Looking Back

Now that the yomim noraim are over, and the fast has been completed, what are we going to do with ourselves now? Many of us may feel a sort of floating feeling. We've just poured out hearts out to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and confessed out mistakes and errs of the past year. We've, hopefully, begged for forgiveness and promised to do our best to make the coming year more productive then the last.
But what should be our first step, or one of the first steps we take?

My Rav said a very nice speech by Neila. He mentioned that after praying a whole day in shule and privately confessing before HaShem, neila is a time to prove that prayer and confession true and show that we're reading to start anew. After spending the whole day to bedeck ourselves in new, clean, clothing, we now much change the inside to match the outside.
But neila's over. Can we still do this now? YES! We've gotten rid of our smelly, old, and stained clothing. We've adorned ourselves in fresh, trim, garments. We now have the task to look inside that match the inside to the clothing.

This is no easy task. So how can we try to accomplish it without becoming too discouraged or overwhelmed?
What should we do?
My advice is nothing you've never heard before. But as Kohelet says, nothing's new under the sun, and as the Ramchal writes in Mesilos Yesharim, it is the information that everyone knows, that everyone takes for granted and forgets. So I will now repeat the advice that had been given to me countless times.
Look inside yourself, at your characteristics and your personality. This is the thing that makes you most different from everyone else who walks upon the Earth. Search within this special part of you and try to find ONE thing that needs to be changed.
Make this thing small. Chose davening shachrit, or having kavna during birchot hashachar. It doesn't need to be about teffilla, it could be saying hi to the first 3 people you meet in a day. But make sure to chose one thing.
Then work on this thing for a month. Try to make a chart and give yourself a check at the end of the day if you've completed the task that you've set for yourself. Then, at the end of a month, see how you've done.

You may need more then a month to perfect, or get good, at this act. If so, go for it for another month. When you feel confident with your behavior in this act, add another one. Then continue with your checking chart with these two acts on it. See how you do in both of these acts after a month.

You can continue this act for the whole year. It could be that you don't get past two changes, but that's two things different in yourself from this yom kippur to the next. And that makes this year a productive year, one that HaShem will be happy to have given you.

It could be that this approach doesn't work for everyone. I don't know, it's just a suggestion.

I wish everyone a chatima tova. We should all be kaim the mitzvout of sukkout, as much as we can be as women, and be matzliach in the coming year. Let's make is worth HaShem's while, kaveiachel.

This post was originally posted on my Back 2 Reality blog. I know that everyone doesn't check it so I posted it here as well. I don't usually have time to do that so if you want to see some of my posts you can always pop in and see how my blog is doing.
Here's the original post link: Looking Back
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