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One of the most memorable works of fiction I read as a pre-teen is a children’s story by Washington Irving titled Rip Van Winkle. I still remember my excitement watching the cartoon version of the story on Lagos Weekend Television (LTV) in the 80’s. Seeing one of my favorite tales come to life before my eyes was a joy unparalleled! For those of you who’ve never heard of this classic fiction, I’ll do you the honour of summarizing the tale:

The story is set in the pre- American Revolution War. Its central character is a man, Rip Van Winkle, who lives in a village at the foot of the Kaatskill Mountains along with his kids and nagging wife (Dame Van Winkle). He is well loved by the kids in the village because he often gives toys and entertains them with stories. He enjoys solitude and has a penchant for idleness which often incurs the wrath of his nagging wife. She complains incessantly about his lack of industry and neglect for his farm land which is constantly in disarray.

On one fateful autumn day, Rip escapes into the mountains with his dog, Wolf, to escape a barrage of nagging from his wife. As he wanders along he hears someone calling his name. On proceeding towards the direction of the voice, he comes in contact with a man dressed in old fashioned Dutch clothing. The man asks Rip for help and without hesitation, he assists the stranger in carrying a keg of rum all the way into a hollow-like Amphitheatre in the mountain. There he meets other men similarly dressed like the stranger, playing ninepins and drinking rum boisterously. He soon joins them in their drinking and revelry and before long, falls into a deep sleep.

He awakens and it is morning. He skin is wrinkled, his beard is long, his gun is old and rusted and Wolf is nowhere to be found. He returns to the village to find out that he has been asleep for 20 long years; his wife is now late, the American Revolution has taken place and his close friends have all died in the war. Someone calls out to a man called Rip Van Winkle who turns out to be his son, now a grown man. He is eventually taken in by his daughter who’s also now a full grown adult.

Such was Rip Van Winkle’s fate; missed out on every detail of life for 2 decades. The last he remembered, he was a young man wandering into the mountains. And now he awakens an old man unable to account for the past 20 years of his life.

I can relate to Rip Van Winkles experience because I too feel like I have been in a coma for that long; I can’t really account for the past 20 years of my life. The last I remembered I was an enthusiastic youth looking forward to an exciting future, but I am now in a future far different from what I had anticipated. There are lot of things I ought to have accomplished by now which just didn’t matter to me. Why didn’t they matter until now? Why has my mind been oblivious to the opportunities of the day? What did I do with all that time? How did the grey hairs sneak up on me undetected? Why did I never have a strong desire to get married until now? Why am I living far less than my potential while others who had far less potential at the beginning have gone far ahead? Why was I so comfortable with my self-imposed limitations? What was it that put me to sleep? Why am I suddenly waking up to the harsh reality that the time is short? Why now and not earlier? Just wondering if I am the reincarnated Rip Van Winkle.

This reminds me of Sharru Nada’s account in the all-time classic, The Richest man in Babylon. 40 years ago he arrived at Babylon a slave, and saw some labourers toiling by the gateway leading into the city. 40 years later he returns to Babylon a wealthy free man and notices the same men still toiling by the same spot; they’d had made no progress for 40 years.  God forbid that should be my testimony!

I talked this over with a friend and told him of my painful awakening and he said to me, “anytime a man wakes up, that is morning for him. No need to wallow in regrets. Forge ahead! I have decided from this point on not to allow the latter part of my life become a reflection of my past.

I am going to redeem the time!

(For other inspiring articles on my blog you can visit: http://nigerianphilosopher.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/i-feel-like-rip-van-winkle/ )

Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew: ראש השנה‎, literally "head of the year," Israeli: Hebrew pronunciation: [ˈʁoʃ haʃaˈna], Ashkenazic: ˈɾoʃ haʃːɔˈnɔh, Yiddish:[ˈrɔʃəˈʃɔnə]) is a Jewish holiday commonly referred to as the "Jewish New Year." It is observed on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar.[1] It is ordained in the Torah as "Zicaron Terua" ("a memorial with the blowing of horns"), in Leviticus 23:24. Rosh Hashanah is the first of the High Holidays or Yamim Noraim ("Days of Awe"), or Asseret Yemei Teshuva (Ten Days of Repentance) which are days specifically set aside to focus on repentance that conclude with the holiday of Yom Kippur.

Rosh Hashanah is the start of the civil year in the Hebrew calendar (one of four "new year" observances that define various legal "years" for different purposes as explained in the Mishnah and Talmud). It is the new year for people, animals, and legal contracts. The Mishnah also sets this day aside as the new year for calculating calendar years and sabbatical (shmita) and jubilee (yovel) years. Jews believe Rosh Hashanah represents either analogically or literally the creation of the World, or Universe. However, according to one view in the Talmud, that of R. Eleazar, Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of man, which entails that five days earlier, the 25 of Elul, was the first day of creation of the Universe.[2]

The Mishnah, the core text of Judaism's oral Torah, contains the first known reference to Rosh Hashanah as the "day of judgment." In the Talmud tractate on Rosh Hashanah it states that three books of account are opened on Rosh Hashanah, wherein the fate of the wicked, the righteous, and those of an intermediate class are recorded. The names of the righteous are immediately inscribed in the book of life, and they are sealed "to live." The middle class are allowed a respite of ten days, until Yom Kippur, to repent and become righteous; the wicked are "blotted out of the book of the living."[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Hashanah

For secular Jews

It would happen each fall around the Jewish new year. At the very time when renewal was in the autumn air, Arnold Barnett, an engineer from Moorestown, would go into a mild funk. His wife eventually figured it out: He was less than enamored with high holiday synagogue services.

"He simply wasn't engaged by what went on inside our Reform synagogue, or with the traditional approach to Judaism," said Ellen, 70. "I knew he was struggling. So sometimes, I would just go to services alone."

Then last year, the Barnetts saw a small notice in a local Jewish newspaper about a recently formed group in South Jersey. "We went to a meeting that was focused on Jewish history," Arnold, 71, recalls, "and that was something I could relate to. It was much more appealing."

And so the Barnetts will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, which begins Wednesday at sundown, by meeting Sunday with like-minded members of South Jersey Secular Jews - a group of people who may or may not believe in God, but do believe in caring about the world and one another, respecting and understanding Jewish history, and celebrating a culture that has meaning and emotional pull.

"The most important aspect of secularism is the survival and continuity of the Jewish people," said Paul Shane, a native New Yorker now living in Philadelphia and married to the daughter of Holocaust survivors.

Shane, 75, a member of the more established Philadelphia Secular Jewish Organization, believes humans are responsible for what happens on Earth. The here and now is central, and actions speak louder than words.

That philosophy resembles traditional Judaism. But secular Jews and traditional Jews part company when it comes to accepting religious dogma.

If you're secular, God is optional. (Traditional Judaism has "God at its heart. That's not an option," said Rabbi Ethan Franzel of Main Line Reform Temple Beth Elohim in Wynnewood.) Also, life-cycle events are handled individually - for instance, there are no set burial or wedding traditions in secular Judaism.

Of course secularism, in which one adheres to cultural norms rather than religious ones, is hardly new. During the Renaissance, from 1450 to 1600, and the Enlightenment in the 18th century, many Jews shed the God-oriented elements of their Jewishness, according to Shane, a professor of social policy at Rutgers University in Newark. That shedding also continued in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

What's different today is that a growing number of secular Jews are finding one another, forming groups, and practicing the social responsibility Judaism requires - minus the synagogue.

Rifke Feinstein, executive director of the national Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations, says there are approximately 2,000 affiliated secular Jews in the United States. But because seculars typically are unaffiliated, and therefore uncounted, estimates for the entire American secular population range from 8,000 to 40,000.

In the Philadelphia area, there are six such organizations for secular Jews - including the five-year-old South Jersey Secular Jews - all under the local umbrella cooperative venture called Kehilla for Secular Jews.

For many people, discovering that such an organization exists has been a relief.

" 'I thought I was the only one!' is what people often express when they discover that they are not alone in their secular relationship to their Jewishness," said Larry Angert, 59, a member of 11-year-old Shir Shalom: A Havurah for Secular Jews. "The Jewish tent is big, and there's room for all of us in it."

Some local secular groups, like Philadelphia's Sholom Aleichem Club, which started in 1954, and Philadelphia Workmen's Circle, founded nationally in 1900 to aid Jewish immigrant workers and to promote Yiddish, have graying memberships. Bob Kleiner, 85, of Elkins Park, a retired sociology professor at Temple University, and his wife, Frances, a teacher of Yiddish, both long active in the secular movement, lament that younger people are not actively involved in these historic groups.

But the formation of new groups, such as South Jersey Secular Jews, is evidence the movement still has traction.

Credit Naomi Scher, 64, of Cherry Hill, whose children attended the Jewish Children's Folkshul, another Kehilla group, which is a parent-run cooperative held at Springside School in Philadelphia. About 100 children receive their Jewish education, not in a traditional Hebrew school but in classes that nourish social justice and individual responsibility. Bar and bat mitzvah aspirants undertake personally meaningful projects that they ultimately share with the entire Folkshul community.

Although Scher formed relationships with parents of her children's classmates, commuting to Philadelphia became burdensome once her children graduated, and in 2005, the retired social worker decided to start a secular group closer to home.

What began as a gathering of eight to 10 people now regularly attracts 30, meeting monthly with speakers who address social and political concerns, Scher said.

Deborah Chaiken, 74, of Palmyra is delighted to have a group close to home. "In the formal Jewish community, I felt that I didn't really have a voice. Here, I know that I do."

Dues are $25 a year, and participants are asked to bring food for potluck dinners. Meetings are held on the second Sunday of the month at Unitarian Universalist Church in Cherry Hill..

South Jersey Secular Jews members Cary and Bilha Hillebrand of Cherry Hill call the group a welcome addition to the local landscape. For Bilha, 54, the philosophy of the group is more in keeping with that of her native Israel, where the majority of the population leads a more secular lifestyle.

"We are not in any way antireligious," says Cary, 60. "We hold the belief that we are responsible for what happens to ourselves and to the world. And to us, that's the essence of what religion is, and should be."