Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Get Your Mind Set

From my Table of Good Fortune, a piece I painted years ago. It's covered in bright blues and purples with a bit of green and yellow on the legs. The tabletop is lined with fortunes from long ago desserts at Chinese restaurants and embellished with bits cut from wrapping paper from a special gift.

Actually, I don't remember the gift, but it came from a new age-y, grad school carpool friend. The attached card said, "May the light of heaven shine down on you."

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Tashlich

Last week after peaceful Rosh Hashanah services, we headed off to a favorite spot along the Chicago River for Tashlich.

When the boys were young and we didn't belong to a synagogue, we'd invite our friends to these woods and celebrate the "birthday of the world" with stories, songs, talk about what we'd try to do better in the new year and of course, eat challah with apples and honey.

Tashlich (tosh-leehk) is a ritual casting away of one's sins from the past year. This quiet spot in the woods is a great place for reflecting on the past and thinking about the one ahead. And as you can see there is a lovely body of water for dropping in bread crumbs and pocket lint (symbols of our misdeeds).

The problem is that no place is quiet and pensive if my boys are around.

Given their boisterous nature, I was surprised to spot another, calmer family in the forest preserve.
This time of year, it is customary to apologize to those you hurt, or may have hurt, through words and actions. The Jewish concept of sin, is taken from the word's Hebrew meaning, which is to miss the mark.

Surely you have missed the mark in some ways this past year. I certainly have. And I ask for your forgiveness.

I had a boss who once put it quite bluntly. He'd walk around the office saying, "Sorry for being an a**hole."

I like the way my rabbi put it in this Rosh Hashanah reading:

And let us face the honest truth of our humanity:
while we harbor a terrifying capacity for destruction and violence
we never, ever forfeit the ability to choose another way:
the path of forgiveness and reconciliation
the way of Shalom.


Wishing you the path of Shalom, peace, in the year ahead.