Rosh Hashanah in the Pines, Fire Island 2007/5768
- Rosh Hashanah in the Pines, Fire Island 2007/5768
Slanted light filters through pine trees, sweet smell of pine resin stickiness, rough wood of the boardwalk —careful to avoid the nails— moist breaths of salt air, rusted sliding doors open grudgingly onto decks.
The new year comes amidst heightened senses, grains of sand between toes, nearly empty gray blue beaches, autumnal monarchs alighting on end-of-season purple buds.
One more year. Who is missing from the congregation? [End Page 36] My father gone now four years, the kids taller, grumbling teenagers who crave attention.
An orange sun setting over the bay. Phosphorescence outlines each crest of waves. Flashlights in the dark guiding us home. [End Page 37]
Hara E. Person is the Editor in Chief of URJ Press. She received rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1998 and an M.A. in Fine Arts from New York University/International Center of Photography. She is the co-author, with her mother, of Stories of Heaven and Earth: Bible Heroes in Contemporary Children’s Literature and was the Managing Editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary. In addition, she has been the rabbi in Fire Island Pines since 1999. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two children.
