Rebecca Guttman’s Rosh Hashanah Message for 2026

The High Holidays ask us to do something that is deeply Jewish, deeply human, and yet sometimes feels deeply radical: to begin again. We must apologize, atone, set ourselves up for different and better choices in the future. But after that, we step forward with a lightness in our being, facing an empty page in front of us that is ours to write.
This commitment to a fresh, new year reminds us that our future and that of our people is still unfinished. We can shape the year ahead through the choices we make and the actions we take. And in doing so, we are not only shaping our own lives; we are helping to write the next chapter of our collective story. We carry this story forward by investing in our families, our communities, and the values and traditions we hope to pass from generation to generation. We do this because we believe that there is a Jewish future worth preparing for.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote about one of the most fundamental responsibilities of a people: to ensure that there is a next generation. Not only to populate the next generation, but also to believe in its promise and ability to carry our peoplehood forward. This is the meaning of mi’dor l’dor: from generation to generation. It is not simply about passing down traditions and values. It is about ensuring that the next generation is able to receive these rituals and stories, by being instilled with hope that there is a future worth preparing for, and that our Jewish story is both unfinished and worthy of continuation.
This commitment to our future feels particularly important in a world where it can sometimes be difficult to imagine what comes next. Jewish history has taught us, again and again, that uncertainty does not mean the absence of possibility. We are, after all, a people who have survived by believing in a future even in uncertain times. This is one of the most important gifts we can offer the generations who come after us: not certainty that everything will be easy, but the conviction that the future of the Jewish people is still ours to shape.
This year, as we stand at the threshold of another beginning, may we recommit ourselves not only to the Jewish past we have inherited, but to the Jewish future we are helping to create.
Because hope for the future is, in its own way, an act of faith.

Rebecca Guttman is the Program Manager at Jewish Fertility Foundation.