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YESTERDAY, my oldest daughter and I went to the photo studio down the street
to have her senior portrait made. This is the photograph that will be on her
page in the school yearbook in the section for graduating seniors.
I didn’t mind the two hours at the beauty salon for styling and make-up.
I didn’t mind the wait or the cost or her passing anxiety attack about what
to wear for the photograph. That was all fine. I expected it.
I was okay with the photo session for the senior page. And, I was filled
with delight at my daughter’s poise as she sat in her best suit jacket and
blue shirt, wearing my sparkly necklace.
But when the photographer handed her a cap and gown and told her to put
them on for her graduation picture, the world of time and change caught up
with me. There she was in the spotlight in a royal blue gown and a matching
cap with a gold tassel, the light of the future shining on her face — and I
felt my heart soar and sink at the same time.
Which brings us to Rosh Hashana, that holiday that fixes us in time like no
other, the holiday that says, reflect on your past, seize and savor your
present, anticipate your future with hope and resolve.
I am not always as anchored in time as Rosh Hashana demands. To me, children
that were ten years old yesterday are suddenly fifteen today. To me, speaking
engagements I agreed to months ago sneak up the calendar and abruptly appear,
demanding that I come up with something funny and worthwhile to say and have
a suit dry cleaned. As an actual adult, I am aware that tempus is fugiting,
but the actual speed of it leaves me breathless.
My daughter is seventeen; surely that happened gradually. I know, because I
was there. Yet this transition — from the chatting kid I had to chase off the
telephone last night to this smiling young woman in her graduation gown —
seems oddly sudden to me, as does the annual advent of Rosh Hashana.
We roll through the summer. We get the kids back to school. We re-establish
the routine of carpools and music lessons and tutors. And just when things
seem to be settling down, here come these holidays — welcome and yet
disruptive, just another way of letting us know who is really in charge here.
I fear that I’m the only one caught short, pulled up in my path for a night
of family celebration and a day of reflection and prayer. We’ve already
started receiving New Year cards, so I know that my friends are not as
bamboozled as I am, at least not the ones who live in other towns. Maybe the
shifting seasons give them an early warning system. I mention this because
seasons change somewhat invisibly here in the Florida sub-tropics. If the
humidity drops below 85%, it is autumn, but you have to be looking for it.
Maybe that is part of what happens with Rosh Hashana. Actually, every day of
the year is a new start, an offering from heaven to choose your path with
care — but we don’t notice that every day. We’re not looking for it. On Rosh
Hashana, our spiritual temperature increases; we are called upon to pay
attention, alerted by the alarm clock of the shofar. The gift of time is
pointed out to us forcibly: heads up, it says. Be written, it says.
Look at your year and your life and your child, it says. Be conscious, be
aware, be grateful, be ready.
Really see, it says. See the new young woman who is arriving, like the dawn
of the new year, draped in blue and gold, and filled with unlimited
Jewish World Review Sept. 28, 2000 / 28 Elul 5760
The Rosh Hashana graduate
By Erica Meyer Rauzin
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