Rabbi's Column

Rabbi Allan Meyerowitz
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The events of the past year have stripped away our last illusions. Some how living in the 21st century, in a technological world, in consumer created America, we felt a sense that our lives were charmed. That we had overcome the age old struggle to survive, we had jettisoned into an era when our material needs and desires would define the every day quality of life.

And then we had a tsunami in which 400,000 people in relatively uncivilized places lost their lives, where billions of dollars of human activity was truncated in a few hours, to show us realty. It was a year in which the quagmire in Iraq should teach us that the war with a terrorist Islam cannot be settled in a day, in a year, maybe a decade, maybe even a century. The Arab world remembers well that Islam and Salach a Din, waited 75 years to defeat the Crusaders State in Israel and send Richard the Lionhearted swimming for his native England.

And finally one hurricane, a random act of nature destroys 200 years of human activity in New Orleans, and uproots millions of lives, sets us straight. Americans enter the game of blame, who didn't do enough, instead of accept the reality that human endeavor is frail, tenuous and last for limited days. Somehow we fantasize control, when there is none.

The selichot service before Rosh Hashana reminds us that" Hashem we do not know what to do, for we are but dust." True, painful and even bitter it is to accept our limitations.

But there is one solution: "everything is pre-ordained, except the Love of Heaven." A life of Torah reminds us of the real granduer that is humanity's: the opportunity to serve the Creator in passion, dignity and purpose and rekindle the love in our souls, our neshomos. It is to know our profound limitations and to respond to that shock: "for me the universe was created." A New Year is a time to affirm: that we must maintain our Jewish love affair with life and Hashem. And only a life mediated by active pursuit of mitzvot can deter the ultimate fragility of man and women.

I wish us all a meaningful Rosh Hashana, a new year of new hope and new understanding.

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