When seasons change I often give some thought to the nature of the cyclical Jewish year’s makeup.  Something on this subject struck me when I was taking a walk the other day in pitch-perfect eighty-degree weather.  All of our happy holidays occur during times of year when the climate is not much better than borderline-miserable, and all the depressing or solemn ones fall out when nature is really buzzing.  I guess that there might be a yin/yang thing that goes along with that.  Yiddishkeit holds onto us tightly during the seasons that we might be predisposed to being overly-ebullient, and perhaps do things that are not in our ‘best interests’, while instilling a sense of intrinsic joy within us during the calender’s dark and brisk period, when we are more susceptible to despondency.