Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
January 7, 2005
Jewish Resolutions for the Secular New Year
This past week or so, many people made new year's resolutions. Most of them are like pie crust – easily made and easily broken. Many of us start out the new year saying that this year we are going to go on a diet, and then we end up going on a see-food diet – we see food and we eat it. With the best of intentions, we all make promises to ourselves at this time of year, and then we all break them and forget them.
I want to propose a few new year's resolutions which I believe we ought to make and we ought to take seriously. There is nothing wrong with Jews making resolutions to be better in the new year around January 1 as well as around Rosh Hashanah. Whatever works, what ever makes us resolve to do better, is worthwhile. Some 200 years ago, Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav said to his disciples: "If you are not going to be better tomorrow than you are today, then what do you need tomorrow for?" And Joseph Telushkin puts in his commentary on Rabbi Nachman's teaching: "If you don't grow in some way tomorrow or in the following weeks or months, then your soul atrophies."
The truth is that in life you never stand still. If you don't strive to get better, then you get worse. So I believe it is right and proper to make new year's resolutions, and I'd like to suggest three resolutions for each of us to consider making this first Shabbat of 2005. I do not offer them in order of importance or in order of the ease or difficulty which they require to fulfill, but I do believe that if we can keep these three new year's resolutions, then our lives would be healthier and more meaningful.
The first new year's resolution I recommend for each of us is to observe a fast one day each month from gossip. You see, I think gossip may be everyone's favorite sin, and I know how difficult it is to keep from gossiping. Judaism bids us recite: "Oh God, guard my tongue from speaking evil and my lips from speaking deceitfully" at the end of every single amidah. If this was an easy mitzvah to observe, the Torah would not devote two sedras – Tazria and Metzora – to teaching us to try to overcome it. Our sages would not devote so many pages of the Talmud to warning us against how much harm gossip can do to the teller, to the listener, and to the victim.
I know how hard it is to refrain from gossip. A colleague of mine asked his congregation on the first day of Rosh Hashanah to see if they could refrain from gossip for one whole day, just one day. Next day he asked them how they did. One person said: "I got half-way to the parking lot after the service before I succumbed." Gossip is an almost irresistible temptation.
Do you know the story of the four clergymen who got together for a reunion breakfast. The first one says: "You I can tell. I'm an alcoholic, and so every time I prepare the wine for mass – if no one is looking – I take some for myself."
The second one says: "You I can tell. I have sticky fingers. Every time the collection plate goes around, if no one is looking, I take some of the money for myself."
And the third one says: "You I can tell. I have a temptation for women. Every time I see a beautiful woman in church, I have lustful thoughts about her."
The three of them turn to the fourth one and they say: "What is your sin?" He says: "You I can tell. I am a terrible gossip, and I can't wait for this breakfast to be over."
Yes the temptation to gossip is extremely hard to resist, which is why I do not request that you cut it out completely. I am not asking you to go "cold turkey", because I think that would be unrealistic, beyond our strength. So I ask you, instead, to discipline yourself to refrain from gossip one day a month. That should be within our ability to do and, if we can do that, then perhaps next month we can go for two days without gossiping, and then three and, eventually perhaps we can overcome – or at least minimize – the desire to gossip during the rest of the month. But, friends, let' s start by doing it one day a month. Agreed?
The second new year's resolution which I offer for your consideration, and mine as well, is to give a bit of tsedakah every single day of the week; or, if that is too much, then at least to give some tsedakah just before candle-lighting on erev Shabbat.
Actually this is a mitzvah which is harder to do than it used to be. It used to be that many of us walked around with change in our pocket, change which we had accumulated during the course of the day. At night, before going to sleep, we would empty our pockets and put whatever change we had on the night table, and perhaps some into a tsedakah box, a pushka. But now we live in an almost cash-free society. I rarely pay for anything with cash – not for gasoline, not for restaurant meals, not for groceries. Instead, I give the waiter or the check-out person or the salesperson a credit card.
This system has its advantages. We now have a record of all the money that we spent, which we can keep for tax accounting. And we do not have to carry much cash around with us, which is safer. But the disadvantage of living in a cash-free society is that we do not accumulate change during the day, so it is not easy to find coins to put into the tsedakah box at night.
Why do I suggest that we resolve to give a small amount of tsedakah every day? Wouldn't it be more efficient and more productive if we gave a large amount of money once in a while instead of giving pocket change every day?
I make this suggestion because giving tsedakah, like so many other things in life, is habit-forming. Once we get into the routine of giving coins, it becomes much easier to give dollars. And once we get into the routine of giving dollars, it becomes easier to write checks. Besides, if we give a dollar ten times it counts as ten mitzvahs, whereas if we give ten dollars once, it only counts as one mitzvah. So my suggestion to you and to myself is that we resolve in 2005 to give some amount of tsedakah – be it a large amount or a small amount – every single day. Or if that is too much to ask, that we empty our pockets and put some money into the tsedakah box as the last secular act we do before lighting the candles each Friday night.
I hope that you will try this because not only will you be making the giving of tsedakah a habit, you will be reminding yourself, and I will be reminding myself, each and every day that the money we have is not entirely ours. We are its stewards. It is our task to share with those who need it more than we do. I have no proof, but I am willing to bet that those citizens of nations around the globe who have most generously opened their hearts and wallets the past two weeks to help tsunami victims are the same people who give to charitable causes regularly – day by day, week after week. We need to join their ranks.
This is the third and final new year's resolution I recommend to you and to me. This one is obvious and, therefore, very hard to remember. This one is vital to our lives; therefore, we all neglect it. My third resolution to you and to me is that we strive to remember all through 2005 that life is precarious and, therefore, precious. That we need to make the most of each day for we have no idea what tomorrow will bring or even whether we will have a tomorrow or not. That is not said pessimistically or cynically, but realistically.
I know that it is almost a cliche to declare that life is fragile, but probably because we have said it so often and heard it so often, we don't really believe it. Yes, maybe we accept it up here in our minds, but we don't really feel it down here in our guts. So we live by the myth that we have tomorrow, and that we can always do tomorrow what we should do today. We deny to ourselves the fact that nobody owns tomorrow.
So let me share with you a poem which reminds us of this truth. I apologize in advance; I know it is a mushy, sentimental poem. But I am going to share it with you just the same, because the insight this poem contains is not only mushy and sentimental, it is also very true. It is called "If I Had Known."
If I had known it would be the last time
That I would see you fall asleep,
I would have tucked you in more tightly,
And prayed the Lord your soul to keep.
If I had known it would be the last time
that I would see you walk out the door,
I would have given you a hug and kiss
And called you back for one kiss more.
If I had known it would be the last time,
I would hear your voice lifted up in praise,
I would have video taped each action and each word,
so that I could play them back day after day.
If I had known it would be the last time,
I would have spared an extra moment
to stop and tell you that I love you,
Instead of assuming that you knew I do.
If I had known it would be the last time
That I would be there to share your day
Instead of thinking: we'll have so many more
So I can just let this one slip away.
I thought: surely there's always tomorrow
To make up for today,
And we always get a second chance
To make up for today.
I thought: There will always be another day
In which to say: I love you,
And certainly there'll be another chance
To say: is there anything I can do for you?
But just in case I might be wrong,
Just in case today is all I get,
I'd like to say how much I love you
And that I hope you never forget.
Tomorrow is not owned by anyone,
Not the old or the young alike,
And today just might be the last chance
You get to hold your loved one tight.
So if you're waiting for tomorrow,
My advice is: do it today,
For if tomorrow never comes
You will surely regret today.
That you didn't take that extra time
To give a smile, a hug, a kiss,
And that you were too busy to grant someone
What turned out to be their very last wish.
So hold your loved ones close today
And whisper in their ear.
Tell them how much you love them,
And that you'll always hold them dear.
Take the time to say: "I'm sorry",
"Please forgive me" , "Thank you", or "It's okay",
So that if tomorrow never comes –
You'll have no regrets about today.
What that poem says is true. So if you have some love to share, some good to do, some apology to make – today is the day to do it, for tomorrow may never come. My friends, that is the truth those that went to work in the Twin Towers and never came home again, the truth the firemen and policemen who went in to rescue them and never came out, and the truth those who loved them and who saw them off to work that day and never got to see them again all learned. Yes, it is a mushy and sentimental poem, but it makes the point that we all need to remember and that we all seem to forget, which is that nobody owns tomorrow and, therefore, we need to do what is right today.
So these are the three Jewish new year's resolutions for 2005 which I submit for your consideration. I think that they are better and wiser than the resolutions which most of us make to go on a diet or to begin exercising or other things like that. Let's resolve at the end of this first week of 2005 to do these three things the rest of this year.
1. To fast one day a month, not from food but from gossip;
2. To give at least a little bit to tsedakah every day; and if that is too much to ask, then at least let us empty our change or put a dollar bill into the tsedakah box before we light the candles on Friday evening. For what better way can there be to enter the Sabbath than on a note of generosity; and,
3. Let's remember and never forget that life is precarious and, therefore, life is precious. Whatever good we need to do, whatever gratitude we need to express, whatever love we want to share, let us do it now, now – not tomorrow – for if we do, our lives and the lives of those whom we love will be immensely enriched and made more holy.
Happy new year, friends.
This message is based on the writings of Rabbi Jack Riemer
