Tashlikh Prayer; Let Us Cast Away...

They handed this out at my church last Sunday. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year and this prayer is said at the end of Rosh Hashanah (I think);

Let us cast away the sin of deception, so that we will mislead no one in word or deed, nor pretend to be what we are not.

Let us cast away the sin of vain ambition which prompts us to strive fro goals which bring neither true fulfillment nor genuine contentment.

Let us cast away the sin of stubbornness, so that we will neither persist in foolish habits nor fail to acknowledge our will to change.

Let us cast away the sin of envy, so that we will neither be consumed by desire for what we lack nor grow unmindful of the blessings which are already ours.

Let us cast away the sin of selfishness, which keeps us from enriching our lives through wider concerns, and greater sharing, and from reaching out in love to other human beings.

Let us cast away the sin of indifference, so that we may be sensitive to the sufferings of others and responsive to the needs of our people everywhere.

Let us cast away the sins of pride and arrogance, so that we may worship and serve our highest purposes in humility and in truth.

Childhood Unbound

I am reading an interesting new book on parenting. The author is Ron Taffel. Taffel is a therapist and a writer/thinker on family issues. I have always found him insightful and jargon free. The book is entitled Childhood Unbound and the premise is that there has been a major shift in the way we rear our children, the way children and adolescents experience the world around them and though these changes may seem frightening there is more good than bad in them. Taffel suggests that the 'generation gap' has disappeared but has been replaced by the the tendency to seek both separation and closeness within families. He points out that adults raising children today have much more in common with their children than our parents had with us. This is an excellent companion book to Staying Connected to Your Teenager by Michael Riera.
I highly recommend this to parents and therapists alike who are trying to figure it all out.

Childhood Unbound by Ron Taffel, PhD