The New Year is upon us.

Tonight at sundown we will welcome in 5776. As a child celebrating the secular new year, it would become an annual challenge to stay up until midnight to watch the ball drop from Times Square in New York City. I would get anxious and excited waiting for that fateful hour.

Now, I get anxious and excited as we draw to the Jewish New Year, hoping I don’t drop the ball. The work of self-reflection and repentance, combined with the necessity of facing the deep mystery of not knowing what the new year will bring, is so daunting and challenging.

But it is what we are called upon to do. We enter a new year grateful for all the goodness that came from this past year, and ready to accept what the new year will bring. And we are strengthened by the fact that we do this work together.

Thank you for being on this journey with me. Thank you for reading my words, for sharing them, for writing back. I look forward to continuing this journey with you.

(I’m tempted, but I’m not going to give a teaser for the messages that I will be sharing over the High Holidays–I hope to see you at shul–but I will be sharing them in this forum after the holidays.)

To all of you, I wish you a year of health and happiness, of strength and support, of peace and comfort. And of not letting the ball drop.

L’shana tovah!