The Circle We Take to Get There.

The fall feasts are upon us. Just as the lilac light of summer fades into the golden hues of Autumn, our ears are perked for the zig zagged path of Trumpets, Yom Kippur, and Tabernacles. As we unpack the fall feasts, one at a time, we experience something new, something mournful, and something joyous. It remains a gift that the diverse elements of these appointed times reach in and touch each corner of our emotional compasses.

The feasts walk us through a fresh start, a great anguish, and a great delight. The conclusion of these festivals is a last great day... the 8th day…. a day that prophetically means forever and without end. We are transformed in these weeks as these rehearsals dig into our soil to harvest all that we have allowed to be planted in our lives during the year so that the seeds of the fruit may be replanted into next years garden.

We can let the joy in with no strings attached. There is no martyr’s excuse to dim the celebration of the "Season of our Joy" (Rosh HaShanah) because the mourning on the Day of Atonement five days prior is complete in its wrenching and purging. We wring ourselves out so we may absorb the fresh, clean water of holiness from the only real paradise. What a perfect example of order! The bookends of our sorrow are the blowing of the Shofars and the rehearsal of eternal joy. It begins with the shaking of all that can be shaken at one end, and then thrusts us ahead to revel in being a Child of the Most High God at the other.

It’s a time to explore each facet of being a human seeking the Divine. We must begin again and start over in the call to move forward at the blowing of the trumpets. Then in the melancholic unity of more than a trillion tears between us all, we endure the blackest of nights with fear and trembling. We peer into of the depths of a soul that sought love and importance in all the wrong places. Stainless and purified, we are released into the happiness of a certain someday where we shall shed that humanity to embody the true likeness of Him in completeness.

Can you ride this wave of spiritual adventure into the core of your heart? Can you embrace a new beginning? Can you lament the tragic sadness of sin, loss, and brokenness to trust the One Who redeems the broken and restores the lost? Can you accept that He dries those tears in time for the Booths to be sprinkled across His Creation in celebration of His and our reclamation of joy?

The question is, can we walk this fiery delight as one family?

The answer is a resounding YES. That is the only answer because as He has asked us to do it, so, yes it can be done.

May your New Year be filled with light, love, and courage.

Burach HaShem!