Thoughts on the New Year

We have much to be grateful for here in Bucks County. As we move into a new season with its own beauty and bounty (apples and pumpkins!), we’ve got to be thankful that we live here. Good food, good wine and good community.

Mark and I recently observed the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. For those of you unfamiliar with Jewish rituals and tradition, the ten days between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur are a time of both celebration and deep reflection, the holiest time of the year for Jews. It is a time to look back on the past year, reflect on our actions, forgive and be forgiven, and renew ourselves to start a new, better year. It is serious stuff.

It’s also very much linked to the seasons. Even though the Jewish holidays “move” around in relation to the Gregorian calendar (due to it being a lunar, not solar, calendar), the High Holy Days, and the harvest holiday which follows (Sukkot), always take place in the fall. So it really feels like a change, that the year is turning.

I had one of those “Duh!” moments I’ve been having a lot this past year. At Rosh Hashanah we traditionally eat apples dipped in honey and wish our friends and loved ones a “sweet New Year.” If you had asked me a year ago the significance of apples and honey I would have shrugged. But—duh—I learned this year that both apples and honey are harvested in the fall. Apples I knew about, but thanks to the Milk House Farm Market in Newtown I learned that honey is also an autumn product. I’ve been tracking their progress since they decided just this year to start beekeeping and honey production.

This is also a time that we take stock. Mark and I are very grateful for all that we have in our lives, and that includes our new online—and on-the-ground—community. We’ve enjoyed the new people we’ve met over the last year, and are grateful for the warmth with which we’ve been welcomed. May it be a healthy, prosperous and sweet year for us all.