Happy New Year!

The past two days I've been celebrating the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana. For those of you who do not know what this is, I'll give you a overview. The Jewish New Year begins on the 1st of the month of Tishrei, which is generally sometime in September or October. Because Jewish months follow a lunar calendar, a leap month is added every few years to make sure that the holidays stay in their proper season and the dates only line up to the same "secular" date about every 19 years. (e.g. My birthday is the 29th of Av in the Hebrew calendar and August 8th in the secular calendar but they only line up about every 19 years) In any case, Rosh Hashana is a BIG DEAL in terms of holidays. Even though Yom Kippur (which is next week) is thought of as the "Day of Judgement," Rosh Hashana is also a day of judgement as well--perhaps even moreso. So, we spend two days praying (services went from 7:30am to 2:00pm both yesterday and today, and that was only the morning services...) and hope that we end up with a good verdict.