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

  1. “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
  2. “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
  3. “The highest form of wisdom is kindness.” – from the Talmud
  4. “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
  5. “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein
  6. “If you are not a better person tomorrow than you are today, what need have you for a tomorrow?” – Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
  7. “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
  8. “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.
  9. “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
  10. “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank