Dear Friends,
On Rosh Hashanah we are dedicated to change and to renewal. We try to make amends for the past and to start afresh for the new year. But what does change mean? Is it even possible?
In an ideal world, change can be a permanent and irrevocable improvement: we cannot go back to the way we once were. We become different people.
Think of Chaim calling his old buddy Moshe, and getting an answering machine message: “You have reached my voice mail. Please leave a message after the tone. I decided to rethink my entire life, my priorities, and make many changes. If you don’t hear back from me, you are one of the changes.”
But, as we know quite well, this type of change, complete internal transformation, is not so easy. Sometimes it does more damage than good: Just knowing how hard it is to change, discourages us from even trying in the first place.
How often do we not attempt to do something because we fear failure? Or give up our dreams because we are afraid we will never fulfill them perfectly? Do we look at things as ‘all-or-nothing’, and therefore never embark on chores we may never fully complete? Do we deprive ourselves of the gift of an individual mitzvah that is so dear to us because we fear disappointment? Does fear of not getting it ALL right make us think we will get nothing right and it’s not worth the effort to try? Do we allow ourselves to be intimidated by thoughts of not succeeding, before we even begin to consider how to change? We feel that if we don’t get it all right, we will get nothing right, and it is not worth the effort?
Does this sound familiar to you? How many of us will not go to the gym because we can’t do it every other day? How many of us do not work on our marriage, because it will never be perfect? How many of us do not mend our relationships with family members, because there are too many demons in the closet? How many of us will not make a spiritual, moral change because it will not be 100 percent perfect?
Perhaps what we need, is to redefine success and failure, trial and error. A wise man once said, “If you never make a mistake, you are not really trying to improve things: every experiment is not a success. Your success lies in what you learn from the results of each experiment and how you proceed from there.” If you truly want to improve, perhaps errors and mistakes could be considered positive stepping stones on the way to eventual change and success. Every little bit counts.
Rosh Hashanah is here to tell us that G-d embraces every act of change. If we regret one mistake and change that, G-d accepts it fully. Any step forward you manage to take, towards a better more inspired, G-dly life, is infinitely treasured by G-d. It may be one small step by man, but a giant step for G-d.
So friends, this Rosh Hashanah take that step and make one change — for a day, a week, a month. Whatever your struggle or challenge is, tackle it one day and one step at a time, just don’t stay in the same place you were yesterday. Broaden your horizons! Discover more! Learn more! Grow more – as a person and as a Jew.
L’shana Tova!