Happy secular New Year's Day.

Just like Rosh Hashanah, our secular New Year is celebrated by wearing funny hats and blowing horns, but that's where the similarities end. Rosh Hashanah introduces a period of deep self-examination and renewed commitment to fulfill our highest aspirations. In contrast, the secular New Year is popularly imagined as a time for making resolutions to get fit, get organized, or get out of debt that are abandoned or forgotten before the calendar turns to February.

Why do so many New Year's resolutions fail? What can Jusaism teach us about making lasting changes in our lives? Here are a few thoughts:

1) It's Not About You. The biggest difference between the process of t'shuvah associated with the Days of Awe and secular New Year's resolutions is the focus on God versus focus on self. T'shuvah is about reaching toward something beyond oneself, aspiring to find meaning and connecting with a greater purpose for ones life. Your New Year's resolutions are more likely to succeed if they are not just about fulfilling a personal desire, but are motivated by a sincere desire to serve a purpose beyond yourself and to connect with the world around you.

2) Keep It Realistic. A resolution to drop five dress sizes by Presidents Day or to go from couch potato to marathoner is bound to fail. Show some compassion for yourself by keeping your goals realistic. Know yor own limitations. Strive for real change, but keep your immediate expectations simple and doable. Become the champion of your own life by giving yourself a chance to succeed.

3) Be Specific About What You Want. Many resolutions fail because people don't really know from the outset what they are striving toward. A resolution that says, "In the coming year, I am going to become closer to my mother," is not nearly as likely to succeed as a resolution that says, "I'm going to visit my mother three times this year and spend a full day focussed just on her with each visit." Again, Jewish tradition teaches that we should be honest and compassionate with ourselves by knowing what we want and pursuing our just and good goals with fervor.

4) Make Room for Your Spiritual Life. In addition to working on what you look like on the outside, think about changes you want to make on the inside. Is this a good time to think about a new commitment to serving others, to deepening your involvement in community, to entering a prayer or meditation pactice? Open yourself from within and reach beyond your self-imposed limitations.

Whatever you choose to do, do it with joy. Ultimately, the change you seek is a change that leads to your own happiness, greater fulfillment, and becoming the person you were meant to be.

Happy New Year.


Other posts on this topic:
Repairing Everything in an Instant

This is the sermon I delivered at the first night of Rosh Hashanah 5772 at Temple Beit HaYam.

How could there be a more terrifying moment for a rabbi than to stand where I am standing right now? It’s Erev Rosh Hashanah. I am the new rabbi standing before the entire congregation for the first time, and you are all expecting and hoping that I will say something brilliant. I am doomed.

So, instead, let me say something appropriate to this holy day: forgive me. 

I am new here, I don’t know all the history and all the customs of Temple Beit HaYam. I will make mistakes. Forgive me when I forget your name at the most embarrassing moment possible. When I stumble through your favorite Hebrew prayer, please, forgive me. 

Five years of rabbinic school and eleven years as a congregational rabbi is a significant amount of time. Over those years, I have learned a lot about how Jewish communities work and how to teach our tradition in ways that touch people’s minds and hearts. I have celebrated with families on their joyful occasions, and held their hands in moments of grief. Yet, despite all those experiences, my rabbinic education is still incomplete. I still have a lot to learn. I look to you, the congregation I now serve, to be my teachers.

So, when you come to me with a crisis in your life and I bumble for the right words to express my concern and sympathy, please know that I am sorry. When the day arrives that you come to services expecting your spirit to soar, and instead, you end up hearing me sing off-key, please know that I am sorry. I have a lot to learn.

I know that I am not the first rabbi you have had, either at Temple Beit HaYam or at other congregations where you have been members. I know that my predecessors were not perfect, either, but, still, you should know that my mistakes will be different from the ones they made. I will amaze you with my originality.

I know that you have high expectations for me based on your lofty dreams. That’s good. Dreams keep us moving forward, changing and renewing. In the last few months I’ve learned about some of your dreams—the dream of renewing the spirit of adventure and limitless opportunity that characterized this congregation in its early days; the dream of reaching beyond the Temple’s walls to make this congregation’s presence felt in the larger community; the dream of expanding opportunities for adults to learn about Jewish thought, tradition and practice; the dream of building the congregation’s membership and establishing its financial security.

Most everyone who studies to become a rabbi does so with some idea that there is—somewhere out there—a community that he or she can make better and that will bring out the best in him or her. Just as you brought me to your community with the hope that I could help you find new directions and realize your dreams, I also came with hopes and dreams of my own.

I come hoping to fulfill a vision of a congregation in which Judaism comes to life, a place where people find new meaning in their lives and a sense of spiritual fulfillment. Unlike the synagogues of my own youth and childhood, I hope to help create a place where children and their parents can love learning together, a place where people have new insights about themselves and their relationship with God, a place where “community” is a word that means a group of people who genuinely care for each other, help each other through troubles, celebrate joys together, and find it within themselves to forgive each other’s flaws.

So, we have come together to share each other’s dreams. We both have big, bold dreams—probably bigger than we can expect to be realized fully. But that is the nature of dreams. We are in a relationship now, you and I, and relationships are built on mutual commitment, mutual forgiveness, and, most of all, on sharing dreams. The best relationships happen when people are willing to listen to each others dreams and to answer with their own. 

In the last three months since I came to Stuart, I have been amazed by how much you have turned toward me and shared yourselves with me in welcoming and in friendship. I hope that I can reciprocate in turning toward you—but remember, you have a big advantage over me—there’s only one of me.

Relationship building is also a way of describing what the High Holy Days are about. We are called to t’shuvah, which we usually translate as, “atonement” or “repentance,” but which literally means “answering,” or “turning.” At the most basic level, the Days of Awe are the time when we are called to turn toward God—to answer and continue the conversation, to renew our relationship with That Which Is Beyond Us.

This is a way of talking about God which many Jews find difficult. Entering into “a personal relationship with God” does not sound very Jewish to many of us. It reminds us of the catch-phrases of Christian fundamentalists. But relationship can be a deeply Jewish way of thinking about God. 

To Martin Buber, the great 20th century Jewish philosopher, relationship was the key to understanding God as a reality. Buber wrote that God is found in relationships where two human beings accept each other in their entirety without preconception or expectation. Seen in this way, t’shuvah, returning to God, is the process of re-examining the relationships in our life and striving to accept others just as they are. Our relationships are a reflection of how we relate to God. Repairing our relationship with God means repairing our relationships with other human beings, especially the people who are closest to us.

We ask ourselves at this time of year about those relationships: Have we treated people in a way that respects their unique dreams and aspirations, or have we made them adjunct to our own desires? Have we allowed ourselves to know in their entirety the people who are close to us—their many potentialities along with their faults and shortcomings—or have we befriended only those aspects that are most appealing or useful to us? Are we open to who they are now—constantly changing and growing—or are we stuck in perceiving them as they once were? 

When we truly do make the effort to see others as total human beings—when we seek to know them, understand them, listen to their dreams—we come a little bit closer to reaching our own humanity. 

This is a paradox. Our dreams are what make us real, both to others and to ourselves.

If I do not see your dreams, you will not be real to me. If you do not see my dreams, I will be just an object in a suit, playing the role of a rabbi. Since we are in a relationship with each other, we are in conversation. We tell each other our dreams, each answering with our own dreams. Rabbis come to congregations as a place to make a living, to try out their ideas, and to be leaders. Congregations seek out rabbis for their programs and services, for opportunities to learn and to be led. When the relationship really works, though, each finds something more. In coming to know each other, rabbis and congregations help to make each other more real—like the velveteen rabbit in the children’s story. We give each other meaning by accepting each other as we are—our dreams along with our flaws, our triumphs along with our mistakes.

Not eleven, not sixteen, not one hundred years of rabbinic experience could teach me to know who you are. Despite the piece of paper that declares me, “Rabbi,” I cannot truly be your rabbi until I have learned from you, who you are and who you yearn to be. It is, of course, a process that can never end, since we are always becoming something new—and we can never be entirely sure just what we are becoming. 

But that’s okay. Relationship means acceptance and forgiveness. Please forgive me my shortcomings and failings. I will forgive you for yours. In this way, together, we will continue the conversation and continue to share our dreams. On this evening of Rosh Hashanah, when we seek to turn to God, we can begin by turning toward one another in acceptance. That is how the journey begins.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu.
May you be written for a good year.

Here is my Rosh Hashanah gift to everyone, a teaching from Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, the S'fat Emet:

"Inscribe us for life." [This phrase from the prayers of Rosh Hashanah] refers to the infinitesimal point of holiness that is within each human heart. That point is the soul of life, of which it is said, "God has placed eternal life within us." However, every year, as we become accustomed to sin, our baser self overpowers and hides this point of holiness. You must seek compassion from the Holy One of Blessing to re-inscribe this spark onto your heart on Rosh Hashanah. This is why we implore God, "Inscribe us for life!" We ask God to re-inscribe life upon our hearts.
-S'fat Emet 5:139

May 5772 be a year of renewal for you. May it awaken the spark of holiness within you and may you taste life's sweetness and joy. May the Holy One inscribe you for life!

There was no day of greater joy in Israel than … Yom Kippur.
-B. Taanit 30b

Who says that the Days of Awe have to be solemn and somber? These are the days in which we wish each other a sweet new year and in which we rejoice in the purification of forgiveness. It is time to rediscover the joy of this season. Here are six ideas for making High Holy Days services more joyful:

• Begin your services by greeting each other. In most congregations, High Holy Days services are the only time of the year that almost the entire community is present in the synagogue. Even in a small congregation, there are going to be long-time members who have never met or who can't remember each other's names. By beginning the service with greetings and words of welcome, we can become true communities. I ask everyone to stand up, find someone they do not know, and wish each other a "Shanah Tovah!"

• Let children behave like children. There is nothing, in my mind, that kills the experience of being in the synagogue for children more than being told to be quiet. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi tells a great story about a child who is told that the holy ark contains the most wonderful thing in the world—the Torah. The child gets so excited that when the ark is opened during services he yells out, "The Torah! The Torah!" What does he hear in return? "Shhhhhh!" We have no idea how much those shushes hurt a child's Jewish joy. You want to have children in your congregation? You want them to feel welcome and joyful about being there and about being Jewish? Then, please, stop punishing them for acting like children. I begin my services by assuring parents that we consider the cries and laughter of children to be "the most sincere form of prayer." Also, recognize that when children misbehave in the synagogue, it is usually because they are bored. Work on making service more engaging and meaningful for children before assuming that it is their attitude or lax parenting that is the root of the problem.

• Let the congregation participate in the shofar service.  For years, I have been asking the members of the congregation to call out the blasts of the shofar: "Tekiah! Shevarim-Teruah! Tekiah!" It really changes the way people feel about the mitzvah of hearing the sound of the shofar. In the congregation I have come to this year, there is another joyful custom. They ask all the children to bring shofarot on Rosh Hashanah and they all sound the blasts for the final shofar call. I can't wait to hear it.

• Wish people a sweet New Year with sweets. My friend and rabbinic school classmate, Rabbi Michael Latz, hands out Tootsie Rolls at Rosh Hashanah services to give some real flavor to the traditional greeting, "Shanah tovah umtukah," "A good and sweet year!" People who love chocolate and other sweets will love Rosh Hashanah even more—and love being Jewish and being in the synagogue—if you celebrate the holiday with their favorite treats.

• An intimate Ne'ilah. Most congregations that open up the moveable walls and expand their sanctuaries for the High Holy Days will find that they can go back to a small sanctuary by the time the final Ne'ilah service comes around. (What a shame for the people who are missing the best part of Yom Kippur!). Take advantage of the shifting numbers by making Ne'ilah a more intimate experience. If your congregation stands throughout Ne'ilah, as the tradition suggests, they don't need to stand at their chairs. Get them up on the bimah and feel themselves to be part of a community as each person struggles to dig deep within him or herself for the final lunge toward t'shuvah by the final shofar blast. It is one of the most powerful moments of the Jewish year. The havdalah that follows is one of the most joyful!

• Break the fast as a community. Congregational break-the-fasts are one of the best opportunities of the year to create a sense of community and togetherness. Think of it: you have just been through the emotional rollercoaster and liturgical marathon of Yom Kippur, and now you've made it through to the end. What are you going to do? Leave the people with whom you've just shared it and eat a bagel at home? Instead, stay in the synagogue and rejoice as a community in the completion of the year's most important religious and social occasion. Begin the new year with the mitzvah of not separating yourself from the community.

What are your favorite parts of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that make the Days of Awe a joyful experience? Share your ideas in the comments.