Dip Your Apple In The Honey: It's Rosh Hashanah! And, as we begin a New Year, please remember - as Rabbi Adam Rosenbaum of Temple Beth Tzedek in Buffalo, New York has taught us -
There is hope for your life.
The way it is now is not the way it must be.
this now-classic Rosh Hashanah hit from 5772:
The Ein Prat Fountainheads have touched our hearts. Now, here is something that will touch our minds and souls.
Nanci Griffith, the Texas-born singer-songwriter celebrated in folk and country-music circles for her crystalline voice and storytelling skill, died Friday, August 13, 2021, in Nashville at age 68.
One of Nanci Griffith's first songs was "It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go," which she wrote in 1989 about "The Troubles" in Belfast - and about the racism she saw in America. But she could have written it about troubles anywhere and anytime.
The song included the memorable and poignant chorus
She also was known as an interpreter of songs by other writers, none more famous than "From a Distance," a Julie Gold song that - after Nanci Griffith popularized it - provided a major hit for Bette Midler.
The song is not, strictly speaking, a Jewish song.
Nanci Griffith was not a Jew - or even Jewish. But she was the singer who first sang "From a Distance" - a song written by Julie Gold, who is a Jew. Her parents founded Philadelphia's Main Line Reform Temple Beth Elohim.
And the song was made even more famous by Bette Midler - who is also a Jew. Born and raised in the Jewish Quarter of Old Honolulu!
So - of course "From a Distance" is a Jewish song. And its chorus is especially meaningful as we approach Rosh Hashanah.
We Jews know that God is watching us. Always. But - from a distance? Getting closer to the High Holidays, we of course want God to be watching us - but from someplace a lot closer.
And then again - maybe we don't. We're getting ready to confess our sins. All our sins. How closely do we really want God to see what we've been up to?
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