Tonight marks the start of the Jewish new year, 5769. To everyone, including all my friends, relatives and colleagues who are celebrating the holiday, I wish you a sweet and joyful new year, filled with health and happiness, peace and prosperity.

What’s nice about the High Holiday Season is that Jews treat this not just as a new year, but as a new beginning. Given what’s going on in the world lately, it can’t come a minute too soon.

I’d like to suggest that it really can be quite therapeutic for everyone to say enough is enough and start again anew. However, anew start is much more effective if you take the time to consider where we’ve come from and what we’re leaving behind at the end of the year. Whether we’re talking about business, personal life or the financial mess on Wall Street, if we don’t understand what’s worked and what hasn’t, we are destined to repeat many of the same mistakes over and over again.

The good news is there’s no reason you ever have to wait a full year for a new start.  You’re all
welcome to join us in starting over with the new year 5769 tonight. You still have the opportunity to start 2009  with the traditional New Years celebration on Dec 31st, or again later in January when we’ll have a new presidential administration, and  the Lunar New Year at the end of the month.

So here is to a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year for everyone everywhere–starting about tomorrow sounds good to me.

Linda