Standing on the threshold of a new year, our hearts are filled with prayers for a year of peace, happiness, good health, abundant parnassa (wealth) and nachass (success).

This coming year will be ‘Shemittah’ year. In the Torah it says that “the Land shall observe a Shabbat for Hashem” about the Shemittah year, meaning that on the seventh year of the Shemittah cycle, we should leave the land fallow without working it (ie, no planting, ploughing, pruning, etc...)

Just as the Shabbat day is not merely a time to stop our weekday work but also a day to rejuvenate and recharge our spiritual batteries, so too the Shemittah year is a time to re-energise ourselves spiritually by strengthening and reinvigorating our Torah learning and our Tefillah (prayer).

May the Torah and Tefillah of the Hamayan community continue to strengthen ourselves, our families and each other. May we continue to be the wonderfully welcoming and caring shule that we are. May Hashem inscribe us all in the Book of Life for a happy, healthy and sweet year. May we also be transported ever so soon to Eretz Yisral, our Holy Land of Israel, where we will be able to celebrate the Shemittah year together with the sound of the great Shofar of Moshiach!

With warmest wishes to each and every one of you.

Rabbi Mordechai Szmerling