40 Weeks/ A New Year

Dear Friends and Family, As we conclude 2025, I have been reflecting upon what has clearly been the most difficult and challenging year of my life.  I also think about all the blessings which have been bestowed upon me by loving friends and family.  I have learned that those who cared about Sue and care about me really do care.   When my student told me that someday I would recognize that the line from Psalm 23 would make sense, they were right.  My cup does runneth over and goodness and kindness have been following me. The student told me that the challenge would be that there is a hole in the bottom of my cup and that at times I won't feel the blessings, kindness, and love because they will leak out.  They told me that slowly the hole would be smaller and that the blessings would once again fill my cup and overflow.   As I have walked through the valley  of the shadow of death, I have not been alone.  I am not quite ready  to concede that perhaps G-d has been with me through the journey since I am still confused, puzzled, and angry as  so many people who have suffered loss have been throughout time.  I am no Job and will never be viewed as a model of faith.  But what I am clearly willing to admit and am so very grateful for is that so many of you  continue to accompany me on this journey.  I hope and pray you will continue to walk this lonely path with me and will support me when I am overwhelmed. I was talking with someone who reminded me that 40 weeks is full term for a pregnant mom and marks the time when birth may occur.  Sue loved babies and except for telling me she loved our family and me, she said, "awww:-)" more often than anything else when she would see parents walking with a baby.  She would stop and talk to the parents and I could see the love sparkling in her eyes. So, I have decided to include a very special prayer which is often recited in a variety of settings.  I hope that its message will inspire you as it inspires me.  (See below) Throughout the day tomorrow and Thursday, I will be with close friends who are my local family and with others who cared deeply for Sue and care for me.  As you remember, Sue and I celebrated our engagement on New Year's Eve.  This will be the first New Year's Eve without her physically here in 51 years, but I KNOW I will feel her presence in my heart and soul.  In fact as I write this, I hear her voice saying: Dear Bruce, I know you are hurting as we celebrate the 51st anniversary of our engagement.  But I want you to know I will never leave your heart and all you need to do to feel my  presence is to remember how much I love  you.  You have written that my Dad would say, "let's say baruch (blessing) before he would say the prayer when we ate.  Well, you are a blessing, Bruce, and I miss you more than you miss me if that is possible.  I told you I would kill you if you died before me, but well that didn't happen.  So, please live and carry on my joy into the new year and beyond and BE HAPPY.  If you can do this, Bruce, I will be happy and you will feel my presence even more deeply. I LOVE YOU. Love, Snoozie (Sue used to like to sleep in so my nickname for her was Snoozie). As I hear her saying this to me, I realize that her kindness and love are gifts that will keep on giving and I can see the sparkle in her eyes which she shared with me and with those babies she would see. I hope that the new year brings healing and blessings for all of us.  And... may all of us be kinder and more loving in our journeys through life, wherever they take us. Happy New Year, Rabbi Bruce Aft Life is a Journey Birth is a beginning And death a destination And life is a journey: From childhood to maturity And youth to age; From innocence to awareness And ignorance to knowing; From foolishness to discretion And then perhaps to wisdom. From weakness to strength or From strength to weakness And often back again; From health to sickness, And we pray to health again. From offence to forgiveness, From loneliness to love, From joy to gratitude, From pain to compassion, From grief to understanding, From fear to faith. From defeat to defeat to defeat Until, not looking backwards or ahead, We see that victory lies not At some high point along the way But in having made the journey Step by step, A sacred pilgrimage. Birth is a beginning And death a destination And life is a journey. --Rabbi Alvin Fine from Jewish Reform high holiday prayer book, Gates of Repentance

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