This New Year, we thank G-d for having given us the strength to persevere, the wisdom to make the right decision and the humbleness to cherish our friends.
Thank you for blessing my family, including my mother, Dylan and Mani, and empowering me to become a better person.
I wish the entire community a happy, blessed and healthy New Year.
Lori Aron, advertising executive
I look at our world and see so much suffering, loss and pain that sometimes I can hardly stand it. But then I look closer, at my family, friends and community and know that it is within these smaller circles that I will always find the beauty and meaning that is so necessary in life.
This awareness inspires me to do all I can to make a difference. And I feel incredibly blessed and grateful for the life I have and the opportunities that I can create to affect change, encourage tolerance and promote loving kindness and compassion.
I wish all of you a year of good health, personal fulfillment, loving relationships and blessings.
May whatever challenges you face be tempered by the love and support of your family, friends and community and may you continue to find strength and inspiration in Jewish wisdom and trad
ition.
It is such a pleasure and honor to share my work with you!
Amy Hirshberg Lederman, columnist “Reflections“
Stop and smell the roses is such a cliché, yet completely applicable to Rosh Hashanah. While we are looking inward for ways to improve our relationships with G-d and each other, this is also the time to look outward. Its a time to look around, and take stock of all of the good things in life, hopefully things like health, decent shelter, safe food, friends, family and memories.
Everyone has challenges some people more than others but all of us have been given gifts from G-d. We just have to take the time to realize what they are.
LeShana Tova to all.
Larry Hankin, associate editor
I hope and pray that the Hashem will watch over the people of the world. In these troubled times when everything seems to be in disarray . . . I hope mankind will realize that we all live on this small planet and we must get along . . . we must learn to love each other.
I hope the New Year will bring Peace and Happiness to us all.
Bernie Papper, advertising executive
Since 1992, I have been composing prayers for the Rosh Hashanah edition. You can find them in my Word file, slugged Andreas prayer 5760, 5761, etc.
The themes have remained remarkably consistent:
Acknowledging our blessings despite the inevitable curses.
Even in a good year, curses whether self-imposed or natural threaten to snuff our spirit.
Fear. Uncertainty. Illness. Loss. Grief.
What do you do when the person responsible for your joy is gone?
The challenge is recognizing blessing in a world turned upside down. Friends and community help immeasurably. But the heart is the most stubborn organ of all.
Now that 5771 is upon us, I keeping repeating the words of Mahatma Gandhi:
Be the change you want to see in the world.
I can think of no finer prayer for the coming year, and all our years.
Andrea Jacobs, senior writer
I pray that one day soon, well regard the passions and concerns that drove our environmental and social justice movements as quaint relics of the past, like horse-drawn carts and swampy land in Palestine, because . . . well have achieved everything we sought in terms of human and planetary health.
We will live within the scales of our ecosystems, achieve equitable distributions of resources and wealth, resolution of conflicts, and freedom to live in peace, diversity and abundance. May we look back on these days from a future of joyful engagement and satisfaction.
Martin Westerman, columnist “Jewish on Earth“
Hashem should bless you all with a year of mazel, health, joy, nachas and success. May we merit the coming of Moshiach this year and celebrate together in the Bais Hamikdash, the holy Temple, in Jerusalem. And we will celebrate peace in Israel, and indeed, throughout the world. We can do it. Lets all do another mitzvah and make this world a better world. We can change darkness into light, apathy into loving kindness, and challenges into opportunities.
We can change the world for good.
Rabbi Yisroel Engel & Rabbi Shloime Engel, columnists “Dear Tzviling“
May we all enjoy good health, happiness and the blessings of the L-rd at this special time of the year. Every good wish to LeShana Tova!
Miriam Goldberg, editor and publisher
I pray for the spiritual and physical success of our children and grandchildren, for the safety of Israel, for the release of Gilad Shalit, for cohesiveness in our country, for the growth and integrity of our local Jewish community, and for greater consistency in the service of the L-rd, all out of a sense of deep gratitude for the many blessings that Hashem has bestowed on me and my wife, including (as they say in the legal documents) but not limited to family and joy in the study of Torah.
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, executive editor & columnist “View from Denver“
I pray that everyone that this reaches will have a future ahead of them that will be a credit to their families, friends and themselves.
Gerald Mellman, sports editor
Copyright © 2010 by the Intermountain Jewish News
