I’m always surprised when the fall chaggim (holidays) come around. Rosh Hashana, the start of the new year, five thousand years and counting from the beginning of time — on a Thursday? In the middle of the week? But I have things to do! I have to make resolutions? Reflect on my life? Today?

I never feel ready. The lead up is confusing, the rhythm is out. Sure, on a yearly scale, the cycle of holidays is beautiful and profound — matching what we notice in the environment with how we remember and celebrate our history as Jews, the great spiral of the Jewish year. But all of a sudden, a big important day, in the middle of the week – it throws me off.

Because there is another holy day that is very much in synch with the rest of the week – that is, Shabbat. The rhythm of Shabbat is so constant and reliable, it shapes the very profile of my week. I look forward to it, I work hard right up to it, I rest, and then start over. The fact that it comes so often, so predictably, is what makes it so special.

But the fact that Shabbat is so constant means it’s not going to shake you out of your routine — it IS the routine. And so the chaggim – whether they are the Jewish holidays or the secular ones that are based on a number on a calendar have nothing to do with the day of the week, actually serve their function best when they come at an inconvenient time.

In fact, festivals function much like inclement weather and parades.

We can’t go having snow days or mardi gras every day of the week, or even once a week. But here and there, a holiday lets us explore all the other modes of existence, experience, thought & interaction that we don’t get to access on a regular basis. We wear different clothes. We eat different foods, some of them with intoxicating properties. We forget ourselves, we remember our true selves, our other selves, our alternate selves. You can’t prepare for it — you can’t schedule it in to your life. It has to come at an arbitrary time for us to realize how arbitrary our whole lives are, how many possibilities there truly are.

And of course, the once-a-year holidays act like portkeys to twelve months or several years back in time. Where were you a year ago? What did you wish for this year? Who did you celebrate with, or without? All that we’ve seen, dreamed, accomplished, missed in the days between last New Years and this one becomes clearer — whether you thought you needed a dose of self-reckoning or not.

So, Tuesday be damned, here I am thinking about the year of food, and also remembering the New Year’s party I had last year. It was a minor fast day, so the brunch I had intended to hold got moved to 4pm, which, incidentaly, was a BRILLIANT time for a New Years Eve party: we were wasted by about 9:30, people who had other parties to go to did so, we watched fireworks at midnight and were in bed by 1:30, after many hours of reveling! I made a ton of good food, and I’ll write out the menu below.

And in the food department, 2007 was a year that added an important missing link to my food knowledge: farming! I learned about suckering tomatoes and mulching brassicas and thinning carrots and staking beans. I learned that watching food grow, and loving the land it grows on, is deeply satisfying. And I learned that its possible for 3 people to run a CSA farm that feeds 150 families — so that while more people should grow some of their own food, in fact a few people can grow food for a lot of families, and I’m looking forward to another season of growing, feeding, eating.

I’ve got a few resolutions too, but I think the main ones are to not be afraid of what I don’t know, and to not assume that things have to be the way they are. There are a lot of ways we can change the world, and if I have to learn a whole lot about how to grow salad greens and how to get those greens, unwilted, to my CSA members in the city in order to do so — I’m ready!

May the next twelve months (whether you’re counting this as the beginning, or four months in—) bring good food and good people to share it with, and the joy of both regular rituals and unexpected, sometimes unsolicited, celebration of festival-time as the calendar turns. Shana tova!

Anna’s 2006 New Year’s Party Menu
Terriyaki-glazed tofu cubes (crispy!)
Cumin Roasted Mini Potatoes, with curry dipping sauce
Spinach-stuffed Mushroom Caps
Red Pepper Bruschetta
Rainbow Carrot Sticks & Brocoli
Olive Tapenade & Akmak Crackers
Deviled Eggs by Leah Koenig
Lemon Poppyseed Cookies
Flo Miller Chocolate Cake, with mocha cream filling