New Year. New Calendar
Abraham Joshua Heschel writes in his beautiful exposition of the Sabbath: “The Sabbath arrives in the world, scattering a song in the silence of the night: eternity utters a day.”
At the close of this past week’s Sabbath, I spent the evening like millions, or perhaps billions, of others. I spent Saturday evening celebrating the dawn of a new year.
It seems an odd and arbitrary celebration. After far too many drinks we count down to the turning of the clock from December 31st to January 1st. We hug and kiss and then often drink some more. We look to 2017 with promise and hope, if but momentarily.
And so the new year begins—year after year.
This event, or at least the day, is an inheritance of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar who ruled in the first century B.C.E....
At the close of this past week’s Sabbath, I spent the evening like millions, or perhaps billions, of others. I spent Saturday evening celebrating the dawn of a new year.
It seems an odd and arbitrary celebration. After far too many drinks we count down to the turning of the clock from December 31st to January 1st. We hug and kiss and then often drink some more. We look to 2017 with promise and hope, if but momentarily.
And so the new year begins—year after year.
This event, or at least the day, is an inheritance of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar who ruled in the first century B.C.E....