To my Jewish friends and colleagues, Shana Tova.

I didn’t know the appropriate holiday phrase to use until tonight, when I found it on Wikipedia, looking up Rosh Hashanah — the upcoming Jewish holiday. Rosh Hashanah is the first day of the High Holidays, 10 days of repentance, so it’s similar to Ash Wednesday and Lent, but more condensed and very intense.

What amazes me so much is that until this year, Rosh Hashanah were just a couple of words in a box on a calendar. But in the last few days at work, two colleagues have told me they would be taking time off for the holiday. On Saturday a local public radio station aired a program about the music of the High Holidays. And today the newscaster said that Congress was adjourning so that its Jewish members could observe the High Holidays.

I still know very little, but it somehow pleases me to feel that a window has opened on my little world, and the light of another religion and culture is shining in. Indeed, Shana Tova.