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Good morning.

Today is Rosh ha Shana, the Jewish New Year. 5th Sept

Some years ago I discussed with children at religion school the significance of Rosh ha Shana. I explained that the Jewish New Year has but one similarity with the celebrations that surround the end of the secular New Year, on 31st December – the making of New Year’s resolutions. Rosh Hashana is a time not of parties, I said causing a few gasps of disappointment, but of looking back at the mistakes of the year just ended and reflecting on the changes in lifestyle that are needed to lead a better life in the year ahead.

Judaism accepts that we are not saints, or angels; rather we are human. We should not talk about leaps, but small deliberate steps. Judaism is too sober a faith to demand from us unreal expectations which in all likelihood are doomed to failure. That is why Lo alecha ha’m l’cha lig mor v’ lo atah ben chorin l’vatel mi-mena, which means, ‘You are not free to complete the task but neither are you free to desist from it’, is one of the most famous rabbinic dictums. We must try to do our bit, without expecting that we can do it all.

On Rosh ha Shana, resolutions begin by making one small step, followed by another and then another…. The rabbis describe God’s appeal to us in these words, "my children, open for Me an aperture of repentance as narrow as the eye of a needle and I will open for you gates through which wagons and coaches can pass through".

May we learn to return to God, taking one small step at a time, knowing that He will meet us more than half way.

Amen.