Happy New Year, in September

There are many benefits to being Jewish, including 8 days of presents at Chanukah, the freedom to spell the word "Chanukah" (Hanukah, Hannuka, etc.) about a zillion different ways, along of them correct, and the ability to grow sweet curly sideburns, if you're orthodox. But one often overlooked one is that you get to celebrate TWO New Year's, in one year.

That's right, along with never showing up on time, the Jews have their own calendar. And today, a day like any other day for the gentiles of the planet, happens to be Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

Now, you shouldn't feel bad for not having known this. Truth be told, Adam (fellow program member) called me this morning at around 2 p.m. to tell me. Thanks to his excellent Jewish initiative, we decided to gather our small Jewish U.S. Valdivian representation of 2 people and meet at my pension tonight for some good 'ole fashioned apples, bread and honey, a Rosh Hashanah classic.

For those of you unaware, the traditional way to bring in the Jewish New Year is with apples, bread and honey. The honey is representative of having a "sweet" new year, which is fitting, given honey's high sugar content. Besides the fact that apples, bread and honey is a bomb diggity combination, it's a really cool simple ceremony.

I had the idea of having us 3 go around in a circle (Allison, wanna-be-Jew, joined us for her first ever Rosh Hashanah) and say one thing we wanted to do to make the coming year more sweet. Adam said he wanted to be more open, Allison said she wanted to take the initiative and talk to more people, and I said I wanted to more fully commit to being here for a year, and consider it my home. It really turned out to be a cool little exercise. I think we all learned something more about each other (and ourselves) that we hadn't known before.

And more than that, I learned that it doesn't just have to be on my two New Year's that I set intentions to have a sweeter next year. Why don't I wake up every day and set my intentions to have a sweeter month, day, heck, even hour? It doesn't have to be Rosh Hashanah or New Year's for that. So maybe I'll start waking up every morning and pledging to have a sweeter day.

And of course, to make the ceremony official, I'll have to include apples and honey. Probably two servings to make sure I'm really serious about a sweet day.

Happy New Years!

Love,
Ryan