Monday, September 29, 2008
Exciting New Beginnings
Rosh HaShanah is tonight and I’m actually very excited about it. I love change; I love the opportunity to begin anew; I love new people and new challenges and I love Rosh Hashanah.
What’s new?
First of all we have a new granddaughter. Reb Moshe and Ester Malka Becker gave birth to a brand new baby girl on Shabbos in Yerushalayim. By the time Shabbos ended the new baby already had a name, Naama, inspired by the beautiful view of the sun setting over Yerushalayim ushering in a new Shabbos and an all new and precious neshamah.
Second, this evening I begin my new position as Rav of Kehilas Shivtei Yeshurun in Ramat Beit Shemesh. I am very excited about the opportunity to teach and lead a community of young families that don’t seem to have anything on their mind or agenda other then growing in Torah and becoming close to Hashem. A rabbi’s dream!
Of course that means that this year, with G-d’s help, we will be moving into a new home, (which is really nothing new to us being our eighteenth move!)
Most important is the new year - 5759. Life is not one long continuum. Every year on Rosh Hashanah Hashem positions us anew. He gives us the chance to start fresh - what can be happier then that?
I wish all my friends a year full of fresh new blessings full of peace in your families, in Klal Yisroel and in the world.
Yaacov Haber
Rabbi Haber has been a leading force in Jewish Outreach for the past 25 years. A founding trustee of AJOP, the Association of Jewish Outreach Professionals, he was the founder and director of the Torah Center of Buffalo from 1980-1990 while serving as a community rabbi in Buffalo. From Buffalo he and his family traveled to Melbourne, Australia where as a project of Kollel Bais HaTalmud he founded the Australian Institute of Torah, a national outreach and adult education program. He directed that program from 1990-1995, at which time he was sought out as National Director of Jewish Education for the Orthodox Union in the United States where he created the Internationally acclaimed and highly successful "Pardes Project."
