Tenth of Tevet/New Year’s Eve

(Painting by Rabbi Berel Wein).

Boker tov, Boulder! has a remarkable post reminding us that this evening is not only New Year’s Eve, but also the end of the Tenth of Tevet, a day of fasting until sundown, on which the Kaddish is said for people whose date or place of death is unknown. 

The purpose of the fasting is to stir us to good deeds:

‘Therefore, each person is obligated to examine his deeds and to repent during these days. As it is written of the people of Nineveh: ‘And the Lord saw their actions’ (Yonah 3), upon which the Rabbis say: ‘It is not said, He saw their sackcloth and fasting, but rather their actions ‘ (Ta’anit 22). 

Before the celebration this evening, a beautiful moment of reflection and resolve here.  May we only have days of goodness in our future to commemorate, and may we make our own contribution toward achieving them in 2007.