Rosh Hashanah means "Head of the Year" and the Jewish New Year is all about beginnings. But for us beginnings is not a one shot deal, but rather Judaism has created a system that allows us to begin again every year. We are here celebrating the Jewish New Year now as we do every fall, but why Rosh Hashanah is in the fall came up as a subject of a recent D'var Torah by Henry Ramer. You see the rabbis in the Talmud discuss and debate the merits of RH in the fall vs RH in the spring. What we take for granted as fixed and permanent at one time was fluid and flexible. So why might we celebrate RH in the spring? Well, it is the time of rebirth, grass and leaves turn green, flowers blossom and animals come out of hibernation. It is also the time of the birth of the Jewish people, until the Exodus from Egypt which took place in the spring, we were a family, a clan, but we were now transformed into a nation, a people. It is also when we began to keep time, a calendar; slaves have no need to keep time, you simply do what you're told to do, when you're told to do it. But a free people is able to maintain their own calendar. And this is why the Torah tells us that the calendar began in the spring and Pesah is celebrated on the 15th day of the "first month".

Well that being the case, why do we celebrate RH in fall? The argument for this time of the year was Hayom Harat Olam "Today is the Birthday of the World". Think of this as one giant birthday party! Today marks the beginning of the year 5773 and the rabbis who established the calendar were counting from the creation of the world. So just as we become one year older on our birthday, so too the earth becomes one year older its birthday – RH. According to the ancient rabbis the earth is now 5773 years old. I realize that the geologists have shown that the earth is actually 4.5 billion years old. OK, so rabbis are better theologians than scientists, I can live with that.

The Torah reading that the ancient rabbis assigned to Rosh Hashanah are Genesis Chs. 21 & 22 when the barren matriarch Sarah gives birth to Isaac and then when Abraham brings Isaac upon onto the mountain to offer him as a sacrifice to God. They are troubling stories filled with highs and lows, much like life. As you may recall, Sarah after enduring 10 years of barrenness, decides upon surrogacy as the resolution to their situation. She offers her handmaiden, Hagar, to Abraham in her place and she gives birth to Ishmael. Then they are told that Sarah too will give birth and in this reading Isaac is born. On his eighth day of life he is circumcised as are all Jewish newborns to this day, it is the mark of our covenant with God. Life passes quickly and we next see Isaac and Ishmael playing roughly and then Sarah demands of Abraham that he banish Hagar and Ishmael.

What must it have been like for Sarah barren all those years to now see Ishmael as a potential rival to her son? What must it have been like for Hagar to see the way that Sarah looked upon Ishmael? My colleague, Jack Reimer, has noted that the Torah has no record of these two women speaking to one another. What would such a conversation be like? How might they have explored their hopes and their fears for their sons, brothers with different mothers? No doubt it would have been a difficult conversation. Most of us tend to avoid difficult conversations, I know that I do. I hate confrontations and do everything in my power to avoid them. Facing our fears and dealing with them is the healthier alternative, but it is hard to do and so most of us don't. But what we haven't done yet, we can still do that is the message of RH.

Rosh Hashanah is all about do-overs, about starting over. The single most important word for RH is Teshuvah, Repentance. This is the time of year when we get a second chance, a do-over, a cosmic, religious Mulligan. It is on RH that we are reminded that we are not perfect, but that we need not be perfect. Human beings make mistakes; it is part of our nature. However, we are blessed with an innate ability to learn and grow that never ceases. Change isn't easy. Nor does it come naturally to most of us. We easily become set in our ways, we are comfortable with who we are and the choices we make, even when they are not in our own best interest. It takes energy to change and it takes effort to change. But all change begins with the desire to do so; you can't change someone against their will.

A core rabbinic belief is that only when we want to change, can the process begin. You can't say, I've sinned, I'll come to services and repent and then I can go out and sin again. It doesn't work that way. Repentance only happens if you are sincere and intend to really change your ways. Maimonides teaches that the litmus test of teshuvah comes when you find yourself in the same situation where you previously made a bad choice, but this time around, you do it differently. You don't repeat your mistake, you chose a different path.

Before we can seek repentance in prayer, from God; first, we must seek forgiveness from those we have wronged. We can hurt others through the things we do or say, but also by means of the things we don't do and don't say. One of the hardest things to do is to say I'm sorry. Apologies don't come easily or naturally. A psychological study has found that men and women respond differently to making an apology. Typically, a woman who apologizes feels better afterward recognizing that she has repaired a relationship. However, most men feel worse after an apology, seeing is a loss of face, an embarrassment, a giving in. This can make it make much more difficult for men to apologize, but it does not make it any less important. When we've made a mistake and we want to make things right, then we have to accept responsibility for our actions and that begins with an apology to the person whom we have hurt or wronged.

The flip side of an apology is forgiveness. The reason people apologize is to set the record straight. It is then incumbent upon the other person to forgive. Judaism teaches that forgiving is required of us. Dr. Morris Mann, a noted psychologist has written, "A healthy, loving relationship is not possible without forgiveness. You cannot have a loving and rewarding relationship if you make it a regular habit to hold on to bad things that happened in the past. Without forgiving, it means you are holding on to feelings of resentment and blame, which is very unhealthy for a good relationship."

Just as there are people who find it difficult to apologize, so there are people who find it hard to forgive. But both of these are necessary for healthy relationships. Relationship are hard, they take time and effort and understanding. Our tradition tells us that if we have done our homework, if we have repented and we have sought out those we have wronged, those we have hurt and we've made our apologies; then come Yom Kippur we can ask God to forgive us and we will be forgiven.

Each of us has it within ourselves the ability to change as exemplified by the story, "The Rabbi's Gift" that some of you may know.

The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a result of waves of anti-monastic persecution and the rise of secularism, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy years of age. Clearly it was a dying order.

In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for quiet contemplation. Over time the rabbi and the monks became friends. As the abbot agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to him at one such time to visit the rabbi and ask him if by some chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

The rabbi welcomed the abbot into the hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. "I know how it is," he exclaimed. "The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore." So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read passages of the Bible and quietly spoke of deep things. When the time came for the abbot to leave, they embraced each other. And the abbot said, "I have failed in my purpose for coming here today. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my order?"

"No, I am sorry," the rabbi responded. "I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that one of you may be the Messiah."

When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, "Well what did the rabbi say?" "He couldn't help," the abbot answered. "We just wept and read Scripture together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving --it was something cryptic-- was that one of us may be the Messiah. I don't know what he meant."

In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? If that's the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant the Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of wisdom. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people's sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred, but surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me. I'm just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn't be the Messiah, could I?

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off-off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves a little better too.

Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along its paths, even now and then to go into the chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And those friends brought more friends.

Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them; then another, and another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm.

Each of us has within our self the ability to be the person we wish to become, it is my wish for you on this RH that you and I each, over the course of the next ten days, the Aseret Yimay Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance, apologize and forgive and realize that we can we might just be the Messiah and so make a difference in the lives of others and in our own life.

Wishing you a Shanah Tovah Tikatevu v'TiHatemu – May you be written and sealed for a good New Year!