#13 Recalculating

For decades Paul and I have brought together an ever-lovely group of friends and family on our backyard Mt Pollux for Rosh Hashanah. This year it felt important to continue our tradition. I wasn’t feeling 100%, but had so many people help with all the details; it was a wonderful evening, for which I am so grateful!

We gather and greet each other, we sing, dip apples in honey for a sweet new year, and share blessings, and readings. Some years back, I have the idea of making challah for all our guests in various shapes on a theme I choose from the high holiday season.

This year I am drawn to is the theme of Teshuvah, or returning. It’s interpreted many ways, returning to faith, to tradition, to community. For me it’s also about returning to the very best version of ourselves. With help from my sister-in-love, Lauren, we start early in the day and make a set of challot that represent a number of tools that might help us, remind us, urge us, support us, and carry us as we do the work of Teshuvah. Check out the photo for illustration!

We have a heart because it’s often love and support that urges us in the best directions.

We have a hand, because sometimes it’s a person who extends a hand that helps us back to our feet, or up out of a low place, or points us to a healthier, more fitting track.