New Years Greetings, Jewish Style

Just a quick post before the holiday. I left another over at the The Second Road , if you're interested, where I'll be guest posting once a week.

Here's how I ended my first entry (Commitment)

Hey, I could have gone anywhere with this post, and probably did. I wrote it on a plane, going over it in my head in hypnogogic sleep, eyes closed.

Thanks for having me, Second Road.

May your site become the GPS of recovery programs.

Sounded right at the time. But here's what I really wanted to tell you before I forgot, before taking off for the holiday.

Jewish or not, in the next couple of days, you might be hearing people around you saying,

Have a happy, healthy New Year.

Or,

Have a happy, healthy, sweet New Year.

This is because Jews like sugar. We really do. We'll dip an apple in honey on the holiday this week just to make the coming year sweet. If we eat sweet things, the year will be sweet. Like on Star Trek, Captain Kirk says, "Make it so, Suloo." We try to make it so.

It's a belief that by saying it, doing it, putting ourselves through the motions, we can make things happen. Change things. This is one of the secrets of behavioristic religions like mine (we're all about doing). And social scientists generally also subscribe to cognitive-behavioral interventions, and surely, hypnotism. Making it so is a little of both.

So...

Have a happy, healthy, sweet new year. May there be no more suffering in this world, and if there is, we should have enough honey to go around.

therapydoc

P.S. For those of you who want to know what the Jewish people are praying for in the next couple of days, the reason your Jewish friends won't be at work, won't be taking calls, won't be publishing comments, etc., take a look at this.