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Good Morning

Tonight begins the Jewish New Year, the birthday of the world.

The central theme of the festival couldn’t be simpler: life, the preciousness of life.

The world is a place of wonder and beauty. Maybe it’s because I was born in Glasgow that I immediately think of Scotland: the glimpse of an otter by Loch Ewe, the western light over the sea at Gairloch, the cry of a curlew at dusk.

At the heart of everything is the gift of life. God is ‘the living God’, the sacred spirit within all vital being; most of all, within each and every person. All life is unique and every life matters.

Yet life is also bewilderingly fragile and, once gone, seems gone from us forever.

Innumerable grieving children, partners and parents have stood over the body of the person they love and thought, like Shakespeare’s King Lear:

Why should a horse, a dog, a rat have life

And thou no breath at all?

On the New Year we therefore pray to be written in the book of life. We want to survive another year together with those we love. We want life to be good to us and bring the blessings of health and peace to everyone.

We also pray to be good to life. We want insight, to understand life more deeply. We seek sensitivity, so that we don’t engender hurt. We ask for forgiveness, because we know we often fail and end up causing pain. We pray for loving-kindness, to treat everyone with generosity and respect.

God, write us all in the book of good life.