A NEW YEAR BRINGS NEW CHALLENGES

This Motzei Shabbat we begin saying Selichot and the season of the Yomim Noraim (High Holiday Season)begins. I believe there are a number of similarities between this special time of year and the beginning of a school year.
There is nothing like the start of the school year when one can feel the excitement in the air. Students and teachers alike are intently anticipating this new beginning, the building is clean and looks bright and shining with fresh paint and new wall displays and everyone is anxious to learn.
In those first couple of days our students are engaged and teachers are utilizing new tools and techniques that they learned at in-service sessions or through their own explorations over the summer. I am no different - for the first day of school I create an Xtranormal video and a wallwisher for my class.
However that leads to the following question and challenge. How do we take this excitement on both the part of the teachers and the students and bottle it so that the same enthusiasm and engagement that we have on day 1 carries over to day 71 and then on to day 171?

The same is true in our connection to Hashem (G-D). This time of year, a time of Teshuvah ( repentance) and renewal, there is a certain excitement in the air. People are preparing for Rosh Hashnah, the shuls looks clean and new as they switch over to the white Parochet, and people are reflecting on the past year and making resolutions for the New Year.
Again, I pose the same question. In a very few months from now, are we going to fill the same way about our commitment to Hashem?

I learned something from Rabbi Pessach Krohn and a heard a similar idea from Rabbi Feigenbaum. The secret is to make our resolution to change something small and manageable. In business and leadership parlance they talk about SMART goals:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely

Rabbi Krohn tells the story that in 1991, during the first Gulf War, people in Israel were told by the leading rabbis that one thing Jews throughout the word should do is to take on a new mitzvah or extra learning, etc. They asked one of the leading Roshei Yeshiva at the time what additional mitzvah he was going to assume and he responded that when he is at home, and only at home, when he says Birkat Hamazon he will say it from a Siddur so that he will have more Kavanah (concentration/intent).

Perhaps the answer is to pick two to three SMART goals in both our academic and religious lives that we can focus on during the year. It is important that they meet the SMART criteria and in that way we can hopefully keep the enthusiasm engendered by the start of a school year and by the “ Yomim Noraim season” all year long.

Wishing you a Ketiva V’chatima Tovah.