Rabbi's Message

It was wonderful to see many of you on Rosh Hashanah (and to welcome others via our live streamed services). What a wonderful way to enter the new year of 5784; together as a TBS community!  I hope you had a meaningful and enjoyable holiday.

This week, we are in the middle of Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance.  The ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur are a special time for reflection and self-examination. During these ten days, our tradition invites us to focus on our priorities and values as we think about how we can strive to be better in the year to come. 

This is a time for New Year resolutions.  What resolutions are you making as we begin the new year of 5784?  Resolutions are important, but we also know they are often hard to live up to.  There are many reasons why we often fall short in making the changes that we seek and in keeping the commitments that we promise both to ourselves and to others. Sometimes we are overzealous in our resolutions. Sometimes our lives are simply too busy, and we lose sight of the goals that we set for ourselves.   

But there is another reason why we sometimes fail to live up to our resolutions: because we are carrying unfinished business from the past. I have always found it fascinating that our Jewish New Year is just as much about the past as it about the present and the future. Rosh Hashanah is Yom HaZikaron;  it is a day of remembering. On Rosh Hashanah, and really beginning a month earlier in Elul, we are supposed to spend time each day looking back at our lives and considering where we have fallen short, what we could do better, and how we have lived over the last year. And then the Ten Days of Repentance arrive. We stand in judgment before God and before ourselves, no longer able to hide from all our unfinished business. 

In addition to calling this time the Ten Days of Repentance, maybe we should also call it the Ten Days of Unfinished Business. It serves as the last chance before we move forward to right the wrongs and deal with the unresolved conflicts in our lives. This is the time to think about unfulfilled hopes and disappointments that muddy our lives. 

In his book, The Four Things That Matter Most, Dr Ira Byock argues that most unfinished business in our lives involves our willingness, and the willingness of others, to make four simple statements: I’m sorry, I forgive you, thank you, and I love you. Even the healthiest relationships, he says, have unfinished business that we need to address. And the time to say these things is now. 

We all have unfinished business. And Judaism teaches that in order to move forward, we must first look back.  And this is the message of the Ten Days of Repentance; a reminder to deal with the past, make it right and then start anew.

So, how will we spend these Ten Days of Unfinished Business? How will we make peace with ourselves, with others, and with God? Will we continue to carry the burdens of the past into the New Year, or will we take care of the unfulfilled and outstanding debts in our lives? As the great sage Hillel taught: “Im lo achshav eimatai, “If not now when?” Now is the time to deal with our unfinished business, so that we can truly have a fresh start and a good New Year.

G’mar Hatimah Tovah.