Happy birthday to the whole world

The Jewish high holidays celebrate the birthday of creation and call humanity to reflect, repent, and recommit to the healing of the world. When you reflect on your life, you bump into death as well, so the holidays are also a confrontation with life's fragility and death's mystery.

On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed
On Yom Kippur it is sealed.

Here is a humorous and deep offering from Leonard Cohen

And who by fire,
who by water,
who in the sunshine,
who in the night time,
who by high ordeal,
who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip,
who by barbiturate,
who in these realms of love,
who by something blunt,
and who by avalanche,
who by powder,
who for his greed,
who for his hunger,
and who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent,
who by accident,
who in solitude,
who in this mirror,
who by his lady's command,
who by his own hand,
who in mortal chains,
who in power,
and who shall I say is calling?