May the year bring abundant blessings —
beauty, creativity, delight!

May we be confident, courageous,
and devoted to our callings.

May our lives be enriched with education.
May we find enjoyment in our work
and fulfillment in our friendships.

May we grow, may we have good health.
In darker times, may we be sustained
by gratitude and hope.

May we be infused with joy.
May we know intimacy and kindness,
may we love without limit.

May the hours be enhanced with music
and nurtured by art.
May our endeavors be marked by originality.

May we take pleasure in daily living.
May we find peace within ourselves
and help peace emerge in the world.

May we receive the gifts of quiet.

May reason guide our choices,
may romance grace our lives.

May our spirits be serene,
may we find solace in solitude.

May we embrace tolerance and truth
and the understanding that underlies both.

May we be inspired with vision and wonder,
may we be open to exploration.

May our deepest yearnings be fulfilled,
may we be suffused with zeal for life.

May we merit these blessings
and may they come to be.
May it be so.

"May It Be So" and its Hebrew counterpart are abecedarian poems, a type of acrostic in which the initial letters of key words appear in alphabetical succession. Abecedarians were a popular form of piyyut (liturgical poetry) composed for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, typically to delineate sins or to enumerate God's attributes. These new English and Hebrew abecedarians express wishes, hopes, and blessings.

Marcia Falk in The Days Between