The day before Rosh Hashanah.

 The day before Rosh Hashanah.

Outside, the welcome rays of late summer and early autumn sunshine beam refulgently from a glorious blue sky. It is the day before the Jewish New Year and Rosh Hashanah. Call it an Indian summer but the only conclusion you can come to is that the sun shines on the righteous and if it remains like this for the duration of the Jewish holidays then none will quibble or complain. 

Of course this is the time for reflection, for contemplative souls to look deeply into their minds and think back on what is rapidly turning into the most astonishing year of all time- certainly in modern times. Rarely have we known a year that stopped in March and the rest of the year would just be a blank screen, reluctantly closing down until further notice. It still feels as if the whole globe is running scared into the wilderness and hoping that things will dramatically improve as soon as possible. 

When the Jewish community gather together tomorrow and Sunday for their deeply cherished hours of worship, prayer and quiet introspection it is normally the point when we pull our tallit(shawl) over our shoulders, smile at the Torah and then express fulsome gratitude to our health, family and friends. We shake hands, murmur our genialities and then hug each other warmly in a spontaneous act of love.

I remember growing up in Ilford, Essex in deepest England and regularly taking my seat with my late dad and, as a child, finding myself in a bewildered state of incomprehension. By now I'd mastered all of the finer nuances of the adorable Hebrew alphabet( to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy, I kid you not) Then we were taught the rudiments of both the language and grammar. By now you'd got the hang of being Jewish. 

But as I stood there proudly with my wonderful, late dad and my grandparents it began to occur to me that although I could follow part of the service, the speed and intensity with which every word was being uttered and then left behind us had thrown me into land of nowhere. I hadn't a clue why the praying and singing had left me trailing behind the rest and not knowing at all which page I was on. Every so often I would glance over towards my neighbour almost forlornly before eventually discovering that I was in the land of nowhere. 

I think there was a common assumption that as a youngster, you'd be expected to be immediately and naturally pick up both the flow and continuity of the first day of the Rosh Hashanah. You'd absorbed the language, the words, the vowels and consonants and of course you'd be able to keep up with the rest of the congregation. Now this was just an urban myth because it seemed to me at least they were chanting at roughly the same speed as Lewis Hamilton on an F1 motor racing track. 

By now they were hitting the chicanes and hairpin bends at full tilt, tearing around the labyrinthine twists and turns of the Morning Service, racing through all of those treasured moments when everybody seemed to be singing together in perfect harmony. You were the only one though who seemed to be just privately stumbling through the New Year prayer book, mumbling, muttering and burbling awkwardly and tentatively, desperately clinging onto your dignity. 

Hard though I tried Rosh Hashanah seemed to be passing me by in a whirlwind rush, floating serenely over the rooftops of Ilford, leaving me cold, alienated and vaguely humiliated. Were the rest of the congregation really that bothered about the increasing difficulty I was now experiencing in following the service? There was a distinct disconnect and estrangement from the service I should have known by heart but mine was a very solitary dilemma. So I bowed my head and found some kind of acceptance from deep within. 

But essentially though Rosh Hashanah should be about family, extended members of our family, community, belonging to Judaism and the joy of being close to those who we love and care about. It is the yearly celebration of our religion, my religion, the arrival of another year and, more so than ever this year, faith. It is about praying for both mental, emotional and spiritual health, appreciating everything and everybody, never feeling excluded, never feeling that anybody should be on their own,  expressing our appreciation for the good things while never of course ever taking anything for granted. 

We are all of course disillusioned with the current state of our world and nobody can deny that this will be the most demoralising Rosh Hashanah experience for any generation. But then we come together over the weekend via the video conference facility that is Zoom and we indulge in sharing from afar, smiling broadly at each other on our TV screens and immersing ourselves in a world that we wouldn't have chosen to be part of but have sadly been forced to address with a heavy heart.

So tonight we will be lighting the Shabbat candles on the eve of Rosh Hashanah and on Sunday the shofar will be blown in the most heartfelt and poignant way. We will welcome the New Year in gladly and thrillingly, delighted to be here, in the present, keeping our chins up, dismissing negativity, maintaining our composure and then trying to make sense of it all. We must tell us ourselves that come next Yomtov we will be together, united we stand, joking, communal, relieved to meet and greet our nearest and dearest. 

This is what will happen over the weekend. We will all partake in the eating of apple and honey and we will make the most of the unfamiliar and the unconventional. In our hearts and minds we're all in this one together and will not be defeated because being Jewish is very special and always will be. We know that religion can be both unnecessarily divisive and will always create painful friction at all levels of society. History has never tired of telling that same story over and over again. And yet the Jewish New Year is upon us and it's time to light the Shabbat candles. Chag Semach and L'Shana Tova, a Happy, Healthy and Sweet New Year to you all.