Elul 29 5781: "Preparing for the Transition of a New Year"

 Elul 29, 5781/September 6, 2021

Rabbi Laurence Malinger

“Preparing for the Transition of a New Year”

What do we need as we stand on the precipice of a transition into the start of a New Year; a year that has never existed before following a year that was among the most difficult of years? 

We need to share our principles and our standards so that all can understand them. We need to be educated, so that we know what it means to be a Jew, and so that we can remember to live and abide by those standards wherever this year takes us. 


We need to remember to be exuberant; that to be alive is a great privilege. And if we are not enjoying ourselves, we are wasting our time. 


Third, we need what the great philosopher Walter Kaufman called, "humbition.” Humbition is the combination of appropriate humility, and audacious ambition. We need to be personally humble, and have grand dreams of a world transformed; a world of justice, and compassion, and inclusion, and security, and decency. 


Finally, we need love. And we need to remember that the core of our religion is a God who so loved the world that God created us to have something to love. 




Armed with these four gifts, we will be able to face the future and whatever it brings, and we will be able to say next year, when we gather again, that this year was challenging, but we would not trade having lived it for anything in the world.