The Birth of a New Year

Rabbi Benjamin Adler

I trust that your summer was enjoyable, restful and relaxing. For my family and me, this has been a summer of new beginnings. We have relocated to Rockaway and I have begun my duties as your new rabbi at White Meadow Temple. Beginnings are often a mixture of excitement and anxiety. We are thrilled by new possibilities and opportunities, but at the same time we are challenged to re-examine old expectations and old ways of thinking. I can say that my first couple of months here at White Meadow Temple have been filled with challenges and opportunities, excitement and anticipation.

But one does not need to move or change positions to feel the emotions of new beginnings. Our cyclical Jewish calendar confronts us with beginnings all the time. The week begins with Yom Rishon (the first day, Sunday) a reminder of the creation of the world. The word for month, hodesh, is related to the word for new, hadash. And every year we begin anew with Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the year. In our tradition, Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of the world. In the High Holy Day services we say “hayom harat olam,” today the world was conceived.

The renewal of creation is mirrored in a renewal of our own lives, for the High Holy Days present us with the opportunity for our own rebirth. Just as the world is conceived each Rosh Hashanah, so are our lives reborn during the season of the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe. We have the opportunity to start over, to fix the aspects of ourselves that are not quite right, to repair relationships with family, friends or co-workers that have deteriorated. While it is exciting to realize that the process of T’shuvah, repentance, can allow us to renew and better ourselves, the thought of making these changes in our lives can create great anxiety. T’shuvah shakes us out of our comfortable, familiar ways; it demands that we confront parts of our lives that we usually ignore.

Fear of change is expressed in the very name of this season, yamim noraim, days of awe, days of fear, terrible days. According to tradition, the fear comes from the fact that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are Days of Judgment. We stand in awe of God’s power and in fear of God’s upcoming decision on the fate of our lives. But if we are deemed worthy, we have the possibility to start anew, to live another year.

The question is, what will we do with that extra year we have been given? Will we commit to making the changes necessary in our lives to make ourselves the “new” people we want to be? Will we commit to strengthening our family and our community? The Days of Awe are a time of excitement and anxiety. They are not merely a time for family to gather, eat meals together and attend services at synagogue. The Days of Awe are fundamentally a time for introspection and personal renewal; a time to decide how we want to “conceive” of ourselves as new people. This work can certainly be done in the synagogue, listening to the beautiful music of the High Holy Days, but it can also be done in any place where you find peace of mind and quiet contemplation.

I encourage us all to do some of the work of T’shuvah and the introspection it demands, outside of shul. Go find a quiet, peaceful spot – the lake, a park, a special room in your house late at night – and think about where you are, where you are going, and where you want to be. What are the relationships that you need to work on, and how can you fix them? What aspects of yourself can you improve? If we do this work, then the liturgy we recite during the High Holy Days, where we ask God to restore our lives will have true meaning. If we make the effort to renew ourselves, perhaps God will meet us halfway and help us get to the next Yamim Noraim as safe, healthy, and better people.

Shanah Tovah U’Metukah,

Rabbi Benjamin Adler