A holiday message – One day.

Greetings and most excellent holiday cheer to you all. I spent the past hour trying to come up with some type of holiday theme for this post; holidays, ironically, can leave some of us feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed with responsibilities. But then I heard a song.

I grew up in NY, about an hour north of the city, with lots and lots of diverse groups around me. There was a Hasidic Jewish community not far from where my family lived, and these bearded, brim hatted men were easy targets and the brunt of many jokes for my friends and I. One summer, I worked in their village delivering groceries and smirking at their “funny” ways. Yet, I was intrigued by these people, their no-nonsense way of going about their business, and their seemingly blind eye to the rest of the world.

As they say, there’s (always) more than meets the eye. I crossed paths one day in a local deli with an older Hasidic man. He cracked jokes that made me laugh and told me stories of his youth in Israel. We’d see each other at least three times a week, and to my surprise, he would always say hello and crack another joke. I stared at his curls, not with disdain, but with a strange sense of wonder. We lived only miles apart, but were worlds apart. Not too much later, I was off to the Great Northwest and this type of cultural interaction would be thousands of miles removed.

The meaning of this holiday season is multi-faceted, with different significance for all of us. For us at the winery, it might be a sigh of relief after crush and getting all the wine in barrel and tank. It’s a time to look back on the past year and reflect on what we did right, and what we didn’t do so right. For some, it’s a very specific religious focus. And for others, myself being one of them, it’s a time to maybe realize how they can be better people in order to make a better world. Sounds like a big order, I know, but why not? The song I heard was “One Day” by a young Hasidic man called Matisyahu (formerly Matthew Miller). The lyrics and music moved me, and so I googled him and watched interviews of him describing his desire to bring worlds together and infuse peace into the world through his reggae/hip-hop music. The following video isn’t the official version of the song, but it gives you a more intimate insight into this man and his message.  If you’re thinking this type of music isn’t your thing, you might be surprised…

If that’s not one of the more beautiful Christmas/Hanukkah messages, I’m not sure what is.

My apologies to anyone who found this post off-track from the world of wine- guilty as charged. And believe me, there’s plenty of upcoming wine news to talk about. But there are more important things in this world than wine (not much, though…), and I thought it was a fantastic message to send to all of you at this time of year. So we send you all peace on earth and good will towards men, regardless of who you are and what you believe in.

L’Chayim!

Jared