L’Shanah Tovah 5777. Happy New Year. The High Holy Days commence at sundown tonight (Sunday), beginning a period of reflection, remembrance, and renewal for Jews around the world.

I’ll get to what matters in a moment. First, though, there’s challah. No Jewish meal begins without bread, and a blessing in which we gives thank for bread. Challah means “loaf of bread,” but in modern times the term describes a braided egg bread, made round for the High Holy Days.

I have been sharing Jewish holidays with the same group of people for almost 55 years. We—my parents’ generation, truth be told—found one another wandering in the Southern Arizona desert, with everyone having escaped from New York or Havana. In