Shoulda Woulda Coulda

I really SHOULD HAVE posted to this blog in July on the eighth anniversary of our return to Baltimore from Israel but I just didn't have the emotional energy to go there...

I WOULD HAVE posted in August but summer is not necessarily all relaxation and free time...

I COULD HAVE blogged earlier this month about Jerusalem's old walls (see above) and new string bridge (on the right) - a good theme, I thought, as we end the old year and begin a new one - but the string bridge isn't really so new anymore. The Jerusalem light rail is - but I don't have a photo of it...

Excuses, excuses. At least I AM posting in time to wish you and yours a healthy, joyful new year - a year of no excuses, a year in which all your hopes will be realized and all your prayers answered with revealed good and sweetness. And of course, the year in which we will no longer have to Remember Jerusalem with photos and blog posts...

Speaking of photos, see ours below. Then scroll down a bit further for my annual Rosh Hashanah poem with, as always, a new stanza for the new year.

With every blessing in the year 5752 and beyond,

Zevy, Yours Truly, Bill, Yoel, Simcha 

Berel and Shani

Rosh Hashanah 5772

We ponder again the year in review

What was accomplished, what's still left to do.

Looking back, we can count all the ways we've been blessed

and assess how we've scored on G-d's many tests.

So many should'ves and could'ves but didn't.

Surely I would've if my heart had been in it.

No more excuses! (Or at least not as many.)

I'll have to try hard to make hardly any.

What have I learned in the years that have passed?

That no two people will take the same path.

Be it highway or footbridge, a road lies ahead.

Walk yours with G-d, King Solomon said.

Our sacred laws, beloved traditions                                                

guide us through challenges and transitions. From day to day, from year to year
our faith and our trust calm every fear.

The years come and go in the circle game.

Events ever-changing; the cycle the same.
Like wood being shaped by the artisan's lathe

we marvel at eych ha'galgal mistoveyv.

Yomuledet Sameyach!

Congratulations, dear Earth,

on 5772 years since your birth.

With what shall we bless you on your special day?

Global peace. Gentle weather. Prosperity...

Now the air's turning brisk; the foliage bright.

Soon the table we'll set and the candles we'll light.

The challahs are baked; the honey dish glistens.

The shofar will blow, to its call we will listen.

Ripe pomegranates bursting with seeds remind G-d of our merits, not our misdeeds. The angels are ready to plead every case to the Almighty King Whose judgment we'll face.

May He grant us good health and joy that is true,

contentment and nachas and simchas "by you".

Let this be the year that He takes our hands

and leads us back Home to our holy Land.

Now we are ready, the holiday's here.

May it be the start of a wonderful year.

As we don our finest, it is so nice to know

that for Rosh Hashanah we're all "good to go"!