New Year 5722 is upon us. After a year full of good and bad actions of wishing good things on some people and bad things on others suddenly, a few days or weeks before the New Year we're busy wishing whoever we meet a "Happy New Year".

This is a very beautiful custom but the question is how do we wish someone "Happy New Year" who during the preceding we've been cursing?

I believe that the Jewish New Year Ceremony of Tashlich shows us how.

Tashlich is a ceremony of symbolically throwing our sins into natural flowing water, like the sea or a river and saying the blessing:  "Who is like unto you, O God...And You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea"

Sins, in my opinion means the bad thoughts we've had about some people or the bad deeds they've done to us.

Keeping sins, like these with us, in our hearts prevents us from wishing certain people "A Happy New Year".

Once we bury these sins as in the Tashlich ceremony our hearts are released from the grip they hold over us and we can proceed to wish even our worst enemies "A Happy New Year".

As soon as we do this we virtually become new people, starting a new life.

The past can't be changed. The evil we've done and the harm it's caused can't be changed. The only thing we can change is how we look at the past.

By asking forgiveness we release the hold which the past has on us. If we don't release ourselves from the past it will hold on to us and even drag us down as a heavy iron ball drags on the foot of a prisoner, holding him down, not letting him go forward.

Here is the Tashlich Prayer:

(Michah 7:18) Who is a G-d like You, Who bears iniquity and ignores transgression for the remnant of His chosen people! He does not retain His anger forever for He desires to be benevolent. He will again show compassion and will subdue our sins and cast all of their transgressions into the depths of the sea!

It is then customary to shake out one's pockets and the folds in one's clothing three times so that they are emptied, symbolizing the heart's intention to cast away sin and to be totally cleansed of transgression.