A Rosh Hashanah Message
A Rosh Hashanah message from Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick, president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria.
Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick
Rosh Hashanah – our Jewish New Year – is traditionally a time of celebration, as befits the advent of any anniversary. However, in our tradition, it is also mandated as a time for serious introspection. We celebrate past successful achievements but we also seriously contemplate any failings or disappointments with a view to resolving to rectify or remedy any such shortcomings in the new year.
Sometimes such resolutions may appear to be well beyond our own limited capabilities to deliver on. Consequently, we spend time on Rosh Hashanah in sincere prayer asking for the Almighty’s assistance and blessings in assuring the fulfilment of our hopes and dreams for the future.
I am sure that, no matter how successful we feel we may have been in our own personal lives, each and every one of us has requests and hopes that we would like to see fulfilled in the coming year. This is certainly so if things have not gone the way we would have liked during the past year. In a more general sense, our people and indeed the world in general, are living in difficult and dangerous times and require blessings of peace and stability in all facets of human and societal endeavour and existence.
On behalf of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria I urge that we all resolve to make the coming year a year of commitment to faith in G-d and commitment to His expectations of us – particularly with the practice of acts of goodness and kindness. I extend the blessings of the spiritual leaders of our Victorian Jewish community that we, in return, should be granted the fulfilment of all our wishes and prayers for health, happiness, prosperity, security and Shalom – peace.
With blessings for a Shana Tova Umetuka – a good and sweet year,
Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick
President, Rabbinical Council of Victoria
