A Day of Awe by Brauna Walsh

Last night as I watched the sun set, coloring the sky with soft shades of pink, orange and blue, I felt the crisp breeze of summer’s end.  I smiled, stood up and opened my arms wide to embrace fall – my favorite season! As a child, it was back to school time, which meant new pencils, fruity-smelling erasers, a state-of-the-art notebook, trendy clothes and brand new shoes.  But best of all, like the sound of the shofar announcing the Jewish High Holidays, fall trumpeted the arrival of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

When I was growing up, my large and very spirited family would gather in our den for the festive Rosh Hashanah meal.  It was my job to magically transform our kitchen table into a large dining buffet, complete with starched, white linen, china dishes, sterling silverware, crystal glassware and my great grandmother’s brass candlesticks.  Because my grandparents died before I was born, and all of our relatives lived on the East Coast, my mother shared our holiday with any and all willing participants. Jewish or not, black, white, brown, yellow, young or old, if they could eat, they were invited.  The arrival of friends from every walk of life signaled the beginning of the feast, with a menu that hardly ever changed.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New year, is one of the holiest days of the year. It is a time of prayer and introspection and like most holidays, food plays a central role in its celebration and rituals. Smells of rendered chicken fat, fried liver and onions, baking brisket, bubbling noodle kugel, chicken soup and matzah balls filled our small tract home for days before and after the holiday.  I left my mother’s kitchen only once during those prep days, happily driving with my father to Brown’s bakery to pick up our special, round challah and a sponge cake that was a beautiful pastel yellow, tall and airy like an angel’s wings.

Back then, I believed we started the dinner by dipping apples in honey in order to stop all the cacophony of conversations.  But actually, we dip apples in honey to wish each other a sweet year.  We eat carrots in a dish called tzimmes, because the Yiddish word for carrot — “merren” — means “increased.”  With every serving of orange “coins,” we wish for increased health and prosperity in the New Year.  Challah, an egg bread usually braided in a straight loaf, is round like a spiral staircase and filled with golden raisins.  Since Rosh Hashanah symbolizes the creation of the world, the round challah is seen as a symbol of the holiness of life and its eternalness.

On my porch, as the sky became an inky, dark blue, I thought about the ways in which I will celebrate this holy day with my own family and friends.  I consider myself a spiritual person, having a human experience, but I am also a Jew who believes in the ideals of the Torah. I have been taught — and embrace the belief — that Kodesh (holiness) is an attitude that filters through every person and is based upon a moral structure realized in our daily actions.  It is a tenor of life, unchanged by mood, unaltered by situation. The Jewish tradition sees the newborn child not on a downhill road toward evil, but on an upward path to divinity.  In my faith, one can attain Kodesh through conscious effort and the continual practice of Mitzvot — the holy obligations of the Jewish people.

Here are the Mitzvot that we are reminded to recommence with the coming of the New Year:

To honor father and mother;

To perform acts of love and kindness;

To attend the house of study;

To welcome the stranger;

To visit the sick;

To rejoice with the bride and groom;

To console the bereaved;

To pray with sincerity;

To make peace when there is strife.

My religion has taught me that the key to an inner holy life is freedom from envy and unselfish behavior.  As for an outer holy life, friendship and compassion are paramount. Spiritually, I believe that life is about learning from our experiences, and that is where we merge both spheres of existence and transcend the division between the material world and the spiritual world.

Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh.

May the whole earth be filled with holiness through our Mitzvot.

And may you have a happy, healthy, holy New Year.

Brauna Walsh is a recovering perfectionist living in Ojai with her husband, 2 dogs, 3 rabbits, 2 guinea pigs, 2 chickens and a mini horse. She is a mother, a healer, a writer and a poet, devoted to “loving simply, loving generously, caring deeply and speaking kindly.” Visit her blog, “Rantings from a Recovering Perfectionist,” by clicking here.