Dear Year 5769...

Dear year 5769,

Just yesterday we stood at your entrance without any idea as to what your days would bring- all 365 of them. Now another 365 days are standing lined up one after the other, behind locked doors. We tried peeking in but failed; even the smallest speck was hidden from us. And now as I write to you, year 5769 who is about to exit now, I am shaking with awesome fright.

Would I have ever imagined what you would have looked like as I stood in the synagogue last Rosh Hashanah? I was full with wishes and hopes… and wondering: would you bring happiness, growth, success-or disappointment and failure? Would you be filled with good times, good friendships? With what would you fill up all you 8,700 hours, and 525,600 minutes? How would your newspaper headlines appear? Would they be filed with excitement and good news or God Forbid… What was in store for the peoples of the world- would major crucial changes take place? In my family? Or maybe me… or within me?

Everything… everything was written and signed already then from Rosh Hashanah till Yom Kippur of 5769. If I could have just know then what I know now by in mere turn of 365 days. If only I would have just imagined, for example, that within your days very precious souls would be taken away from this world…

How many measures of emotional strength and how many tears I would have invested in the words “Our father, our King do not turn us away from You empty-handed”. Had I seen then as I see now right in front of my eyes, the people who so desperately await their own personal salvation, but yet another year just passed them by unanswered, another 365 days. The 365 days, the 8,760 hours, and the 525,600 minutes, that you contained were all full with their suffering, yet with their hope. If only I had begged a bit more before Hashem stamped his final signature on that day! I have no doubt in me that had I seen it all before me, “I would have invested every last effort and intensified my prayer to no end.

Sadly, it was just then that my desperation and imagination decided to stall. Just then, when every hour, every minute was so crucial….

Where was my imagination? Where was I when I had the power in my hand to correct, to erase, to sweeten my fate and that of others?

When I flash in front of me the year that just passed, an accusing finger screams at me:

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TRY HARDER??”

Yes, year 5769, you are about to end. You’ve taught me a lot. This time I know. This time I’ll try. This time I won’t hesitate to let the tears fall. I don’t know what year 5770 will bring, but I do know how much power lies within me.

The three Hebrew letters: shin, nun, and hei when are put together can be read in three different ways. Shana (year), shena (sleep) and shoneh (change). The message here is that if we sleep through the month of Elul and through Rosh Hashanah we should not expect a better year to come.
But if we change ourselves for better the year also will be more blessed and successful.
So let’s leshanot (change) ourselves for the better,so we can all have a better and more successful shana (year).