Tonight, as we hear the ram's horn, we are called to review our individual and communal experience in the year that passed.

As we look back, this past year has been a particularly dark one.

Secretary Kerry’s peace initiative crumbled. Against the background of a diplomatic lull violence erupted after the kidnapping and murder of four teens, three Israelis and a Palestinian, and the violence triggered a war, from which both Israel and Gaza emerged devastated and desperate.

So it is with relief that we can turn our faces forward, and place our hope in a fresh beginning. In this spirit we remind ourselves that while darkness encompasses and blinds you, it takes only a tiny candle to banish the dark and see.  

We hope, at this time of new beginnings, you will choose to light a candle, and to recommit yourself to the cause of peace and to the work of APN and Shalom Achshav.

On this Rosh Hashanah, we wish you a year of light, hope, and peace.

We hope you have seen this timely letter from Michael Walzer, America’s leading expert on ethics in wartime, and one of America’s foremost political philosophers. A longtime member of APN’s Board of Directors, Walzer, the author of the iconic Just and Unjust Wars, a practical analysis of the Just War doctrine, co-editor of Dissent, and contributing editor to the New Republic, wrote a compelling reminder of our need for cheshbon nefesh, accounting for one’s soul, on Rosh Hashanah, the ending of one year and the beginning of the next. He reminds us that Rosh Hashana is, “a time for facing facts and telling the truth about ourselves as individuals and as a community. The process is called cheshbon nefesh in Hebrew, an accounting of the soul. It is time for Israel and her supporters in this country to do just such an accounting.” Read Michael Walzer's letter here.