Begin again…today!  What a freeing and invigorating thought that should be a morning mental mantra, but is it easier said than done? At this time of year as children head back to school, adults shed their summer clothes replacing them with business attire and full agendas, and Mother Nature shifts the season, life can seem as if    daily routines and challenges leave no room for personal choice. We have a lot to do and a lot of people telling us what needs to be done. How do we break free from the pattern of being that feels tirelessly restrictive?

Recently I was in a near fatal car crash on the Atlantic City Expressway. I was a passenger in a car that was in the right-hand lane going the speed limit.  Suddenly, and without warning, a car bolted from the median of the highway directly aimed at us, crashed into our car, sending our vehicle down a ravine into a tree. After the pounding force and cacophonous clatter of metal there was clear silence. As I sat in this silence, airbags blocking me from the shattered windshield, I felt strangely washed in calm.  I had survived and so had the driver of the car I was in. That was all that mattered. We had survived, and G-d had given us a chance in a very dramatic and unforeseen moment to begin again.

Rabbi Laura Geller, in an excerpt I read today, writes about Rosh HaShanah and the meaning of this season’s Jewish holiday that celebrates the anniversary of the creation of the world, “Your book of life doesn’t begin on Rosh HaShanah…it began when you were born…and the message of Rosh HaShanah is that everything can be made new again, that much of your book is written every day—by the choices you make.” If one believes that at birth one’s book of life is already written and sealed, Geller says that “you get to edit it, decide what parts to emphasize and remember, and maybe even which parts you want to leave behind. Shanah Tova means both a good year, and a good change. Today you can change the rest of your life. It is never too late.” I believe this message is universal and resounds in every faith.

Begin again…today! It is a simple and stunning thought. Life presents each of us with many obstacles and challenges and so many unexpected twists and turns. One’s life can change in the flash of a minute, or can wear one down in a slow, painful grind.  We often can control nothing about our lives except one vital and critical thing that is perhaps greater than anything that can be thrown at us—it is our power of choice. We can choose to begin again, to keep marching, to keep fighting the good fight, and even more, we can choose to live the life we have with the knowledge that is right in front of us taught by the mother of all mothers, Mother Nature…after the storm there will be calm, after the rain the sun will shine, after disaster there will be rejuvenation. Begin Again…today!