Reflections on a New Year...

Rosh Hashanah is just around the corner and this always prompts an overflow of reflection and thought upon the past months than any other time of year... at least for Jews! We are preparing to head into a new cycle of holidays, prayer, Shabbats, worship, avodas Hashem, mitzvot, etc... These thoughts seem, in their turn, to prompt three things - regret, satisfaction, and gratitude.
      Contemplation upon the past twelve months mainly brings forth regrets for me... .There are so many areas in which I could have done better, so many things I wish I could go back and change. If I had only spent that one hour doing something productive instead of something social - or if I had spent that other hour taking the time to pour into someone who needed help rather than retreating into my own priorities - then perhaps neither of those hours would be bemoaned as "time I can never get back." Time is a funny thing that way - as my Abba put it, there is never going to be another "now" like this "now." Every "now" is its own separate entity, unlike every other "now" that will ever exist. So how do we make each of those "nows" count? Make time to study Torah, and to pour into other people when they ask for it... and don't say "when I have time I will study; for perhaps you will never have time." That is to say, perhaps you will have time, but the time you will have in the future is not going to be the same time you have now. This is time you may be wasting, and later regretting next Rosh Hashanah.
      But contemplation also prompts satisfaction - and not only personal pride, but satisfaction in Hashem, that we have tried our hardest this year to please Him, and that perhaps we have even succeeded in a few areas. As we throw our stones into the river at Tashlich, maybe there are a few less in our hand - or maybe the sins we cast into its depths are not the same ones we cast last year. Have we won any small battles against Goliath this year? I have a paltry few to my credit, though when aligned against my regrets they seem too insignificant to matter. At least I tried. Even if I get discouraged with how futile my efforts at pleasing Him seem to be, even when keeping Torah seems like a waste of time... "should we sin all the more so that grace may abound? Certainly not!" We may think that if we have salvation, it shouldn't matter if we keep the Torah or not... yet... if you were walking along the seashore and suddenly saw that jewels were coming in with the waves and lapping up against your feet... would the knowledge that you couldn't gather them all stop you from attempting to pick up as many as you could???? Mitzvot are jewels.... and though they alone can not save us from the destruction we deserve, why shouldn't we try to be perfect as He is perfect and holy as He is holy?
      Lastly I feel an overflow of gratitude to Hashem this time of year when I reflect upon how gracious He has been to us, in keeping us alive, sustaining us, and privileging us to reach this season. As stated above, we don't deserve that we should be living comfortably in this community, nor that we should be living peacefully as Jews in this world, nor even that we should exist. We do not deserve to be here. But we are..and when I realize this, I also realize how grateful I am. Gratitude is a combination of the above two emotions - regret of our mistakes and shortcomings, and satisfaction in our salvation through the Torah. As I come into Rosh Hashanah and the beginning of our new year, I'm not going to forget what I've done this past year - nor what He has done for me.
     To life! To fewer regrets the coming year! Shana Tova!