The Best Years of Our Lives
Rabbi Irwin Wiener, D.D.

I’ll bet that many people have seen the classic film of 1946, “The best years of our lives.” I must have seen it at least ten times and each time I watch I get a new feeling of warmth and a sense of sadness. It is a charming movie filled with emotion and wonderment and simplicity and innocence. In fact that time, immediately following World War 11, was a time of innocence. We were thrust into a war that saw millions of our men and women uprooted from every day living and sent to distant shores to fight for “justice, freedom and the American” way.

People cared about people. Neighbors knew each other. Doors were never locked. Children played in the streets. Bread was five cents. Bottles of milk had cream at the top. Coal trucks delivered fuel. Ice trucks liberated us from the heat and enabled us to preserve our food longer than for a day. Stamps were a penny. We didn’t need to get our phone calls from a corner store because now there were phones in the home – party lines and all. When we look back it certainly appears to be have been the “best years of our lives.”

How did we manage to move from then to now? Watching the movie helped me realize that each generation had its demons as well as renewal. There were those who returned from battle with scars that never healed. There were those who greeted these heroes without really understanding the torment endured or the nightmares that woke them in the middle of the night.

Returning servicemen and women were given as much help as was known at the time to enable them to rejoin the lives and loves they left behind. But the people they returned to, who endured the loneliness, the emptiness, never had the opportunity to prepare for things not being the same as they were before. True there were parades and cheering but when all that died down it was back to the reality of a changed community, a changed town, a changed country.

At this time of the year we roll back the pages of time and recall the bad and the good that has transpired. We even reflect further back to our youth and remember loved ones who no longer are here to share the next holiday. We also need to adjust to the changes that occur all around us.

Technology is different. We no longer have juke boxes or bee-bop. We no longer sit at the corner candy store and sip an ice cream soda or drink a malted and listen to the miniature recordings at the table or counter. Gas is no longer 25 cents a gallon and the purity of life is just a memory.

Now we are racing all over the place going from here to nowhere. Phones are glued to our ears. Greed is the new virtue. Our faith has been shaken by events that we cannot control. Everything is now instant – we don’t even have time to absorb what is happening all round us. And that is why we are here today – to stop the world – not to get off – but to enable us to think for a moment about who we are – where we are going – where we have been and why we are here.

Yes, it is Rosh Hashanah. What does that mean? Simply put it should be the beginning of the best years of our lives. It’s fun to reminisce. It’s amusing to remember our youth. But then reality sets in and we are here – right now – in this place – ready to start a New Year filled with all the dreams of the past which should give us the courage and ability to plan for the future.

Over the years we have learned valuable lessons. To me the most important of these is how to treat our friends and neighbors and service men and women. It wasn’t that long ago when we treated our warriors with disdain and contempt. They answered the call of their country and their country turned their backs on them. We no longer put stars in our windows or proudly announce duty to country and flag.

I believe that we are finally more aware of the value of service. And we can and should be cognizant of the value of life. We were not meant to stand and agonize over incidental things – things that really have no impact on our happiness. We live too much in the past and not enough in the gift of today. And each day is a gift because we don’t know what tomorrow has in store for us.

It is our obligation, our duty and responsibility to live as though these were the best years of our lives because they are. The past helped us get here but tomorrow begins our future and today is the beginning of that tomorrow.

There are aches and pains. There are defeats and more defeats until we look ahead and realize that that is part of the journey of life. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There is the rainbow in all its beauty and splendor. If life was meant to be a walk in the park then we would be walking in the park referred to as the Garden of Eden. It is not reality.

Reality is that there is death, there is evil, there is hunger and disease. But there is hope. There is the hope of our involvement. There is the hope of our ability to lift the downtrodden with our spirit and our resources. We are not that old that we can’t lend a hand and show mercy and humility. Sometimes we go from crisis to crisis never thinking about the goodness is our lives. We just dig ourselves into an endless cycle of despair.

Sometimes we think that life is too much for us. We are older, we have more aches and pains and we see our friends slowly pass from our circle. Life certainly has burdens but there are also uplifting episodes such as births and anniversaries and all kinds of celebrations including the return of loved ones from battle.

Life is really simple. We make it difficult. We get angry over things that really don’t matter. We don’t talk to this one or that one because of something that was said that we don’t even remember.

As I watched the movie I was reminded of all that we endured as a nation, as individuals. And when the sun rose on a new day we knew that things would be different because we were different. Isn’t that what Rosh Hashanah represents? We endure the nightmares but we know that there is a tomorrow and that tomorrow can be better if we will it.

We humans are unique. Not only do we leave traces of who we were, but we also leave an understanding of what we have accomplished. True, sometimes events get ahead of us, but we are able to take advantage of time so that it has some relevance. After all, the purpose of our existence is to live life. And always remember that these are the “best years of our lives” because they are the only years of our lives. That is the true meaning of this season.