear with fearlessness. They value doing good.

As the new year approaches, we can chose to look forward, with hope and strength and courage. We can decide to approach this year and do our best to shape it into a good one.

Happy new year.

—JP

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