Insights from Jewish Wisdom
Keeping Connected January 2025
Dear Friends,
Over the last few weeks my news feed has been filled with an inordinate number of lists: Dave Barry’s Year in Review, the New York Times Best Books/Movies/TV Shows/Music/Podcasts/etc. of the Year. There are even lists of the best inventions, the best memes, the best Tik Tok videos! I am sure you have also been exposed to and perhaps read, many of these lists. Inspired by these lists, on this erev New Year 2025, I spent some time reflecting not on the past but the year ahead. What if I had a top ten list of Jewish wisdom and quotes that I would inspire and guide me in this new year? Would having what I call a “purpose framework” make an impact on my sense of hope and well-being and would I able to manifest them in my actions and perspective over the course of new next year? If so, one year from now, how would I feel about the year that had just passed?
I decided to give it a chance and spent some time reading and thinking about the challenges and opportunities we will be facing in 2025. Then, I whittled down a list to ten insights from Jewish wisdom that I hope will enrich my life in 2025 and more importantly, help me to be a better person. I invite you to do the same or to borrow a few of mine. I plan on printing mine out and hanging it up so that throughout the year I will be reminded of the sense of purpose I hoped to integrate in my life. I invite you to take such an opportunity for yourself. Come up with your own list, print it out, put it in your phone, write it in a journal, live it! In doing so I believe that in some small way, we will bring more light, kindness and goodness into the New Year.
I love the opportunity we have as Jews – to have two New Years! May 2025 be a year of health, joy, love and peace to you and to all of us.
Rabbi Shoshana Perry
- “Whatever you choose to do, leave tracks. That means don’t do it just for yourself. You will want to leave the world a little better for your having lived.” – Ruth Bader Ginsberg
- “Let the Good in me connect with the good in others, until the world is transformed through the compelling power of love.” – Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
- “The highest form of wisdom is kindness.” – from the Talmud
- “If I am not for me, who is for me; and if I am (only) for myself, what am I. And if not now, when?” – Hillel, Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14
- “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein
- “If you are not a better person tomorrow than you are today, what need have you for a tomorrow?” – Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
- “It is not incumbent on you to finish the task, but neither are you free to absolve yourself from it.” –Ethics of the Fathers, 2:21
- “It was said of Reb Simcha Bunem of Pershyscha that he carried two slips of paper, one in each pocket. On one he wrote: Bishvili nivra ha-olam“for my sake the world was created.” On the other he wrote: “V’anokhi afar v’efer” “I am but dust and ashes.” Reb Simcha would take out each slip of paper as necessary, as a reminder to himself.
- “You have been told what is good and what the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
- “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank