Autumn is the season of impending dark and cold. After the equinox, night overtakes day. The temperature turns unrelentingly colder, and the world can seem just a bit less inviting.

It is said that Adam, the first man, observed the signs of autumn with trepidation. The day became shorter, and night stretched, and he wondered whether, by sinning in Eden, he had set in motion the destruction of the world. Only after the winter solstice, when the days started to lengthen, did Adam begin to comprehend the seasons. Autumn, then, signals a certain waning.

Yet precisely during this season we celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. We announce to the world that it's time to change, that we possess the ability to become better, and that we can effect a grander future by doing so. Jewish tradition records that on Rosh Hashanah, G-d judges not only each human being, but the entire world, setting the course for the coming year. This, then, is our season of renewal. Rosh Hashanah is a chance for us to get a fresh start, by putting the unfortunate events of the past year behind us and building upon our previous good deeds.

The question is obvious: Why set Rosh Hashanah in the fall? Wouldn't spring be the ideal time for the holiday of renewal? If G-d wants us to see, in nature, an example of progress, why not fix Rosh Hashanah at the vernal equinox? The lengthening days would serve as an archetype for our personal evolution. Why does Rosh Hashanah occur precisely when nature sends a message of declivity?

As we contemplate the past and resolve for the future, we ask G-d for all the good in life. And yet life does not always deal us the deck we would prefer. Its vicissitudes are trying, indeed. Who in the past year has not faced the death of a relative or friend? Who has not faced a difficult moment with a child or parent, or an employer or employee, or a friend or rival? Who can say that he or she has it perfect? Life is not perfect, and yet in that imperfection, and only there, lies our chance to make things better. Had G-d created a perfect world, we could not shine.

The late logotherapist Viktor Frankl, after surviving imprisonment by the Nazis in a concentration camp, devoted his professional life to analyzing why some inmates lived while others, in identical circumstances, succumbed. Frankl theorized that while one cannot necessarily choose his environment, he can, however, decide how to react to that environment. In the camps, faced with unimaginable oppression, some inmates could not summon the resources to hold on. Those inmates who found a purpose to their continued existence — in Frankl's case, to bear witness to the Holocaust — even in hell on earth, had a much better chance of survival.

We are sometimes given lemons in life, goes the saying, but some people take the lemons and make lemonade. The story is told of two young brothers, one an eternal optimist, the other a naysaying pessimist, who were put together in a room full of fertilizer. After some minutes had passed, the boys' father arrived to fetch them. He found the pessimist standing to the side, crying hysterically, while the optimist was at the center of the room, digging furiously through the fertilizer. "What are you doing?" the father asked. Replied the boy: "I figured that with all this manure, there must be a pony in here somewhere!"

Our Cover Story, "Beyond Cancer: Remaking a Jewish Life," is a powerful lesson in dealing with the hand you are dealt. Dr. Barbara R. Barry's remarkable fortitude in the face of life-changing tragedy resonates with the message of renewal emerging from the dark.

Yes, G-d could have set Rosh Hashanah during the spring, but a valuable lesson would have been lost. The lesson is that no matter the circumstances, we have the ability to make life work. And so, precisely at the time dark overtakes light, we renew ourselves.

Ultimately our world will achieve perfection. The Prophet Jeremiah, writing in Lamentations, says: "G-d, cause us to return to You, and we will return; renew our days as in the past (kedem)." We ask G-d to restore us to the perfect state of kedem, to Adam in Eden before his sin. This wish will be realized in the Messianic Era, when "the world will become full of knowledge of the L-rd, as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9). And we anticipate a time when, as we say in the Blessing of the Moon, the "light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and as the light of the seven days of Creation" — a time when darkness is banished and we live in eternal spring. On behalf of the entire staff of the OK Labs, we wish all our readers a Happy and Healthy New Year, with the fervent hope that you will prevail over your challenges.

Avraham M. Goldstein