Erev Rosh Hashanah
.
.
.
It must be because it's Erev Rosh Hashanah, the evening of the Jewish new year 5760, that I'm more philosophical tonight.
So, what I'm thinking about is evolution. If you're a fundamentalist you'll always have a problem, a real contradiction between scientific observations and the Biblical account, but fortunately I'm not. Here's how you can believe in God (if you want to, or are stuck believing) and be cool with evolution: It's like watching children grow up. At some point you have to let them go their own way and make their own decisions. It doesn't mean you don't love them or don't care for them, it's just part of raising them. You can believe that God created life and then said, now go ahead and decide how to grow. Try different ways of being a living being. Some will work better than others. It's free will on a species by species scale. God so loved the world that he let his (sorry about the sexism, feel free to fix it) creatures change themselves to fit all parts of it.
It's been raining most of the day. I'm not going to give you any of that “beautiful rainy day” baloney at this point. It's been raining more than is fun, and we haven't had a sunny day all week. That probably has something to do with it, too.
The choir sung this evening at the services for the beginning of the holiday. I have only been to one rehearsal this fall, this past Wedensday, and I feel as though I need to learn to sing all over again. Being in the choir is still the best way to get through Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services, though.
The High Holy Days are all about introspection and repentance, with a solemn focus on what the year may bring, not the “Hooray, we made it through another year” mood of January 1. Rosh Hashanah is also a time for a big family get-together and festive meal. I baked a two-loaf batch of apple-cinnamon-honey challah last night from a recipe in this week's newspaper food section, but it looked so untraditional that I made another two loaves of normal holiday challah from a family recipe.
 | ||||