Rosh Hashanah is a time to come together

According to the laws of astrophysics, the rotation of the Earth has gradually slowed down over time. We, however, don’t believe it. We think it’s speeding up.

How else to explain how quickly another year has come and gone? Ready or not, the High Holy Days are with us once again. With the summer behind us, we turn to the things that matter most to us as Jews: who we are as individuals and what we are as a people.

When the sun sets Friday, Sept. 18, we will fill our synagogues for Erev Rosh Hashanah. We will sing, we will pray and we will begin that most solitary of pursuits: scouring our hearts, identifying where we fell short and determining how to become better people.

Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of the world. This is the day of creation. This is our annual shot at a second chance.

It seems we can always use one. As individuals we are far from perfect. As a Jewish community, we remain far too diverse to speak with one voice on every issue, and sometimes our disagreements can grow heated.

A classic example arose this summer with the controversy over the screening of “Rachel” at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. The particulars of this incident were well covered in the pages of j. and need not be revisited here. And we continue to receive letters on the topic.

But in hindsight, we must ask: As justifiable as the opposing points of view may have been, did the argument have to get so nasty and personal?

The odds are good that seated side by side in synagogues across the Bay Area will be Jews who took one strident position or the other during the “Rachel” flap. Back in July, those opponents would have been at each other’s throats.

Now, on Erev Rosh Hashanah, in the gathering twilight, no one will ask anyone else his or her opinions of Rachel Corrie or any other matter of great moment. Instead, the same people who attacked each other in the summer will greet each other warmly and wish each other a good and sweet New Year.

On Rosh Hashanah we are shorn of the day-to-day. On Rosh Hashanah none of us is liberal or conservative, a member of the Zionist Organization of America or Jewish Voice for Peace. We are simply Jews, united.

This is not to say we should dismiss our political passions. They indicate a people mightily active in the world, which is a good thing.

But for these few days ahead, let us set those passions aside and stand as one people.

We wish all our readers a heartfelt Shanah Tovah.