I was considering the difference between Jewish and secular New Year this week, but let me start with the similarity.
In both, there is an idea of change. And of course there is. Who can approach the end of a whole 365-day cycle and the start of a new one without considering how the next one might be different to the previous one? Considering change is entirely natural at New Year.
But there is a big difference in the approach, which points to a deeper difference in how we understand the nature of change.
In the secular world, there is an idea of New Year’s resolutions. I’m going to get on a good diet. I’m going to exercise more. I’m going to stop smoking. Etc., etc.
The process, I would say, is roughly this: I decide the area I want to change. Then I make a resolution to do so. Then I fight darned hard with the challenges of doing so.
How long does it usually last? Months would be amazing. Weeks still pretty impressive. Days is often the case.
It’s darned difficult to impose change upon ourselves. It is human nature to resist. So we have our lovely ideas fighting against our base nature. And that’s not a fair fight.
In Judaism, change is viewed very differently. In the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, there is nothing about change. And yet, in a sense, it’s all about change.
Let me explain.
I want to take an example of where change happened and was lasting, and that is the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Whether there was enough change or not we can debate another time, but America changed deeply and significantly.
What drove that change?
I don’t believe you can overestimate the role of MLK, nor his ‘dream’.
‘I Have a Dream’ is, in my mind, the greatest speech in human history. Because in it, MLK painted a picture of an alternative future. He provided a tangible vision: ‘the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners sitting down at a table of brotherhood’, etc.
And vision, above all, drives change. It doesn’t seed change, it drives it.
Rosh Hashanah is about dreaming. Dreaming big. Dreaming God’s dreams for humanity.
“Let everything that has breath in its nostrils declare: God, Lord of Israel, is King, and His sovereignty rules over all.”
“And then the righteous will see and rejoice, the upright will exult, and the devout will celebrate with song; injustice will close its mouth, and all wickedness will vanish like smoke, when You remove the rule of evil from the earth.”
“Let all of humanity become a single fellowship, to do Your will with a whole heart.”
Wow. Imagine a world where Donald Trump and Mojtaba Khamenei, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky sat down together to discuss how they could work together in the service of God and for the betterment of humanity.
That’s Rosh Hashanah. That’s what we imagine for ourselves.
We step out of our petty, narcissistic attitudes and look to something greater. It’s fresh and uplifting.
That’s all you need to do on Rosh Hashanah. Find vision. Dream of the person you could be and the world as it could be.
Because vision, more than willpower, creates lasting change. When we see differently, we naturally begin to live differently.
Don’t fight yourself into changing.
Find the vision. And let the change follow.
