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Thought for the Day: New Year's Celebration Our Way and Their Way -- We Get Up Early and They ... Well...

I had the following conversation with someone who doesn't know me very well on Jan 1 this year:

Other guy 😁
Happy New Year!
Me
I thought we celebrated the new year a few months ago.
Other guy 😐
Well, it is a day off.
Me
I am retired, so I don't get PTO.
Other guy 🙄
So have a nice regular day.
Me
Thank you!

That got me thinking about how goyim and Jews celebrate the new year.

Goyish conduct: It's the end of the year. Work slows down. Traffic is light. No deadlines have been scheduled. Lots of holiday parties, culminating in an intense night of drinking and "loosening up" to celebrate making it to the end of the year. Party till midnight to be able to greet the very first second of the year with cheers and behaviors that would not be accepted the rest of the year. Then take off the first day of the new year at least exhausted and often hung over. Go back to work till next year's party. Repeat till old age or death wears you down. Yay.

Jewish conduct: Spend the last month of the current year in serious introspection of what went well and what needs to be improved. New year's day itself: Communal dedication to our mission statement: HaShem is the King. This is so important that we spend two whole days individually and as a community proclaiming our mission statement. Then follows eight days of intense introspection about what went off course last year, culminating in a day completely dedicated to admitting our mistakes and committing ourselves to greater focus on what is important. This last day is so busy that we don't even have time to eat.

Then we start on executing our plan. We begin by immersing ourselves -- physically as well as spiritually -- in our task. To keep our focus, we each build a conference room where we will take all our meals (weather permitting) and use all the resources of this world -- represented by the four species -- to accomplish our lofty goals. At the end of that week, we celebrate another cycle of learning and implementing the instructions for life that we received from Our King, the Creator. With that preparation, we are now ready to take even the most mundane aspects of this world and elevate them to tools in accomplishing our exalted mission statement. Repeat this annual cycle of constant elevation till as long as there is more to accomplish.

I think that pretty much sums up why I left the world of goyim to join the Jewish people.

Epilogue

Regarding that first conversation and my conduct in general. I have been asked: Have you always been like this? My answer is: (a) Yes. (b) I don't really know what "this" is... which may be the problem. I offer as evidence a similar conversation I had with my grandmother more than 50 years ago.

Department store clerk 😁
Merry Christmas!
Me
Happy Chanukah!
Grandma 😐
She isn't Jewish.
Me
I am not Christian.
Grandma 😐
She doesn't know that you aren't Christian.
Me
I don't know that she isn't Jewish.
Grandma
🙄
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