Dear Year...
Dear Year, 5763
Just yesterday we stood at your entrance without any ideas as to what your days would bring - all 365 of them. Now another 365 days are standing lined up one after the other, behind locked doors. We tried peeking in but failed; even the smallest speck was hidden from us. And now as I write to you, year 5763 I am shaking with awesome fright.
Would I have ever imagined what you would have looked like as I stood before Hashem last Rosh Hashanah? I was full of wishes and hopes ... and wondering: would you bring happiness, growth and success - or disappointment and failure? Would you be filled with good times, good friendships? With what would you fill up your hours and minutes? How would your newspaper headlines appear? Would they be filled with excitement and good news or C"V... the opposite. What was in store for the peoples of the world - would major crucial changes take place? In my family? Or maybe around me... or within me?
Everything... everything was written and signed already then from Rosh Hashanah till Yom Kippur of 5763. If I could have just known then what I know now. If only I would have just imagined, that within your days very precious souls would be taken away from this world - our great leaders - and even, woe to us our very own friends... would I not raised my voice and intensified my kavana? I am convinced that had I sweated a bit more, invested some more strength in the words "Haper Etzat Oivenu," I'm convinced that I could have destroyed a few more arab terrorist groups - before their explosion destroyed us. I am sure things would have been different if I would have taken advantage of those hours of rachamim.
How many measures of emotional strength and how many tears I would have invested in the words "avenu malkeinu na al tesheveinu reikam milfanecha" had I seen then as I see now right in front of my eyes, the people who so desperately await their own yeshuot; but yet another year just passed them by unanswered, another 365 days. The days, hours and minutes that contained were all full with their suffering. yet with their hope. If only I had begged a bit more before Hashem stamped his final signature on that day! I have no doubt in me that had I seen it all before me, I would have invested every last effort and intensified my kavana to no end.
Sadly, it was davka then that my desperation and imagination decided to stall. Davka then, when every hour, every minute was so crucial... when the knock is heard and the knock departs - those crucial moments of
"Kol dodi dofek, petach le...!"
"Me bekitzo ume lo bekitzo..."
"Me yichyeh u me yamut"
Where was my imagination? Where was I when I had the power in my hand to correct, to erase, to sweeten my fate and that of others?
When I flash in front of me the year that just passed, an accusing finger screams at me:
"WHY DIDN'T U TRY HARDER?"
This time I know. This time I'll try. This time I won't hesitate to let the tears fall. I wont hesitate to beg. This time I'll put in every drop of energy that I have. I know not what was yesterday, but I do know that everything from the simple to the most complex will be decided upon and written... EVERYTHING.
Daven as if you were in the middle of the sea,
stormy waves towering above you angrily.
Daven as if you were hanging there by the nearest hair...
Because dear friend...
YOU ARE!!