A Day For New Beginnings

According to my calendar, September 13th is the first day of both Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan. I find it fascinating for some reason when holidays from two different religions fall at the same time, as if there were some great coordinator in the sky spacing them out evenly across the calendar.

But really, I shouldn’t be surprised that Judaism’s New Year, Rosh Hashanah, falls on the same day as Islam’s first day of Ramadan, their month of fasting, since both religions sprout from the same seed.

As you probably know, Judaism's key text is the Torah, which constitutes the first 5 books of the Old Testament. Then Christianity provides the New Testament and Islam builds on that.

So if the scriptures of these different religions all have common forefathers, in the words of Rodney King, why can’t we all just get along? Mostly because we all think that we’re right and therefore everyone else is wrong. But what if we could find a way to celebrate both holidays, or all holidays, at the same time?

Rosh Hashanah is a new year, a time of celebrating new beginnings. Ramadan is the beginning of fasting and prayer, a cleansing once a year to focus on what is good. I think they work quite well together.

The Unity Church honors all religions and they are having their annual World Day of Prayer, which this year focuses on world peace, on the same day, Sept 13th. So it sounds like it’s a good day to hit the reset button and look ahead to the good things that can come if we can only learn that diverse ideas can be celebrated with unity.

[Reprinted with kind permission from The Daily Mantra.]