The purpose of the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) is moral introspection: Every year, Jews meditate on the issue of becoming a better person.
Your attitude is the energy you are putting out into the world. Are you positive, upbeat and solution-oriented or negative, fearful and mean-spirited? Whatever it is, people can feel it. And what you put out determines, in large measure, what comes back to you. As you step into the new calendar year, then, changing your attitude is absolutely necessary if you want to improve your life.
When I was a small boy — 6 or 7 — I became acutely aware that being a Jew made me a member of a tiny minority.
Some of the letters we get here at the Jewish Journal are quite flattering. Some people relate that they find my biweekly musings to be pithy and funny (thanks, mom!). If these people can be trusted, they are laughing out loud, weeping with laughter, dying of laughter. I\’ve killed six by the latest count.
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