What do these photos have in common?  And what message do they send?  Leave your answer in the comments!

8PM:  The answer is…The Jewish New Year celebrations begin tonight at sundown, so Shana Tovah, y’all! The apples and honey are traditional foods to guarantee sweetness in the year ahead, like our Southern tradition of eating black eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day. The little birds made of challah symbolize the protection of G-d, the flight of our sins away from us in the season of atonement, or mercy…depending on which cookbook you read!

I was especially moved by the picture of the little birds.  It was posted on the website of The Forward, a Jewish daily newspaper.  After Richard’s grandfather, Jack, made his way from Russia to Japan to Bolivia to America, he became a sports writer for The Forward.  He spent his career with them.  The binoculars that he used to take to baseball games came down through the family to Richard.  Richard and I used to sit on the deck and use Jack’s binoculars to watch  the birds down by the river.