From the Editor: Turning the Page

The Charlotte Jewish News, January 2023

By Shira Firestone, Editor

My job description as the editor of The Charlotte Jewish News extends beyond wielding my red pen. I am something of a Jill of all trades. Part of my job is the actual design and layout of the paper. I get to let my creative side play once a month. But it would be unmanageable to begin the layout of a 36-48 page paper from scratch each month. So my process involves taking the paper from the previous month, purging it of all old content — wiping the slate clean, so to speak — until I am left with mostly blank pages, retaining what is still relevant while filing away that which is now out of date.

As I looked at this month’s issue, with its blank pages waiting to be filled, not yet knowing what would go on them, I reflected that this process is not unlike that of entering a new year. The pages of our days to come are empty. I am curious what will be written on them.

We, of course, bear some responsibility for what will go on those pages, which is why so many people make resolutions at this time of year. But I stopped setting resolutions years ago. Not because I couldn’t keep them, though that is certainly why many abandon the process altogether. Some research suggests that the success rate for actualizing resolutions is 9%! In fact, Strava, an internet service for tracking physical exercise, documented more than 800 million user-logged activities in 2019 and found that most people toss in the towel on January 19, a day they’ve dubbed “Quitters Day.”

No, the reason I don’t make resolutions is probably the same reason so many fail at their resolutions — it’s not keeping the resolutions that’s the problem, but it’s the way we choose those resolutions in the first place. Most of us make resolutions based on what we think we want to have or be. We have our idea of what will make us happy. But I realized a few years ago that my ideas about what would make me happy are just a subset of all the possibilities that I’m not even aware of.

My rabbi, Rabbi Ted Falcon, taught me a different tool for preparing for a new year that honors and opens the door for all those possibilities. Instead of focusing on what we wanted to have or be, he taught us to focus on how we wanted to feel and what we wanted to experience, then to pay attention! Is it really that job that I want? Is it really that goal weight that I want? Is it really that boy I have a crush on that I want? Or is it financial security, health, and love? If I focus on the former list, I risk being desperately disappointed when things don’t turn out the way I’d hoped they would. In fact, I risk being disappointed if they do, because my idea of what will bring me financial security, health, and love is limited. It must be, because my imagination is limited. But if I focus on the latter, I open the door for all the other surprising ways that experiencing them might show up.

If you’d asked me to design my perfect year for 2022, it would not have been the one I ended up living. I would have sold myself short. My actual year was so much more. People came into my life who I didn’t know existed. Opportunities presented themselves that have enriched my life in ways beyond what I could have dreamed. 2022 was an amazing year for me, one that taught me not to try to design 2023 from my own imagination. If 2022 taught me anything, it’s that God’s imagination is infinitely larger than my own.

The other thing I learned from Rabbi Ted is to be cautious about the energy with which we envision that future, or make those resolutions if that is still our practice. It’s a fine line to walk between envisioning a future we want and rejecting a present we have. At this time of year, I try to wrap my arms around the present with gratitude and envision how I can add to the good that I already have and already am.

With January’s paper put to bed, it’s time to clear the pages and make way for whatever February’s news will be. Like my own year about to be — I don’t yet know what will be on those pages. Sometimes I think I know; I keep notes on potential articles to expect. Invariably, however, I am surprised by something unexpected that has happened in the community and that comes my way, sometimes at the last minute after I’ve already put the paper together. I suppose that’s what makes a community paper relevant. It’s the very fact that those pages get filled up with that which didn’t already know or expect that gives it its value. I do know that whatever goes on those pages will be beyond what I anticipated because I have learned that our community can achieve more than my limited imagination can anticipate.

As a writer, the blank page used to fill me with anxiety. It’s vast, open, and endless. Today that very same vast, open, endlessness that fills me with curiosity and hope instead. I’m curious what this year will bring for me, personally, and for us as a community. And I have hope, and faith, that it will be beyond what we imagine.

"Take a leap of faith and begin this wondrous new year by believing. Believe in yourself. And believe that there is a loving Source - a Sower of Dreams - just waiting to be asked to help you make your dreams come true." Sarah Ban Breathnach