As Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish New Year — approaches, Ann and I find ourselves doing something increasingly rare in our busy lives.
Stopping.
Stepping away from the noise. Reflecting on where we have been, how we have lived, how we have treated one another — and who we want to be in the year ahead.
This is a 5000+ year old custom practiced by many individuals and families around-the-globe.
That invitation feels especially important this year.
We continue to live in a world filled with uncertainty, division and conflict. Politics, religion and deeply held beliefs too often separate us rather than bring us together. Hatred remains painfully present. Wars continue. Families grieve. Communities struggle.
And too often, people who see the world differently have simply stopped talking to one another.
Perhaps that is one of the great challenges of our time.
We have become very good at talking.
We have not always been as good at having conversations.
There is a difference.
A conversation asks something more of us.
It asks us to listen. To be curious. To disagree without diminishing another person. To speak honestly without being cruel. To recognise that understanding someone does not require agreeing with them.
And sometimes, simply to sit quietly enough to hear what another person is really trying to say.
Over this past year, I had the extraordinary privilege of bringing The Negotiator's Compass into the world.
The experience of writing the book, sharing it, and hearing from people who have read it has reinforced something I have believed for a very long time:
Better conversations make a better world.
Not because conversations solve every problem. They do not.
But because virtually every relationship in our lives — our marriages, our families, our friendships, our workplaces, our communities — is strengthened or weakened by the conversations we choose to have. And by how we choose to show up for them.
Rosh Hashanah reminds us that changing the world does not always begin with something grand.
Sometimes it begins at our own table.
With a telephone call we have been meaning to make. With an apology that is overdue. With forgiveness that has been difficult to offer. With asking one more question instead of making one more assumption. With listening when it would be easier to argue. With choosing kindness when anger would be easier.
And with remembering that the person sitting across from us may see the world differently — and still deserves our dignity, our respect and our humanity.
Our beloved grandmother, Bubby Sara, of blessed memory, understood much of this instinctively.
To her, nothing was more important than family. She believed deeply in generosity, kindness and charity toward others. No person and no worthy cause should simply be turned away — even if all you were able to give was a penny.
Her legacy continues to remind us that what matters most in life is rarely complicated.
Take care of your family. Be grateful for what you have. Help where you can. Be kind. And remember that there is always someone carrying a burden you cannot see.
Perhaps this is one way we rediscover unity in our diversity.
Not by pretending our differences do not exist. Not by requiring one another to believe the same things. But by refusing to allow those differences to erase everything we share.
As the sound of the shofar calls us into another year, perhaps its ancient voice can remind us to quiet some of the other voices surrounding us.
To listen more carefully. To judge a little less quickly. To hold those we love a little closer. To reach toward one another rather than retreat from one another.
And to remember our shared humanity, particularly when it is hardest to do so.
To those I may have wronged — I ask for forgiveness.
To those I may have helped — I wish I had done more.
To those I may have neglected to help — I ask for understanding.
To those who helped me — I thank you with all my heart.
If you have read The Negotiator's Compass, I hope you will not simply put it back on the shelf.
Share its ideas. Talk about them. Pass the book along to someone who might benefit from it — a friend, a colleague, a family member, or simply someone with whom you would like to have a better conversation.
Not because everyone needs to agree with what I have written. But because I believe deeply that we need more people willing to listen, to understand, to remain curious, to show kindness, and to stay in conversation with one another — especially when doing so is difficult.
If one conversation becomes more thoughtful, if one disagreement becomes less destructive, if one relationship becomes stronger — then the wisdom has travelled further than the pages on which it was written.
That is what I hope for most.
Ann and I enter this New Year with profound gratitude.
For our family. For our children and grandchildren. For old friends who have travelled through life with us and newer friends who have enriched the journey. For the conversations, laughter, celebrations, disagreements, lessons and memories that connect all of us.
These are among life's greatest blessings. May the coming year remind us not to take any of them — or one another — for granted.
May 5787 bring healing where there is pain. Understanding where there is division. Courage where there is fear. Kindness where there is anger. Conversation where there has been silence. And peace where, for far too long, there has been none.
May we continue to live fully, love deeply, and matter genuinely.
And may we never underestimate the difference a thoughtful word, a listening ear, an open heart — or one meaningful conversation — can make in another person's life.
Shanah Tovah u'Metukah.
With all our love and blessings,
Howard, Ann and Family