Rabbi Jason Holtz's Rosh Hashanah Message for 2024

How has Rosh Hashanah changed over the last 100 years? How do I anticipate it evolving into the future?

A hundred years ago, 1924, feels like it must have been a very different world. My entire family had already made its way to the United States by then. Here in America, it was the roaring twenties. There were certainly challenges for American Jews then, but for the most part, I imagine my family feeling optimistic about the future. My grandparents were children or teenagers in the 1920s and they were the first generation to be born here in America. As children in America, their future surely seemed much brighter than their parents when they were the same age. Of course, little did they know of the Depression to come in the 1930s, or World War II and the Holocaust.

We can’t predict the future any better than anyone else. Who knew a year ago what 5784 would bring? At the same time, we can see trends. Antisemitism is rising. Israel seems more vulnerable now than it has in a long time. Unity sometimes feels more like a memory than a reality. We worry that technology, which has the power to connect us, also has the power to divide us and bring alienation.

And for our own personal futures? Will we and our loved ones be healthy or sick? What about our careers? Will our children succeed in school or in their jobs or in finding meaningful relationships? Will our goals in life be realized or frustrated?

Rosh Hashanah reminds us how little control we sometimes feel like we have. On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed. But what is written? What is sealed? Will it be for good or for bad? Can we do anything to meaningfully change or improve what will happen? Our tradition teaches that while so much is out of our hands, so much is in our hands too. Repentance, prayer and tzedakah will always make what is to come better.

It’s hard to know what the future will bring, but what we bring to that future is up to us. May the year ahead be good to us, and may we also be good to the year ahead.

Rabbi Jason Holtz is the Rabbi of Temple Kehillat Chaim in Roswell.