New Moon, New Beginnings, and a Reason to Celebrate

Today is the first day of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, and tonight we see the new moon appear. The Jewish calendar is mainly a lunar one, although we do add a month every few years in order to coordinate with the solar calendar so that our holidays always come out at roughly the same time of year (in contrast to the Muslims whose calendar is just lunar, and Ramadan comes out at a different time every year.)

There is symbolic significance of following the lunar calendar, as this article in Aish.com explains. The moon waxes and wanes, and when it looks like it has completely disappeared, it then appears again and grows. The Jewish people have gone through many periods in its history where it looked like we were going to be wiped out, but we always came back. G-d is watching over us at all times, even when things look bad. There is a special connection between women and the mini-holiday of Rosh Chodesh, because of our special ability to believe that things will get better, if we just hang on a bit. As the article states about the women, "When things seemed dark and hopeless, they knew that light was just around the corner. Patience and trust in G-d would be all that would be needed to get through the "bad" times and into the good ones."

So to celebrate this mini holiday, my kids dressed in blue pants and white shirts as is customary, and will probably have music and dancing for part of their school day. I also made it a little special this morning by packing them chocolate spread sandwiches for lunch (a very rare treat in this American mother's household).

I should really come up with something special for dinner too. (Chocolate spread sandwiches won't do it for the adults, I'm afraid). Any ideas out there?