VOL XLI	GARDEN VALE, QUEBEC, SEPTEMBER 25, 1959 -	- ELUL 22, 5719	No. 52
	ACCENT   ON	LIFE	
"Happy New Year, happy New Year I May you be inscribed in the hook of life." This is the beautiful greeting of Jews at Rosh Hashonah, the New Year, the most important judgment day next to Yom Kippur^tho Day of Atonement. Throe^Doaks of account are opened at this time and they are, first, for the righteous. They are inscribed at once in the book of life for they are sealed" to live. Second, for the intermediates between the righteous and the wicked, and these have ten days of respite until Yom Kippur in which to repent of their misdoings. Third, for the wicked. They
are "blotted out of the book of the living."
Yes, Rosh Hashonah is a most solemn day. However, it is not a long-faced Holy Day. In fact, the pld Rabbis recommended as proper demeanour for Holy Days - a cheerful countenance and a rejoicing heart. These days, it was said, should be divided into halves, one for eating, drinking, and amusement; the other for worship and study. But, too much drinking and excessive hilarity were not to be encouraged, of course.- The Jewish New Year is not a day for carousing. Once upon a time the Court used to appoint overseers for public parks and gardens at the New Year to see that jovial people did not get too jovial in the direction of the sinful. Dignified observance is the correct note to strike.
In the olden days, the very olden days7 the Jews were dressed in white on Rosh Hashonah, the New Year, the Day of Judgment. They set out red apples on the table with grapes and figs and honey, They had a specially -fine- meal with meat and wine. They gave new toys and fruits to the children; to the women, new garments and ornaments. They created an atmosphere of high hope and great expectations for the year to come. Their hearts were lifted up and welled over in gratitude to God for the good things of life in reasonable measure. "Reasonable measure" itself is something to be grateful for. Satisfaction with it denotes a basic contentment with life.
At a time when it is all too clear that civilization needs a return to a consideration of "first things" to reduce conflict and' improve the distribution of all the good things of the good life, and when it should be the role of the Jewish group to keep in front of the world the place of humanity first before property, Jts iresohition is weakened by the insatiable uppetite for heaping up
justice, and the corroding poverty which renders self-realization impossible for so much of humanity.
The basic Jewish principles are sensible and practical. There is nothing otherworldly-about them and they were not intended to be held within the covers of a book for safe-keeping. The Jew-ish values make for individual character and within the strong bonds of family attachment become the) underpinnings of a household. What happens within any one household should be of the utmost importance to the commonwealth. There the-Jewish philosophy of life is founded on attitudes concerning the treatment of the stranger, the worker, the beast in the field, the fatherless, the weak, the small, with specific admonitions that stress justice and not charity, human rights rather than benefaction. This system of living requires effort. Its ultimate aim is peace, happiness, and security for all human beings.
Judaism is stern. It does not countenance anything less than the root belief that every man is his brother's keeper, and proceeding from "that/ it regards the promotion of good will as a major individual and group obligation supported countless times by biblical admonition. But these are the sterile days which Amos, the Prophet, predicted, when the Lord would send a time of famine, "not of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord."
When Jews greet each other at the New Year they wish each other health, happiness, prosperity, more life, and lots of it. No one says, "May you be inscribed in the book of life so that you may make use of the biblical ideals to guide your way of living for th^ benefit of your own character and the betterment of your group." But the ancient Jewish principles which rest on the Mosaic Code and which form the basis of civilization, at least in recitation, constantly await translation into meaning for the daily life of all men. As the originators of these fundamental rules the Jews have a greater duty toward helping to make them concrete than any other group.
Jews were not meant to be indifferent. They are supposed to pray daily for welfare, peace, loving kindness, and mercy where justice alone is not enough. The human_society they are-supposed to stand for is one- built on equality, tolerance^ cmcU
wealth, gadgets, and worldly goods that is common to this era. For this is a period of substitution in which things that are good, tried, and true, are replaced with the cake "mix" criterion and thousands of other cheap transparent short cuts and "instead-ofs" to the detriment of standards of worth, and the consequent inability of the young even to remember what they were like.
"May you be inscribed in the book of life so that you will work for the establishment of the highest standards in Jewish responsibility." This requires fidelity to the family values lest they be subverted, for no group is stronger than its individual households; to individual ethics which make the ethics of the group and of the nations; to the common good which means opposition to war, hunger, oppression, national arrogance, in-
mutual aid. For this attitude to be real and authentic it cannot remain in the custody of rabbis and other teachers. It has to be built in.
Jews have a preoccupation with life. Peace, justice, righteous living, freedom, mercy to the weak, all these are good. They are the Jewish ideals. But they must emerge out of life. A people of historical escapes, great catastrophes, and a rolling succession of tragedies through the ages, may be excused for having a rather morbid view of death. For them life is everything. To the living there remains the Jewish destiny of service to mankind through keeping its eye fixed on the foundation stone of man's basic purpose: to advance human brotherhood, for there is no other. tic