Well, there is a Chinese New Year and a Jewish New Year. This year I had a Chinese Yom Kippur.
Sort of. . .
There is an old Chinese New Year custom is to go out to the street and break one of your dinner plates. Any bad luck which was slated for coming year is transferred to this loss of a plate.
Now, when the Jewish new year starts, G-d pencils in what will be allotted you for that year - marriage, how much money you will make, a broken foot, a trip to The Great Wall of China.
But He gives you a second chance. If you get nervous and feel that things might not go too well in the next 12 months, you can be comforted in knowing this. . . He watches to see if you made changes in yourself during the few days after the new year. If you did, He gets out his eraser and then pens in your new destiny on the 10th day, Yom Kippur. You get a new this year's karma.
The day before Yom Kippur, my desk computer died. I was upset and then realized, well it is the new year and I probably deserved worse in this coming year so this is a kindness, a softening of my karma sentence.
Years ago, a rabbi told me that when you repent, G-d may lessen the serious consequences of your wrong actions. He said, "Maybe instead, a cup of coffee you buy will be cold" or maybe your computer will break like a dropped dish.
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