Has anyone ever successfully kept a New Year’s resolution? I mean, really. Let’s face it. A New Year’s Resolution is basically an acknowledgment of a flaw we see in ourselves that is unlikely to change in the long-term. Maybe that makes me a pessimist, or a realist. But in either case, I’ve written my new column about it.

“Resolution Dissolution” (NY Jewish Week, January 10, 2008)

We’ve kissed the old year goodbye and welcomed a new one. We’ve made promises to ourselves and others that this year we’ll improve our behavior and make the world a better place. The thing is, for Jews, we already did this at our September New Year’s Eve commemoration, leaving this last day of December, as always, utterly secular, devoid of religious or Judaic gravitas, and redundant.

Just three months after repenting for Rosh HaShanah, followed by Ten Days of Repentance, followed by one additional day designated as the holiest day of the Jewish calendar year, we feel pressure to commemorate the end of a year, this time on the Gregorian calendar, and to re-promise that things are going to change. But here’s the catch— we’re always repenting, because we never really change. Otherwise, we’d only need one Yom Kippur, and it’d be a keeper. But every year, we’re back; part of the process of tikkun olam, of fixing the world, is tikkun atzmi, fixing yourself. (Really hardcore about taking every available chance to self-correct? Fear not: Tu b’Shevat, the new year for the trees, and the month of Nisan, designated by the Torah as the true head of the year, will be here before you know it.)

The new year — whether it’s secular, religious or arboreal — brings the renewed hope that this time is going to be different. We’ll have to be more open-minded. We’ll finally join a synagogue. We’ll plan ahead for tax season! We’ll be environmentally aware and exercise more! But resolutions made at the passage of another secular year lack Rosh HaShanah’s crime-and-punishment imperative that infuses regret with an active sense of moral or ethical responsibility. Maybe we even call them resolutions because we’re trying to re-solve the same problems every year. So this year, dissolve the resolutions, the attempts to change what is likely unalterable, and work within your strengths.

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