This is the year of 5773...

“The central observance of Rosh Hashanah is the sounding of the shofar, the ram’s horn, which also represents the trumpet blast of a people’s coronation of their king. The cry of the shofar is also a call to repentance, for Rosh Hashanah is also the anniversary of man’s first sin and his repentance thereof, and serves as the first of the “Ten Days of Repentance” which culminate in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Another significance of the shofar is to recall the Binding of Isaac which also occurred on Rosh Hashanah, in which a ram took Isaac’s place as an offering to G d; we evoke Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son, and plead that the merit of his deed should stand by us as we pray for a year of life, health and prosperity. Altogether, we listen to one hundred shofar blasts over the course of the Rosh Hashanah services.” Thanks to this site and for more information go to: http://www.chabad.org/holidays/JewishNewYear/template_cdo/aid/4762/jewish/What-Is-Rosh-Hashanah.htm And a refresher course for me. With that said to all who celebrate this evening of the New Year’s beginning may I wish you, la Shana tova; when translated means: a good and sweet year! Oddly enough, my pseudonym of Tobi is also Tova in Hebrew, which is my real name! Since over these many years I have proven to be neither sweet or good, which I get confused which is which…talk about irony! BIG SMILE HERE! Any-who moving on… I thought starting with a little bit of self-education since if you don't use it you lose it… These days hubby and I are not very religious, as you might remember he was brought up as a Roman Catholic which is his mother's faith and his father was Lutheran, she still being alive and he not any longer. And since my parents passed away in the 1980s they were the ones that would celebrate the holidays and when we lived in New Jersey and all the family was alive and well we would meet on either side to celebrate together. But time and distance and death changed all of that sadly. The probability of that happening in many families is not unusual, I suspect. For a long time our diversity of our family was able to adjust and accept the differences. Not an easy task and many would have flunked that coexisting of such differences, but somehow we all made it work. I must admit it was a different time and when your family supports you and loves you and makes it a little bit easier, actually it was a whole lot easier. Everyone, let's just say that today are not that dissimilar from the United States itself; as we are microcosms within our own families of multi-racial, multi-religious and sexual preferences that years ago were not considered in the realm of the family unit, but thankfully today the truth is all families are unique unto their own, which by that alone should make us all more understanding of the world that we live in. It's not being a liberal or conservative to love people who don't agree or don't look like you or believe what you do; the best gift any human being can give to another is his acceptance of those differences. You know, in this day and age even the most radical conservative beings have family members not dissimilar from what I mentioned above. I can think of a few that serve in our government or have in the past. And so with me trying hard to express the respect of others of my faith and for me to try harder to remember my first several years... as first a child of five who went to Sunday school at a synagogue and later on to Hebrew school but fell away from my teachings without parental support and I will try to reconnect with my education that should mean more as we grow older and needing to know our roots. Oh, I definitely don't blame my parents for dying or G-d either for taking them before I knew what the heck I was doing, but I suppose I have gone through a lot of years of unresolved anger over that. You see, I wasn't done picking their brains for all they knew and it irks me and it seems so unfair, and for that I am truly sorry, since I still miss them terribly and for my mom it's been over 30 years and for my dad it's been 26 years that they left this earth. Darn it, I made myself cry… I am sitting here with both eyes raining as much as it is out of the door of this room, never know what causes waterworks and so odd as I told you before I suffer from dry eye syndrome and I have to use artificial tears. Perhaps, I should just do what method actors do and that is to think of something sad or I hear tell some now cheat by using glycerin, I think. That's gotta be the ones who have nothing sad to think about in their backgrounds, wouldn't that be nice, not to have any sad memories? On that, gosh what was that, allow me anyway to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you kindly to count all your blessings and share all your overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!