Happy New Year.

I am taking the day off today for the Jewish New Year known as Rosh Hashanah.

In days of yore, when I was a kid, my old man would drag me to Temple and I would sit there, not understanding the Hebrew and not believing the English.

Later, my wife was the dragger of me to Temple, fulfilling what she regarded as her uxorial obligations. (One of the many reasons I loved studying Latin was the word uxor. In its singular form, it means wife. As a plural, it means a yoke of oxen.)

I was dragged to various Temples for about 45 years of my life, and in all that time I never once felt any connection to the ceremony or the preaching, and further, and worse, never through all those hours of being preached to felt I heard anything wise or insightful.

Once my kids flew the coop, I stopped going to Temple altogether. I don't think I've stepped into one for five years now.

All that being said, I still, try to take the day off and commune with myself and reflect on the year I've had, the future I am working for, and my most important relationships, those with my wife and my kids. I do try to spend some time enriching my brain and thinking about what I can do in my own small way to make my world better.

Beyond the briskets and the apples and the honey and the ancient rites and rituals of the liturgy, that's what the Jewish holidays are for me. 

A few semiotic moments away from a world that is too much with us to think, quietly and constructively about things larger than the next assignment that has to go out the door or the next mortgage payment that must be made.

That's it for now.

Last night's dishes are still in the sink.

And new year or not, they're not going to wash themselves.