Happy and Healthy New Year to you all.

 Happy and Healthy New Year to you all. Rosh Hashanah. 

According to the English calendar this should be just like any other ordinary day and yet it's not. You see the truth is the Jewish religion likes to do things differently and why ever not? Trust the Jewish people to celebrate the New Year at the beginning of September. They would have to be awkward and contrary. But that's who we are and nobody can take away our individuality. We don't have lavish New Year's Eve parties, with party poppers, balloons, cakes, biscuits, crisps, drinks and all the paraphernalia you'd normally associate with that iconic time of the year. And we don't wait until midnight to wait for Big Ben to strike resonantly before blowing whistles, wearing party hats and wishing each other a Happy New Year. 

We don't copy the good people of Scotland who have Hogmany and dance between swords in tartan attire. And lest it be forgotten we don't sing 'Auld Lang Syne' in a circle beside the thistle and the remnants of the festive holly and ivy. How traditional would that be? But today is Erev Rosh Hashanah and tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah, which is our symbolic reminder of a happy and healthy New Year. Tradition will, by its very nature, accompany everything the Jewish community do, sing, chant and pray. After all, we've been doing this for centuries, thousands and thousands of years ever since almost the beginning of time. 

Tomorrow is our day for reflection, perspective, open mindedness, contemplation, psalm, prayer, chanting, standing up and sitting down on innumerable occasions but, above all, it is a time for families. We sit amid row upon row among our congregation, our community. our thought processes, trying to remember the events, places and times that have meant so much to us. We share in the blissful communality of it all and, at long last, we get the opportunity to renew all of our old acquaintances, the familiar faces that we adore so passionately and can't wait to hug with unashamed tenderness and love. It can't be denied. We've missed you. 

You see when the world shut down in March 2020 the Jewish religion waved a temporary goodbye to each other because our synagogues were closed and that was final. It also became terrifying because they were our families and our friends, the people we used to sing our hearts out with. Covid 19 rendered everything null and void and even religion had the shock of its life. So last Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we collectively watched a Zoom screen on our computer and did everything by proxy. We were being very religious and virtuous and yet it didn't feel at any moment as if we were. 

In a nutshell we were probably being anything but. We were just sitting there gazing into cyberspace, enthusiastically taking part in a ceremony that resembled nothing of the sort. Our lovely rabbis and cantor were present of course they were. But this was the strangest and most alien of scenarios, a sight that dulled the senses and made you wish you were doing something completely different.

In a sense it was a Rosh Hashanah service because we all, in our own way, made our personal contribution, offering our hearts and souls towards a healthy, happy, peaceful and sweet New Year. We read from the Torah and make our solemn pledges because that's our duty, our obligation, our yearly devotional commitment to Judaism, our way of expressing something that's deep within us and has to be released because some indefinable guilty conscience might suddenly intervene.  

But oh no. Tomorrow is the Jewish New Year and we're well over 350 or so years in front of Christianity. There's no chronological race or competition here. It happened like that. Nobody really explained why tomorrow is Ellul 5781 followed by Tishri 5782. Some of us, from our distant teenage years can still vividly recall 5736. And yet that was so long ago now that it's hard to remember where all of those years have gone.

Tomorrow represents the first leg of a spiritual journey that encompasses a whole sequence of more Jewish festivals. Rosh Hashanah will be the first half of our voyage and then Yom Kippur of which more will spoken of, all being well, next week. Then there's Succot and finally Simchat Torah, the spectacular conclusion where everybody gets drunk, eats too many chocolates and sweets and then dances merrily around our shul(synagogue) and just has a fabulous time. That, my friends, is the way we roll. Yours truly will always be immensely proud of his Jewish heritage. And that is the way we do things. 

When you look back you can't help but indulge in the fondest of reminiscences. Back at the end of February my lovely and wonderful mum passed away and since then, much grief and mourning has settled upon me. For the first Rosh Hashanah since my mum's death, the poignancy and rawness of her passing will still be with me. You will find yourself singling out those precious memories when mum was always ready with her hot cup of milky coffee after the Fast and Yom Kippur or the day my dad and I wrestled with a disobedient umbrella on Kol Nidre evening. We reached the bottom of our road and the aforesaid umbrella was then blown away by blustery winds.We did though hold onto it. 

My parents and grandparents took it in turns to hold Rosh Hashanah services at our respective homes and for my grandparents this was the most important time of the year. You can still see your elderly but upstanding grandpa standing respectfully with siddurim in hand and a smile for his grandson. The bitterness and pain of the Holocaust was still hovering in his subconscious and nothing would remove the grotesque scars that horrendous moment in history had left in his mind. 

But for that moment alone on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur my grandma and grandpa were at their happiest. Why, my grandpa, would say jokingly, did a vast majority of the congregation of our shul have to get up en masse after Yiskor(the prayer for the dead) and just leave the building at lunchtime when there were still six hours left of the Fast to go? Had they some pressing social engagement that couldn't have been delayed any longer? You couldn't just go home and eat a banquet of food or drink like a fish, even watch TV because besides there were only two or three channels to watch anyway and the adverts were always food related.  

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were normally the perfect opportunity to hang out by our local Valentines Park in Ilford, Essex. Here we gathered almost as if it was second nature. There were hordes of Jewish families with prams, stylish hats if you were female and sartorially smart suits, shirts and ties if you were male. This was our Jewish rapport, our afternoon of kindred spirits, our sense of belonging. The Jewish collective had made its voice and presence felt quite emphatically.

And so Ladies and Gentleman. Rosh Hashanah is once again here. It's amusingly early in September this year and the dates always seem to change from year to year. But tomorrow the Jewish global population will meet up and, more so than ever, pray for a healthy New Year because for some of us last year was just beyond our understanding. To all of my Jewish friends and families have a healthy, happy, peaceful and sweet New Year. Listen to that shofar and keep well.