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VAERA 5782
Predictions and Resolutions For 2022
Happy New Year! The 1st day of the secular New Year of 2022 has arrived. As Jews, we can’t ignore the secular New Year—even though it was formulated around the birth of Christianity—because we live in a world that begins its New Year on January 1st—whether we like it or not! We can’t file our taxes based on Rosh Hashanah. We can’t write a check with a Jewish date, like Tevet 28, 5782; and we can’t schedule a doctor’s appointment without mentioning the secular date. It’s also a legal holiday, and so most of us can’t even work on New Year’s Day even if it wasn’t Shabbos and we wanted to.
Having established that the secular calendar is important, let me ask you, did you make any predictions for this secular New Year as many do? I did a little research about New Year predictions, let me share some of it with you:
· Albert Einstein once predicted: “There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”
· Thomas Edison on the application of alternating current which is what we have used for electricity for 100 years: “Fooling around with alternating current’s just a waste of time. Nobody’ll ever use it. Too dangerous!”
· William Orton, President of Western Union: “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.
· The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Company: “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.”
· Darryl Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox movie studio, in 1947: “TV will not be able to hold onto any market it captures after the 1st 6 months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
· And finally, Steve Balmer’s epic comment on the iPhone: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”
The future—as it turns out—is most unpredictable. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take hold of our destiny and try to build a new and better future—perhaps a future that no one would have predicted.
Now, it seems, is the time for new beginnings. Last Shabbos we began a new book of the Torah—Shemot or Exodus—beginning the story of Moses and the Exodus. This Shabbos we begin a new secular calendar year. It is customary to use this secular New Year’s Day to renew our lives and make positive resolutions for the coming year—to become the 2.0 version of who we were last year.
For example, we make resolutions about getting more exercise. And so, more people join health clubs in January than any other month. We resolve to go on a diet, so we’re bombarded with commercials from Weight Watchers to Nutrisystem. Here’s someone’s recollection of their recent resolutions to lose weight:
2016: I will get my weight down below 180.
2017: I will watch my calories until I get below 190.
2018: I will follow my new diet religiously until I get below 200 pounds.
2019: I will try to develop a realistic attitude about my weight.
2020: I will work out 5 days a week.
2021: I will work out 3 days a week.
And now in 2022: I will try to drive past a gym at least once a week.
We resolve to eat healthier…to spend more time with our families…to learn a new skill…to write that book that’s always been inside us. But as Rabbi Yishmael (Mechilta de Rabbi Ishamel, HaHodesh 2) famously said: Kol hatchalot kashot (All beginnings are difficult), and that’s why after a month or 2, our secular New Year’s resolutions may seem like a distant memory.
Do you know that resolutions are a very Jewish thing to do? But unlike our secular New Year’s resolutions that fail because they’re not realistic or specific enough, Jewish resolutions are specific and realistic. Often made around Rosh Hashanah, they are called Kabbalot, from the Hebrew Kabbalah, literally, “to receive or accept.” The Jewish mystical tradition is called kabbalah because it was a received tradition. In the case of resolutions, kabbalot are actions we accept upon ourselves to do.
For example, one might commit each day to review an aliya of the up-coming Torah portion…or to study a specific book of the Bible and read a chapter every night…or to come to shul at least twice a month…or to put on tefillin every day, or at least on Mondays and Thursdays, and recite as much of the morning service as you have time for…or to volunteer to do a specific chesed once a week—you choose the day—like helping with our backpack buddies that feeds hungry children on weekends. You can fill in the blanks yourself, but make it realistic—something you would actually do—and be as specific as you can.
So think about and make your own Kabbalot today—even on this secular New Year’s Day—and find practical things you will do to better the world, draw closer to Gd and elevate your soul.
My friends, if we have learned anything over the past couple of years of the Covid pandemic, it is the realization that there is very little in this world that we can actually control. We have a natural curiosity and, at times, an obsessive desire to foresee events before they transpire, so we can manage and control the forces that impact our lives. The reality is, however, we are not prophets, and we don’t have the capacity to peer into the future nor to control events before they unfold.
Last week’s Torah portion (Exodus 1:8) told us: Vayakam melech chadash al Mitzrayim (There arose up a new king over Egypt). It was a new king with new possibilities. But, as it turns out, things went from bad to worse as he enslaved the Jews. At Gd’s command, Moses confronts Pharaoh to demand he set the Jewish people free. However, Pharaoh instead makes the Jewish slaves work even harder. Moses must have felt like such a failure. But as we have learned, “All beginnings are hard.” You may start your Kaballot, your New Year’s resolutions, and you may stumble as you try to do them—after all they are new to your life and your routine.
But consider this. Even Moses had his failures. His strength was that he didn’t allow those failures to discourage him. In this week’s Torah portion, he keeps going back to Pharaoh and trying again and again to let his people go. It took 10 terrible plagues, but in the end Moses succeeded. He brought the people from slavery to freedom. How? He never gave up.
My friends, whenever we begin something new, whether it’s a new job, a new relationship or a lifestyle change, there will be setbacks and failures. It’s so important not to give up. Let me share with you a famous piece by the British author Neil Gaiman called, “My New Year’s Wish”: I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something. So…make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
Yes, all beginnings are hard. In today’s Torah portion Moses persists until in next week’s parsha, he succeeds. He fails and has setbacks. But he keeps going. As we begin this secular New Year of 2022, I hope that this year you’ll begin a new project, a new lifestyle change, a new task, a new challenge. And I hope you will persist through setbacks and failures. All beginnings may be difficult, but perhaps far worse is to not begin at all. Amen!
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