A word of Torah:
        Last week, I shared a Hasidic teaching that states everything comes from God, including distracting thoughts during prayer. This also means all of me comes from God. If I am naturally a generous person, that comes from God; if I am not a generous person, that also comes from God. What I am suggesting is that we are born with certain characteristics, and being human, we are all born flawed. Our bodies are flawed and so are our personalities. There is no such thing as a perfect person. The rabbinic notion that we should just say no to those things that tempt us or challenge us in some ways denies the truth of who we are.
        I think Hasidism is suggesting that change can come about by acknowledging those feelings and accepting that they are part of the truth about ourselves. You may be an envious person. You may lust for sex, money, power or fame. All of us can be ungenerous or angry at times. We are asked to acknowledge that they are issues with which we struggle, rather than fighting them. The challenges we live with have likely been with us our whole lives. It is probably true that we were born with at least some of these ways of being or  we may have learned them from the imperfect parents that raised us. This is the truth about ourselves.
        Yet, the deeper truth is we would rather not be this way. We don’t like the person we see in the mirror after we have been selfish to a friend in need. We don’t really want to be the angry person we seem to be, or the one whose first impulse is to answer every request with a no.
        Hasidism suggests that change comes about when we encounter distracting thoughts not as an outsider but as an annoying roommate who has lived with us for too long. Evicting him never seems to work. Seeing him (actually ourselves) clearly, and reflecting how this is not the person we really want to be may, just may, allow us to change.
        To paraphrase a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Hasidism): If you hear the inner voice that tells you how much you have messed thing up, don’t pay attention to it. It just wants you to be mired in negativity. The voice can be lying and even if it isn’t, it is probably exaggerating what you have done. Even if it is true, you still should still not pay too much attention to it, because the more important thing is to serve God with joy.
        Read in a non-theological context, this text suggests that focusing on our failures keeps us trapped in depression. We remain stuck. By accepting the reality of what we have done and the truth of our imperfections, we embrace the possibility of change with more compassion. In that way we have a chance to change. That potential is the great gift of a New Year.

We will continue next week with more about this path to transformative change.