Response to New Years Post

My friend wrote this well thought out response that he couldn't post for some reason, so I thought I would post it and respond to it:

"While I would agree that an individual can begin anew and afresh at any moment, I would argue that it is in fact very important for a society to have a new year. The system of the New Year itself allows the individual to enter into new meaning and renew himself (renewal is just as much a part of the New Year, as beginning anew—the New Year begins a both new linear year, and brings us back to the beginning of the cyclical year). In Jewish law, every seventh year is denoted as a Sabbatical year, during which all debts are cleared, and slaves are freed. Society itself needs this time to renew itself and start again. Individuals can also take advantage of the society’s New Year, which is a self reflective time that can push the individual to reexamine himself, and in which society itself provides a structure for this examination.

The English word ‘January’ comes from the Roman god Janus, a two faced god who was the god of beginnings, ends, gates, and doorways. One of his heads looks forwards, and one looks backwards. This is what the New Year (the month of January) should allow us to do. Janus is the god of thresholds. In latin, the word threshold is ‘Limen’, from which the English word Liminal is derived. Scholars of ritual denote three stages of ritual; preliminal, liminal, and postliminal. Each of these stages is necessary for the individual to pass from one state of being to another. In the preliminal stage, the individual is removed from their current state (I often like to think of it as the bachelor party in marriage, in which the bachelor experiences for one last time one world), then, the liminal stage is where the individual passes from one state to another (the marriage ceremony itself), and the postliminal is when the individual is welcomed into the new world (the honey moon, or party). A socially structured New Years should provide all of these stages in a way that the average individual cannot in the average year. The Jewish New Years time (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur) does this well. The secular New Year does a very good job of preliminality and liminality, but falls short in welcoming the individual into the New Year. It represents only part of Janus. The structures of society are there for the individual to take advantage of and place himself into.

The New Year is not the exclusive time for new beginnings. In Jewish tradition, every Sabbath is in fact the same Sabbath as the Sabbath of creation. Thus, each week is a new chance to begin again. Every Seventh year provides further opportunity to start anew. As you said, every day is even a chance for a new beginning. The Rav Soloveitchik once wrote “somehow, every human being, great or small, however successful and outstanding, loses every day afresh his ontic fulcrum (the equilibrium of his being), which he tries steadily to recover.” The New Year should provide us with a system in which to place ourselves and try to renew our being and recover our ontic fulcrum."

I think that he makes a very good point.  There is an important aspect of new years eve that comes from it being a collective renewal.  A renewal that we all experience together and can go through together.  But I think in order to actually have a collective renewal we need to focus on working together in order to achieve.  I think that we can do that in a few ways.  Some are obvious ways.

The first of which would be to actually help other people with their new years resolutions.  If you know your friend really wants to learn how to speed read, and you read something about how to speed read, then give him the link to that site.  If we want to have a collective renewal we can also collectively assist each other.  I think in that way a stated new years resolution becomes a reality.  It begins to be actualized through a reality defined by every individual.

The second of which I think is more powerful and pertinent and something we don't often do.  We need to give other people the space to become their own person, or develop themselves.  I think too often we force people into boxes that we never let them escape from.  In that way, their personality becomes static and they don't have the room to improve themselves.  I think part of the collective new slate of new years, and a way of using new years productively collectively, would be to look for positive changes that others are making, declared or not, and help them through those changes, either through compliments (clichely but, I think, truthfully) or through supporting those changes "behind their back."  Or, basically, in anyway possible.  But if someone wants to improve themselves as a person, I think having a collective blank slate where we look for positive changes in others and reward them is important and necessary societally.

At the same time, I don't think we can allow others "not giving us the room to change" as an excuse for not changing.  Everyone should remain on a positive quest for development regardless of others and what they say.  And if someone, or a group of people, prevent you from changing in a positive way, it is critical to remove those people from your life.  In that way, individually, anyone is capable of a clean slate.  It is just necessary that you work at it.  Another less socially destructive (and I don't mean destruction in the negative sense, since getting rid of people who are preventing you from growing is really a form of creative destruction) but less socially destructive means of development is to make those changes and discuss with people that you are attempting to make changes.  That those changes are something positive, and as your supposed friends you want their support.  Regardless, I don't think, as in the first post, we should rely on a collective clean slate to make changes for ourselves, and really everyone should be given the room to improve in all aspects of our lives.  And, if at any point, you notice someone else improving themselves, or working to improve some aspect themselves you should support them in anyway possible.  That way, we can collectively improve ourselves individually.