l'shana tovah

Yesterday, a new Whole Foods market opened one mile from our house. I know a lot of people don’t like Whole Foods, but I do, because almost anywhere in the country, at least the places I go, you can find organic products and mad-cow free meat. And they hire people with pink hair, tattoos, and piercings. A least in the Bay Area.

When I saw the fliers for the opening of the new store, I saw that there was going to be a bread-breaking at 8:45 AM before the store opened at 9. I needed to be there. My girlfriend thought that I was out of my mind, but I just said, “I like stuff like that”. After all, I was born on January 1^st, and I like to be the first whenever I can, so to be one of the first shoppers in the new Whole Foods was appealing. And I wanted to be at the bread breaking.

I was also on the Golden Gate Bridge that day in 1987 when it was closed to cars to celebrate its 50^th Anniversary, and there were 800,000 people on the bridge, and the engineers didn’t know if it was going to hold all of that standing weight.

And then there was the day in 1989 that the Bay Bridge re-opened after the earthquake, and Tony Bennett was there singing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Guess who was there. Yep, me.

So I went to Whole Foods on my way to work yesterday. There were about fifty people there, eager to shop in the new store. The bread breaking was pretty quick, and I realized how much I have been influenced by living with a pagan as I waited for them to call in the elements.

This morning when I mentioned to my girlfriend that there were actually quite a few people at the bread-breaking, she said, “People need ritual.” It gave new meaning to why I like to share momentous occasions with large numbers of people. I grew up as a reform Jew, but I all but abandoned the religious part as one more patriarchal religion. For the last year and a half, I have been a part of the pagan holidays, but haven’t quite adopted them as my own yet. Kind of sad that the bread-braking at the new Whole Foods is what I turn to to fill the need for ritual in my life.

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I had dinner last nite with friends and am going to the beach this afternoon to empty my pockets of everything from last year I want to leave behind. I realize that I don’t have to go to Temple to honor this holiday, that I can create my own ritual in a way that makes sense to me. As I ponder the meaning of this day, I am thinking about the need for more ritual in my life.