hopes for 2007 emerge

As 2006 begins to fade from memory and hopes for 2007 emerge, take form and root, the Jewish community participates in a time-honored tradition.

No, there's no apples and honey nor is there a shofar blast (though those paper noise makers from midnight celebrations might have taken their inspiration from that original horn).

As 2006 begins to fade from memory and hopes for 2007 emerge, take form and root, the Jewish community participates in a time-honored tradition.

No, there's no apples and honey nor is there a shofar blast (though those paper noise makers from midnight celebrations might have taken their inspiration from that original horn). Instead, we often resolve in the New Year to change; THIS YEAR, we insist -- to ourselves if to no one else -we will somehow remain committed to our choices.

This Shabbat we read of Jacob's death-bed "blessings" to his children. In each of his final words to his sons, he describes their character, what they shall be as they mature, how they will respond to life. It appears that Jacob is sealing their fate and future and his words are to be an accurate portrait of how they shall live.

Is there to be no free will for the tribal leaders of our ancestors? Are they fated to live out the words, the projections both good and bad, of their father? Is there no choice? What of our Jewish concept of freedom, the insistence of the Torah and the later rabbis that we must make choices? How can Jacob's children be both free and subjected to his fated "blessings"?

I invite you to join us at services tonight as we ponder this Biblical dilemma and contrast it with recent studies from the worlds of psychology and philosophy that reveal that we may not be as free as we might hope to be. That is both good and bad news. On the one hand, you might not be able to fulfill your New Year's resolutions after all. On the other, you can stop making them!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Joseph M. Forman