Rosh HaShanah Article On Ynet

I am happy to invite you, dear readers, to read a special article for Rosh Hashanathat I published today on Ynet and with this I also want to wish you and all of Israel a happy holiday and a good and sweet year!

This Year We Choose To Be Connected

“On Rosh Hashana, 5,776 years ago, one person succeeded in creating a connection with his surroundings. This evening, we celebrate the birthday of the first time that a connection like this was created in humanity. Rav Dr. Michael Laitman, in a special column for Rosh HaShana, explains how it is in our power to make the coming year more successful.”

I am looking at the year that has passed. It was a complex and difficult year for the people of Israel. There is no need to say very much about what we experienced, and it is clear that all of us look forward to a much better year. It depends only on us to make it better.

This evening, we are celebrating Rosh Hashana. 5,776 years ago, a special person was born whom we call Adam ha Rishon (The First Man). He was not the first person who was created; I don’t mean to say that the universe was created 5,776 years ago. This material universe has existed for 14 billion years. There is no argument about that.

What, indeed, was born 5,776 years ago is that system of unique connections that one person succeeded in creating with his surroundings, with others. That relationship that brings people together is what gives us the true reason for living, opens other worlds before us, and makes a person happy. Today, we celebrate the anniversary of the first time when a connection like this was created with humanity.

During the last 5,776 years, we have gone through innumerable situations, but something of this root is left in us. It is too small. It is distant. It comes and goes. However, on holidays, more than usual, it is still possible to feel a kind of spirit like this that envelops and connects all of us. It is because this nation was born from a special feeling of connection.

Abraham, the father of the nation, took the amorphous concept that Adam HaRishonbegan, and it really has developed into a method. Later, it even became a common slogan in the mouths of everyone, called, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” However, the idea of “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not a slogan. It is the foundation. It is the essential basis for our existence here. This is what makes us unique, and this is the basis for our moral values as a nation. Incidentally, this is the only thing that we can and must contribute to humanity. But that is another story.

So, on this holiday, we close a circle; or, more correctly, we open a circle, and it is always necessary to begin from the head, and today is the head, Rosh HaShana, the head of the change. It means that it is the first point in which we understand that a change in the form of the relationships between us leads also to a change in our feeling as individuals and as a society. The way is the same way that Adam HaRishonbegan and our father Abraham developed, and is relevant to the same degree and perhaps even more for us today as well.

I hope, wish, and yearn for a year of change. It should be a year of building the right systems of relationships between us. A year of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” a year of unity, connection, love of others that will transform our lives here and make the approaching year into a sweet and happy year. I wish for a good year for all of the people of Israel!
From the site Ynet article.