Accidental Blogger

Let us hope together that tempers are cooling in the Arab world. Responsible leaders on all sides are doing all they can to pour oil on the troubled waters even as our own retrograde elements continue churning conflict. Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown. It is with a spirit of reconciliation that I found this message at Fox News. 

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, isn’t just for Jews. It is a Jewish celebration to be sure; one with roots going back to the Hebrew Bible, but it celebrates something fundamental to all human beings – the need for second chances.

The holiday begins at sundown on Sunday, Sept. 16 and at its core lays the teaching that God both gives second chances and invites us to do the same – to ourselves and to others. And after all is said and done, who doesn’t need a second chance somewhere in their lives?
Each of us has something we wish we could do over, start fresh or finish differently. Don’t you? Rosh Hashanah promises us that we can transcend the past and get that second chance that each of us needs in at least some part of our lives – whether you are Jewish or not.

By celebrating the birth of the world and of humanity, not the birth of the Jewish nation or of the first Jew, Rosh Hashanah celebrates that whatever particular faith we follow, we share a common origin and destiny. Part of that destiny is the promise of a second chance, even if it’s our hundredth one!

Each of us has something we wish we could do over, start fresh or finish differently. Don’t you? Rosh Hashanah promises us that we can transcend the past and get that second chance that each of us needs in at least some part of our lives – whether you are Jewish or not.

We are invited to see both ourselves and each other in light of that promise. In fact, Rosh Hashanah teaches that with a bit of work, there is no past that cannot be overcome, and no person who does not deserve the opportunity to do so. [More at the link worth reading.]

Along the same lines an Arab proverb says: Dogs bark but the caravan moves on.

And in Cairo, they have started painting over the graffiti at the US Embassy…