L’shana tova! That’s Hebrew for Happy New Year.

Sundown on Sunday begins the Jewish two-day new year festival of Rosh Hashanah and the 10-day period called the High Holy Days. By Jewish custom, Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of God’s creation of Adam and Eve — this year is 5779, meaning it’s the 5,779th anniversary of Adam’s creation, according to that custom.

Butler’s Congregation B’nai Abraham and synagogues around the world will observe customs fraught with symbolism of life, love, faith and redemption. At sundown, women light candles and recite blessings. At dawn, the sound of the ram’s horn — the shofar — reminds the people to renew their commitment to a life of purity and service. Traditional foods — apple slices dipped in honey, sweet wine and a soft bread called challah — remind the faithful of God’s promise of sweetness and prosperity.

Cantor Michal Gray-Schaffer, the synagogue’s spiritual leader, tells us she is preparing a series of sermons profiling four community leaders, two Jewish and two non-Jewish, whose lives reflect Judeo values and wisdom.

The new year celebration ends at sundown on Tuesday, a day which, coincidentally, marks another solemn anniversary — the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

It might be coincidence that the drawn-out war against terrorism that began that dreadful day could come to a symbolic end when the shofars sound on Sept. 11, 2018 — exactly 17 years later.

As this editorial is being written, Russian, Turkish and Syrian government forces surround the last bastion of Syrian rebels in Idlib province in northern Syria. While President Trump has cautioned the Syrians and their allies that “the world is watching closely,” the United States has shown no intention of intervening. It appears likely that a battle will happen quickly, and that the rebels — the final remnant of Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 terror organization — will be routed.

The demise of al Qaeda and its offspring, ISIS, is an objective for which all of us can agree in prayer — especially on the anniversary of one of America’s gravest atrocities.

The junction of these two elements is Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, which has the unique status of being a tribe as well as a nation. The status makes B’nai Abraham as much a part of Jerusalem as it is a part of Butler — a part of us. It gives special significance and emphasis to the events unfolding in northern Syria this weekend of Rosh Hashanah, 5779.