Kashot<\/em>,\u201d say the Sages: \u201cAll new beginnings are difficult\u201d (see Mechilta d\u2019Rabbi Yishmael, Rashi, etc.). A long popular Israeli song, written by Nisan Friedman, takes this Rabbinic adage as its title and refrain. This truth is never so evident as with the onset of a new year. It was recently reported that nearly 50 percent of Americans make annual New Year\u2019s resolutions as January approaches. The same study, alas, observes that, of those, only some nine percent achieve success in their aspirations for self-improvement or a new personal direction.<\/p>\nWhile the \u201ccivil\u201d new year is hardly a Jewish liturgical event, the rabbis of the Mishnah themselves acknowledged a variety of \u201cnew year\u201d milestones, scattered throughout the calendar (see Rosh Hashanah 1:1). It would be ungrateful of us \u2013 we who are so immersed in, we whose sense of time is so defined by the civil calendar \u2013 not to celebrate the beginning of 2018.<\/p>\n
More importantly, we would be squandering a valuable spiritual opportunity were we to ignore the possibility of growth and change which this calendrical milestone represents. True: \u201cAll new beginnings are difficult.\u201d But as the concluding lyrics of the corresponding Israeli pop song remind us: \u201cMah tov she\u2019higata l\u2019khan!<\/em>” \u2013 “How wonderful that we have come this far!”<\/p>\n(Rabbi Joseph Prouser is the rabbi at Conservative Temple Emanuel of North Jersey. He also serves as the National Chaplain of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting.)<\/em><\/p>\n
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