As the Jewish year comes to a close, I want to take the opportunity to wish all of you and very happy and healthy New Year. May you all be inscribed in the Book of Good Life.

One of the themes we are encouraged to explore during Rosh Hashanah is self-renewal. We all enter into the New Year with a long list of the things we would like to change about ourselves in the upcoming year. Jewish tradition calls this a time of introspection, which means we must be doing some heavy-duty soul searching so that we can all improve for the better. The bottom line is that when the High Holidays are over there should be a new you.

This principle is the cornerstone of “Teshuvah” (repentance). Maimonides in his code says the following about a “Baal Teshuvah” (repentant individual); “It is the way of a repentant individual to constantly cry out before G-d with heartfelt supplication. They should also give charity according to their means and distance themselves as far as they can from the sin they transgressed. They should also change their name and declare ‘I am a new person’ not the person that committed those sins” (Maimonides Laws of repentance 2:4).

Maimonides puts it so beautifully and succinctly; repentance is about becoming a new person. Our Rabbis make a further connection to this theme regarding the timing of Rosh Hashanah. It is the only holiday that takes place at the beginning of the Jewish month. All other holidays take place closer to the middle of the month. What this means is that while during the other holidays the moon is full or close to full, on Rosh Hashanah the moon is just appearing. It is in its cycle of renewal, with just a sliver appearing. This, explain our Rabbis, is to teach us that just as the moon renews itself so too must we renew ourselves as the New Year begins.

Yet this is my question. If we all know this to be true, if we all come to the holidays with all of our resolutions of how we want to change for the better, then why is it that for most of us very little changes?

How many of us can really say year in year out that we are in a new place, that we have changed, that we are better this year than we were last year? Do we really set more time aside to study Torah, is the quality of our prayers any better, do we give more charity, do we get angry less or speak less Lashon Hara, do we fight with our spouse any less, have we really made a dent in our busy schedules that we really are spending more time with our families and less at the office? If you answered positively to any of those questions then you need read no further. My gut feeling is that at best maybe you have improved slightly in some of the above areas.

So the real question during the High Holidays is not what do I want to change, but why is it that I have such a hard time changing? Why is it that year in year out I come with a long list of resolutions and yet can’t even manage to make a dent in most of them?

The answer has to do with something that is wired into our very nature. We all love our routines and we get so fixed into them that making changes, even if they are for the better, are hard to do. Until we are ready, willing, and courageous enough to go against the flow then very little will change. Real change in our lives comes when we are willing to step out of the boxed-in routines we have created.

The businessman cannot take more time away from the office (even though that is on top of his resolution list) because he has become accustomed to a certain output in his sales. How would others react if he sold less, how would it appear if he made less money, and what would the company say? Yet he would like to spend more time with his family, and perhaps even attend synagogue more. But what to do - the routine doesn’t allow it so it will have to wait until retirement.

At the end of the day change is what the High Holidays are all about. The only way to really do it is through hard work and dedication. If at the conclusion of the High Holidays the only things we can talk about are the eloquence of the Rabbi’s sermon, the pitch of the Cantor’s voice, and the fluidity of the Shofar blasts, then we have missed the main point of the holidays. The main point is change, and for that we need hard work.

I am reminded of a story that is told about the revered sage Rabbi Yisrael Salanter who was known as an extremely pious individual. During the High Holidays he would say, “Many people prepare themselves for repentance during the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The more scrupulous begin at the start of the month of Elul. I say, however, that one must begin to repent immediately after Neilah the preceding Yom Kippur”.  Indeed, when it comes to self-improvement there are no shortcuts, just dedication, hard work, and the ability to go against the flow when need be. This year let our list of resolutions not go unattended.