New year, new light, new life

Hey, does anybody still make new year’s resolutions? Maybe you do still make resolutions and yours goes something like mine?

“My new year’s resolution this year is to keep the resolutions I made last year!”

My friend said his goes like this, “My new year’s resolution is to have a fat bank account and a skinny body. Last year, I got mixed up.”

In fact, most people I know have long stopped making new year’s resolutions because they know it doesn’t work. They just go “in one year, and out the other”!

In much of the world today, especially for us Jews in Israel and around the world, people are living with uncertainty and confusion. So, let me share an idea about Rosh Hashanah which I believe can help us confront the confusion and find some clarity.

In Jewish thought, the new year isn’t only when we need to buy a new calendar or a seat in shul. The new year means a new light. According to the mystics, every new year, a divine light comes into the world for the very first time since creation. Implicit in this new light is the potential for new opportunities on every level.

A new year with its infinite new light means there really can be a new me and a new you. Yes, believe it or not, we really can reinvent ourselves. How? Good question. But that’s not what Rosh Hashanah is about. It’s not about the details. It’s about the potential, the hope, the commitment, and the resolve to do better than we did last year. How? We’ll have to figure that out. But first things first.

I recall back in my yeshiva days in Montreal, a moment when the Mashpia, my spiritual mentor, made a deep impression on me with an idea culled from one of the philosophical treatises we were studying at the time.

In the second section of Tanya, the author Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, explains the concept of “continuous creation”. Very briefly, it goes something like this. Since G-d created the universe from nothing way back when, it obviously required a powerful flash of divine energy to bring the world into being from nothingness. It follows that this creative force can never be removed from the universe, or the world would simply cease to exist immediately. Without the creative force of G-d which brought the world into existence originally, it would simply revert to its original state of … nothingness.

This is the deeper meaning of the expression used in our morning services describing the wonders of the Creator, how G-d “in His goodness, renews daily, continuously, the work of creation”.

Not only does the Creator renew our world every morning, but He does it perpetually, continuously, hence the concept of continuous creation. G-d didn’t create the world all those years ago and now he’s on vacation in the Caribbean. He hasn’t retired or even semi-retired. And He doesn’t suffer from mid-life crises either. His involvement with His world, our world, is continuous and constant. If the Creator would forget about us, even for a second, we would cease to exist. Taking His eye off the ball is equivalent to pulling the plug on the universe. It would simply go back to its default position, which was non-existence.

Isn’t it encouraging to know that G-d has us in mind, and that we haven’t been forgotten or left to our own devices. This is the real meaning of the term “divine providence”, that the world isn’t working randomly, or even on autopilot. There is a higher plan, or, in the words of Tevye the fiddler, a “vast eternal plan”. He is involved and looking after us, then, now, and forever.

And if He renews the work of creation every day, every hour, every minute, second, and nanosecond, then effectively, this means that every day it’s a brand-new world. And not only every day, but every moment. Every second, the world has just been recreated. And if it’s a new world, then this presents us with a brilliant new opportunity. It’s a new world now, and I needn’t be burdened by the past. That was an old world. I can make a new beginning today, this hour, this second. “Hey, I really can start again!”

A new world brings with it the opportunity of a new you, personally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually. We can reinvent ourselves at any given moment. We can change our attitude at any given moment. And we can change the way we look at our surroundings, wherever we may be, any time we want to. In a second, things can improve. If we would only be a little more objective, we would see the many positive and encouraging things going on around us instead of focusing only on the negative.

I know about all the problems in the world. Israel is on our minds every moment of the day. I’m not wearing blinkers, and I’m not naive. But the world is too beautiful and precious to let it slip away into oblivion because of negativity and pessimism. Let us renew ourselves, our families, our community, our country, and our world.

There’s a new light coming this Rosh Hashanah. And with it comes a new world with new life, new beginnings, and new blessings for all of us. G-d knows, we need it!

• Rabbi Yossy Goldman is the life rabbi emeritus at Sydenham Shul, and president of the South African Rabbinical Association.