Entry 16

Today is the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. This is the New Year for Jews and we wish each other a fruitful and happy new year. The saying we all say to each other translates to: “Have a sweet and happy new year”

This is one of my favorite holidays. I love celebrating it. It is a very joyful occasion that takes place a week before the depressing Yom Kippur. We rejoice and celebrate the occasion and have feasts to celebrate. It is a custom to eat apples and honey to signify the upcoming year being a sweet one.

Tonight I am going to Chabad. The rabbi there is very giving and greets any student who wants to come to join him and his family for a festival service and dinner. I am very sad that I did not go home for the holiday. Jewish holidays for me are always about family and spending all day with one another rejoicing in our presence. My entire family is going up to San Francisco to visit my parents. My brother, his wife, their two kids and my sister are all making the trip from LA to the bay right now. This makes me very sad that I will miss out and not be able to see my family; worse, not be able to see my nephews. To make things even sadder, Yonah, my three-almost-four year old nephew, is sick today with the flu and is throwing up. He is not going to like the travel and the plane process if he is not feeling well. This really hurt me and I just hope that the New Year brings him health and brings health soon.

Also, to make matters worse, my girlfriend’s family is meeting up with mine on Sunday to meet one another. Our parents have met, yet our entire families have not. My girlfriend and I wish we could be there while the two sides meet, yet we cannot. There is nothing I would have loved more for the New Year than to see and spend time with my nephews. Luckily, I will see them over Thanksgiving so it is not too far away. However, I am obsessed with my nephews and it hurts me that I am missing out on their childhood while I am at school. I want to cherish as many moments as possible with them before they grow up. For instance, for Yonah’s first birthday, I was a freshmen and I drove to Los Angeles and surprised him and my family for his birthday celebration. This was one of the most meaningful trips I have ever made since I will always know I went out of my way to celebrate with my Nephew on his birthday.

These are the moments I cherish. Jewish holidays remind me how much my family means to me and how much I miss them. I hope everyone in my family and all my friends a sweet and healthy new year and may only good things come. Like we say in Judaism, “Shannah Tovah U’ Metucka” (Have a sweet and good New Year.”