Rosh Hashanah 5787: Creating a New Beginning

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” -Genesis 1:1

Here we are this Rosh Hashanah welcoming in the new year of 5787. It is our tendency when a new year begins (be it Rosh Hashanah or the secular new year or a birthday) that we hope for a great personal change, a new beginning, and a fresh start in life. A new year brings the hope and desire of new beginnings. 

Every story has a beginning. Our human race story has a beginning. Beginnings come from creative desire, including the desire to change ourselves for the better in this new year. Creativity is what initiates the beginning. Beginnings and the subsequent events of those beginnings are the result of creative desire. The very first aspect of Torah was God’s creative desire and putting that desire into creative action.  

All of us have a desire to “create” ourselves anew into the nobler and greater version of ourselves that deep down in our hearts we know we were meant to be. To have significance and authenticity in one’s life, one must have the courage to create and initiate it. The same is true for having true purpose in one’s life. We must create our beginning, the beginning of our true and authentic selves. We must create the initializing of our own particular purpose.

Conformity and distraction are the antithesis of creativity. Conformity is creation’s ultimate enemy. The lure to conform is most often far more potent than the inner call to create. There is a great difference between conformity and the embracing of traditions. Embracing tradition can be a great source of inner strength and solidarity. I’d say that embracing Jewish traditions and being openly Jewish (and proud of it) is a great act of courageous non-conformity, especially in these current times. It is also an act of defiance. Also, tradition can be a great foundation for expanding creativity. Conformity, however, stems from a weakness and lack of individual fortitude. We conform to others (society, politics, social media “influencers”, institutions, relationship/dating drama, group-think, mob mentalities, fads, etc.) out of a need to feel secure and have an identity. We conform to what is and what others tell us to be (and do and think) rather than to create what we could truly and uniquely become.  

Distraction is creativity’s slow death. We put our true lives (that unlived life within us) off one day at a time, and we keep putting it off until the days quickly turn into years. We immerse ourselves in distraction to drown out the calling of our heart and to numb ourselves to the shame we should feel for not doing what we should do today. We always rationalize the delay of the pursuing of the true calling of our heart, swearing that we will start “tomorrow.” But then tomorrow becomes today and we put it off again until the next tomorrow, and then the tomorrow after that. We then live lives consumed by regret and guilt. 

We are called to make something new, to establish what was not before. God created the beginning and we are made in God’s image. We are called to create our own beginning. It is a call to courage and a call to take a risk. Despite years of conformity, laziness, apathy, failure, or whatever, there is still the call to create a new beginning, and we can courageously answer that call this Rosh Hashanah, this new year. We can be the man or woman we were meant to be. What is your vision for 5787? Make it so.