Thursday, September 13, 2007

Hey y'all!

Happy Rosh Hashana!

What? You don't so much know about Rosh Hashana? Well, I'm no expert on Jewish holidays, but I do know a few things! For example: be careful for which holidays you wish someone a "
Happy" whatever. You do NOT want to say that on Yom Kippur, for example, because that's a bigtime serious day, it's coming up soon, so please don't confuse the two.

Today, however, you can say "happy." It's the New Year! It's party time! It's time to cast your sins in the river and start again! Blow the shofar! Eat some honey, honey, to make the next year sweet!

I learned a lot from Neil over at "Citizen of the Month" about Rosh Hashana, including a cool greeting you can throw out like a total pro if you would like to impress all your Jewish friends: Shana Tova. Go on, it's easy!! Say it with me! Shana Tova! It sounds like a country singer's name, right? It's not. It means "A good year," which is nice to say to someone, and connotes a level of civility that "Happy new year" does not.

An aside: what ever happened to Tovah Feldshuh?

Anyhow - it's Rosh Hashana, and it's a happy time, a time of anticipation and joy, or getting one's house in order, of sweets and celebration. Shana Tova, y'all!

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I'm not Jewish, by the way.

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If you ARE Jewish, you'll already know this, but I didn't and so I'm spreading this bit of information for the readers of this here blog to learn from and grow by.

If you're Jewish, your day STARTS at sundown, just like God's day did back in Genesis times! Check it out:

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1, v5)

See? Evening and morning are a day, not the other way around, and not governed by an arbitrary clock. Cool, huh?

Wait....I sense a deafening silence on the interweb. Am I the only one who finds this rather interesting? Is this enough to "oooh" over or am I way out in my own left field again? Do the Jews have the method of marking the passing of days more Godlike than the rest of us? Or, perhaps, did Moses impart to God his own system of timekeeping when he wrote the creation story so as to make it SEEM like he knew what God was doing (because as y'all know, Moses wrote Genesis. You DID know that, right?) and therefore add credence to his own religion's chosen means of tracing the diurnal cycle?

Well?????

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In other news: I just got a call from a friend who's going to Spain to speak at an international conference. Man, it sure pays to have friends who make you realize that you could be doing so much MORE with your life.

RI Red, I'm proud of you! Way to grab that bull by the horns and make something of yourself.

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The new wordsmiths challenge is up!

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With that, I'm O and O, y'all. Shana Tova!!

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