In the past I'd write a Happy Passover or Happy New Year message to all the WC'ers, Stardockians, Gamers...in short, everyone at Stardock and on its various sites.

I thought I'd renew the custom this year because 2023 was a tough year, with antisemitism on the rise, healthwise with a new Covid to deal with and because I felt remiss that I've let it lapse over the years. 

So, last night the Jewish New Year started on the first of the month of Tishrei (pronounced Tish-ray). Interestingly, the holiday is called the head of the year (Rosh - head and HaShana - the year). It's actually the day we start reading the Law (the Torah) again, and the beginning (appropriately) is Genesis (B'Reshit - In the beginning), so it's actually celebrating the creation of the universe and everything in it. In nine days we'll be having the Day of Atonement (for all the sins of the past year) - Yom HaKippurim, or Yom Kippur. By the way, days start the night before (in Genesis you see "It was the evening and the morning of the first day").

Fifty Hebrew years ago I heard the sirens, and left my then home in Ramat Aviv, not far from the medical school, and went to war. The Yom Kippur War. During the nine terrible days, between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, it's decided on high who is to live and who is to die. We therefore wish all those we meet that they may be inscribed in the Book of Life (Sefer HaHayim) and we wish them "Shana Tova umetukah" (A good, sweet New Year).

I was reading an online paper here about Hank Greenberg's Rosh Hashana's dilemma, to play or not on the holiday (he was raised in an Orthodox home and didn't play on Yom Kippur, but did on Rosh HaShana and the Tigers won 2-1 both Hank's homers). The article is linked above.

I also learned that the Detroit Free Press (Hank's home town team paper) was the first on that day to write a headline in Hebrew...the same blessing I give you all today...my wish for you all, especially my best bud on this site, coincidentally another Hank (Hankers). It wasn't a simple thing in those days what with Henry Ford's "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and Father Coughlin and with Nazism on the rise in Germany and their followers in America.

So my friends, thanks for putting up with all the boring stuff above.

A good and sweet New Year to you all: Good health, happiness, wealth, a job if you need it, and love, because we all need that.

"לשנה טובה ומתוקה תכתבו"

Doc.