Coming to the End…Already?

17 Elul, Friday, September 12

We are halfway to Tishri. I don’t need a calendar to tell me; I just look at the moon every night. When the moon disappears and only the tiniest sliver appears, the new year of 5775 will be on the rise.

The year is almost over and I haven’t….yet. How would you fill in that blank?

A year ago at this time, we all had high hopes and great expectations. Coming to the end of the year, we often find that we are still facing the same struggles, still asking forgiveness for the same misdeeds. It is said that when the great Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev awoke each day, before beginning his prayers he would say to himself,

“Levi Yitzchak, today you are going to behave correctly -- you are going to be a good person!" 

But he then sighed and said, "But Levi Yitzchak said that yesterday as well and he wasn't such a good person for the rest of the day." 

And then he said to himself, "Never mind yesterday, today Levi Yitzchak truly means it!”

This story can be read in a defeatist way—why keep trying? Or as a rationalization—I didn’t mean it last time, but this time I do.

But now I hear that story in a more hopeful way. The sainted Levi Yitzchak is making an honest statement that we often come back where we were before. We repeat old patterns. We also come back to try again. On the outside it may even look like we haven’t changed one bit. But on the inside, we need to stop and lift up our prayer, yet again.

In her book, Return: Daily Inspiration for the Days of Awe, Erica Brown describes a tradition that her family developed which I found worth sharing. At the meal before Yom Kippur, everyone at the table receives a set of questions to answer in reviewing the past year and making adjustments for the New Year. Each year they collect the answers in a separate envelope for every individual. It contains all of the previous year’s answers. As they think about the current year, they can look back and see how far they have come.

• ·         Think of one person you have hurt this year. How can you fix it? What is one small and realistic thing you can do to make yourself a better person this year?
• ·         What can you do this year to be a better student or professional?
• ·         What is one thing you really want to pray for this year?
• ·         What is one thing you can do to strengthen your relationship with God this year?

Perhaps this has been a year of great achievements. Perhaps we have been grateful for success in struggling through life’s many challenges. As you consider what growth you have known this past year, consider the words of my colleague, Rabbi Bill Strongin, of New Paltz, NY:

This is the hardest sin of all to confess: did we create no new goodness this past year? Did we merely stumble our way through life yet another year, content with not being an evil person?  

As this year draws to a close, what goodness have you created?