What a difference a day makes, what a difference an hour can make, what a difference 20 seconds can make. There is an awful unpredictability to life, but also an awesome capacity in each moment.
In one brief stroke, your life can be overturned, but in one instance you can achieve what you never thought possible. Witness Australian swimmer Cam McEvoy and the 21.25 seconds it took him to win an Olympic gold medal in Paris.
Rabbi Genende holds a shofar (ram’s horn), which is blown during the month leading up to Jewish New Year and in synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Yom Kippur.
This is a central idea that underpins Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur, the Days of Awe of the Jewish calendar.
At Rosh Hashanah – which begins Wednesday evening – Jewish wisdom reminds us that there are many things we cannot change, events that make us feel that no matter what we do, the world spins on. Shakespeare put it elegantly when he said: “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may.”
The most haunting lines in our prayers during this season are surely: “On Rosh Hashanah it is written: who shall live and who shall die, who in a good time and who by an untimely death.” Leonard Cohen memorialised these words in his anthem Who by Fire.
Yet for all this, the Days of Awe are a potentially life-transforming experience, informing us that there is so much you can do to make a difference – if not to the wider world, then to yourself and your community.
We have the power to choose life, and make the lives of those around us gentler and better. Love, forgiveness, compassion and charity can reset the compass, and realign the focus and direction of our shaken and trembling planet. That frightening prayer of “who shall live” ends with an assurance: you can change or at least minimise a predicted decree.
The past year has been one of shock and suffering for so many across our planet. For Israel and the Jewish people, that one day – October 7 – changed everything. What a difference one day made to our sense of security, our assumptions about our identity, our survival and our place in the world.
The people of Israel are still in deep distress, and Jewish people are still in deep shock at the ferocious hatred of our enemies and the blatant antisemitism of so many people we considered our friends.
We are also anguished at the suffering in Gaza. So many in our Melbourne community are hurting, and those who were already in need before October 7 have taken on an extra burden of fear and insecurity.
Yet for all this, we still believe in our capacity to transform the bitter into sweet, the despair into hope.
To adapt the lyrics of another hopeful song popularised by Dinah Washington: Twenty-four little hours can bring the sun and flowers in place of the storm and the rain. What a difference a day can make – and the difference is you.
Rabbi Ralph Genende OAM is the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council’s Interfaith and Community Liaison, and senior rabbi to Jewish Care and Kesher Community.
In need of some good news? The Greater Good newsletter delivers stories to your inbox to brighten your outlook. Sign up here.