Finding friends in the New Year

Wednesday September 12 2007

With Rosh Hashanah fast approaching, the first full week of September
is a time for both reflection and new beginnings. The summer, with all
of its barbeques, weeks off from work and hot lazy days, has come to
an unofficial close with the celebration of Labor Day, though –
against fashion’s better judgments – some folks may still wear white.
And with the shortening of the days and a more permanent chill in the
air, September also sees our children returning to school, armed with
sharpened pencils and blank notebooks. We are both excited and anxious
to say goodbye to our youngsters. College students will once again
inundate the T as university is back in session.
Schoolmates will swap camp stories of bunk raids, color wars and other
summertime adventures. The New Year is an opportunity to make new
friends and, with the perspective of another summer, to reassess
whether one still has the same goals – if you still want to be a
mathematician or an artist – and then decide which elective to take.
As a community, we are coming together after camping trips and
weekends on the Cape. And while our notebooks may have more notes
scribbled in them over the years than our youngsters’, the New Year
should be an opportunity to reassess whether we are happy with the
direction where we are heading. If we are, what can we do to advance
our goals?
If not, where have we gone wrong, and what can we do better?
Much led and ink has been dedicated recently to the issue with the
Anti-Defamation League and the Armenian community. Last week, the
local Jewish and Armenian community came together on the State House
steps to reinforce the longstanding relationship between the two
communities.
As Jews, it seems there is hardly ever a week – or even a day – that
goes by that we, or the state of Israel, can’t steal local and global
headlines. Perhaps we have a flair for the dramatic. But the
friendships we foster locally and globally should not hinge on an
editor’s choice of headline, or a historian’s interpretation of
events.
Relationships that stand the test of time are rooted in common ground
and mutual respect, if not complete understanding. As Jews, the Jewish
state is important to us and we often ask our friends to stand by our
side as we defend her.
And though it may not grab headlines, we should ask ourselves how we
are reaching out to other communities on their own terms.
In this week’s story on the Lena Park Community Development
Corporation in Dorchester – formerly the Hecht House – we see how the
African American community is reaching its hand out to the Jewish
community in a gesture of partnership.
Gestures of kindness, made in earnest, should be accepted with
sincerity. Perhaps 5768 will be the year of the outstretched hand.

Source: editorial/