G-d is not a gumball machine.

Though you wouldn’t know it this time of the year.

Just as Christians have pretty much lost the true and very real significance for them of Christmas, with it now being most of all a barometer of how the economy is doing, so I fear that too many Jews have lost the true and very real significance of the High Holidays.

And I am talking of all Jews, observant and non. In this, we are all alike.

For too many of us, what the High Holidays have become reminds me of an old Jay Leno joke/observation/commentary about Thanksgiving. About how it’s only on Thanksgiving that you hear about all these restaurants opening their doors and their hearts to serve a meal to the needy. The thought evidently being, said Leno, that “okay, that ought to hold you for the year.”

Seems like that’s how a lot of Jews see the High Holidays. For three days, we’ll tell G-d how sorry we are for what we’ve done, how much better we’ll be in what we will do, how very much we want Him to bless us with a happy and sweet year.

And that ought to hold Him for the year.

G-d is not a gumball machine where you put in your nickel and out comes a prize.

That’s something very much to keep in mind this time of the year, and especially this year, when we might more than ever come to think it’s all that simple.

Thanks to Tiger, Tony, Hitch and Dr. Laura.

This past year, we’ve seen a lot of high profile people seem to get theirs, fast and sure. Instant justice.

We had writer Christopher Hitchens, who has made quite a successful career out of his provocative opinions, none more provocative than his very adamant atheism. Hitch, as he is known, has made much of how much he doesn’t believe in G-d, even writing a well-publicized book, “G-d is Not Great.”

Well, this year, Hitchens learned he has a rare and severe form of cancer.

Then we had Tony Judt, an outspoken historian who most of all has been outspoken in his criticisms of Israel. He has extensively and very harshly slammed many aspects of Israeli policy, and even called for a one-state solution, which many see as something that would lead to the end of the Jewish state.

Well, this year, Judt who was stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease and was completely paralyzed, died.

And we had Dr. Laura Schlesinger, who repeatedly and defiantly uttered the N-word on her talk show, among other racist comments. And who, under pressure, was forced to announce her retirement from radio. And, of course, most famously of all, we had golf superstar Tiger Woods, who was revealed to be a serial womanizer, having had tawdry affairs with literally dozens of skanky women. And who, as a result, had sponsors get rid of him, had his superior ability abandon him, had his reputation and image shattered beyond repair.

And so, what we saw was an outspoken atheist come down with cancer, a harsh critic of Israel die of a horrible disease, a foul-mouthed talk show host lose her job, and a sports icon become a pathetic joke.

Kind of gives you the idea that maybe G-d is a gumball machine, and so we all ought to make sure to use the High Holidays stuffing in as many nickels as possible to ensure that all that comes out in our lives for the next year are fun prizes, and not booby prizes.

That could be the lesson we take from Tiger, Tony, Hitch and Dr. Laura. Especially because three of the four are Jews, and so we might figure G-d really does His thing with His Chosen.

But the High Holidays are not about how you act for three days a year, how much shul-going and repentance you can squeeze in, but about how you act, who you are, all the other days of the year. And about how you believe and what you believe.

The High Holidays are about setting a tone, charting a course, altering our behavior, changing our ways, for all the days to come. It’s not that hard to be good, to feel regret, to pledge to be better, three days a year, when the heat is on.

It is very hard to be good, to feel regret, to pledge to be better, the other 362 days of the year. The everyday days, the nothing special days, when you aren’t hearing the shofar, the High Holiday spirit isn’t filling the air.

The High Holidays are the start, not the end, the means, not the ends.

And faith is about trusting G-d and understanding there is absolutely no way for us to comprehend how He does things. Faith is not something to be based on how we think the world should work, but on having utter trust in how He thinks the world should work.

It would be nice if we could look at Tiger, Tony, Hitch and Dr. Laura and say see, if you do good, you get rewarded, if you do bad, you get punished. But, as all we well know, that is not how things are. The trick is, instead of that shaking our faith, it should strengthen it.

It would be easy to have faith if every time we did something we are supposed to, a check for $10,000 appeared in our hand, and if every time we did something we are not supposed to, a 10,000 volt shock was administered to our neck.

But that would be a faith based on G-d doing all the work, would be because we wouldn’t have to put any effort in believing in G-d, would be because the world would be working according to our conception of what makes sense.

G-d expects more from us. True faith involves work on our part, hard work, ongoing work, belief even in the face of a world that so often does not run the way we think it should be, in which the good often suffer and the evil often prosper.

We live in a world where babies are born with AIDS, where inane celebrities live lives of luxury, where righteous people are stricken with disease, where innocent people are hit by floods and tornadoes, where six million Jewish men, women and children were the victims of mass extermination, while the world watched and did nothing.

We live in a world that often seems upside down, where often we can only shake our heads in bewilderment at who has it good and who gets it bad.

Our job is to look at all that, and despite all that, to trust G-d, know that it is all from G-d, that it is all part of His plan, and that it’s not our job to use our heads to figure it out, but to have faith with a full and complete heart.

And that’s what Rosh Hashanah calls on us to do. To let G-d know that while we may not understand His world, may not always like His world or like what our lives contain, that we know it is all from Him, know that it is all for our good and trust that whatever happens to us, is all to help us accomplish our individual mission on this earth.

Rosh Hashanah is not about us putting a nickel in G-d’s gumball machine so that we are sure to get a good new year, but rather it is about us acknowledging that G-d and the world and our lives are not gumball machines, that we can do everything right and still suffer, that others can do everything bad and still thrive, but that even so, we believe, we will do the right thing because it is the right thing, because G-d wants us to, and that’s enough for us.

And so, what we should not learn from Tiger, Tony, Hitch and Dr. Laura is that things always work out as they do in the movies, the bad guys getting their just desserts, the good guys getting their just rewards.

But there is what to learn from them, as Judaism tells us there is what to learn from everything that comes into our lives. That was illustrated by the sainted rabbi known as the Chofetz Chaim who lived when the telephone came into wide usage. Since all that G-d gives the world is meant to teach us something, what, he asked, should we learn from this? From the telephone, he said, we see that what one says here, can be heard over there, reminding us that whatever we say, be it gossipy or profane or defaming words, be it kind or loving or righteous words, is heard in heaven. So be mindful about what you say.

So it is with these four people who came into our lives. From Tony, we can learn the importance of feeling free to criticize Israel when appropriate, of not condemning those who do, but of the obligation not to let our occasional disappointments with Israel cause us to turn away from it. From Dr. Laura, we can learn not to say things that hurt other people, that denigrate those different from us. From Tiger, we can learn to act like a mensch, to be in your private life who you portray yourself to be to the outside world.

And from Hitch, we can learn that just because you don’t understand G-d or like how a lot of things go in the world, there is no sin worse than denying G-d. It’s okay to fight with Him, be mad at Him, question Him, but it’s not okay to give up your belief in Him. For believing in His goodness, trusting that all that happens to us is for our good, is the essence of what we are here for.

I pray for each of you kind enough to spend time each week reading my words, that you have a meaningful Rosh Hashanah, and a new year full of good health, much happiness and a complete faith that G-d is with you every step of the way, every day of the year.