Then I remembered that this is, technically, a Jewish practice too. On our New Year, Rosh Hashanah, we also take on resolutions of things we’d like to improve. And ever since I was young, I was encouraged on my Hebrew birthday every year to take on a new mitzvah, something to work on. Clearly, my issue wasn’t with an annual decision to improve. That’s why I decided to reframe the way I was thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. If you don’t take it as a decision to change everything at the drop of a button, and instead, use it as an opportunity to do some introspection and figure out things you’d like to work on, New Year’s can really be valuable. If you’re honest with yourself and introspect correctly, having a time built into every year to reflect on your shortcomings and what you want to improve on is helpful.

Here’s how to maximize the value out of New Year’s Resolutions, as rooted in Jewish practice and Jewish wisdom:

First of all, take your time deciding what to work on and what to improve. The Jewish new year, taking place on the first day of Tishrei, is when we officially commit to doing better and being better, but for the entirety of Elul, the entirety of the month prior, we prepare ourselves for it: we decide what exactly to work on, we start preemptively taking steps. Don’t come up with a resolution off the top of your head. Take time to think about it; ruminate on your shortcomings and what you want to change before you finally come to a decision.

Another tip is to check in more often than once a year. In Jewish practice, we first make a resolution on Rosh Hashanah, and then, nine days later on Yom Kippur, we once again focus heavily on our shortcomings in an attempt to atone for them. Even after that, we once again focus on repentance and resolutions on Shemini Atzeret, towards the end of the month of Tishrei. If you have a custom to make a hachlatah, a resolution, on your Hebrew birthday, that’s an extra moment of introspection built into your year. Having a set time of year to introspect is helpful, but you need to check in. You need to follow up and make sure you’re progressing. And if you aren’t progressing, you need to check back in and remind yourself that even if it’s no longer the beginning of the year, it’s still not too late to start. Don’t push off reviving your resolutions until the next year. As King Solomon wrote in the Book of Proverbs, a righteous person is one who falls seven times and stands up. If you fail at making lasting change on the first of January, you can pick it back up weeks or months later. If you mess up your resolutions, you can work on reviving your commitment right away, on standing back up, without waiting all the way until the next January.

A third tip is to vary your resolutions. When I make my Rosh Hashanah resolutions, I try to make one from each of the categories of mitzvah: one mitzvah of bein adam lechavero (the commandments relating to your interactions with other human beings), one of bein adam lamakom (the commandments relating to your interactions with Hashem), and one of bein adam le’atzmo (the commandments relating to your interactions with yourself). The most common kinds of New Year’s Resolutions fall under the bein adam le’atzmo category: exercise more, save money, lose weight, stop drinking, eat healthier. It’s valuable and important to work on yourself and your health. But it’s also important to work on being a good person in your interactions with others. Include some bein adam lechavero or bein adam lamakom in your resolutions so your self-improvement is balanced and well-rounded.

Finally, start small. No, even smaller. Even small progress is progress, and the smaller the goals you set, the more confident you’ll feel in your own ability to follow through. Furthermore, from a psychological perspective, the more confident you feel, the more likely you are to be resilient in the face of adversity. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Instead of resolving to work out every day, maybe decide to go to the gym at least once or twice a week. Instead of resolving to quit drinking completely, maybe decide to drink less. By giving yourself wiggle room, you’ll be less likely to feel constrained by your resolutions, and you’ll therefore be more likely to actually stick with them.

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Rosh Hashanah is over, and it’s time to start acting on your new year’s resolutions. Although you might have decided to stop smoking under the heady influence of too much honey and/or red wine, the time has come to put down your final cigarette, throw out the pack, and start afresh. Of course, as we all know, this is easier said than done. How will you survive the next few weeks? My suggestion: Since every second you are not smoking will feel like a thousand years anyhow, why not look back through the ages for some Jewish motivation? Below are some reasons to quit smoking that draw on our Jewish heritage.

1. Feel close to the suffering of your forefathers. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are all about feeling the sting of sacrifice; as you sit in a semi-catatonic state and contemplate which of your fingers would be most painful to gnaw off (and therefore most distracting from the nicotine cravings), imagine what our forefather Isaac must have felt, about to be sacrificed like a goat. Then imagine you are the goat. See? Life could be worse!

2. Finally be able to sit through a holiday meal. At long last, you will be able to sit from gefilte fish to rugelach, without taking a suspiciously long “bathroom break” in the middle of an interminable holiday meal. However, even quitting smoking does not guarantee that you will be able to sit through another one of your Uncle Morris’ tirades on politics without feeling restless and irritable.

3. Save money. Yes, this plays into a lot of Jewish stereotypes, but our wandering people have certainly required fiscal responsibility to ensure that they would get through the tough times (and there have been a lot of tough times). Protect your wallet like a true member of the Chosen People. Plus, the money you save on cigarettes can buy a lot of kosher pizza and prayer books and things!

4. One less thing to make Yom Kippur torturous. ‘Nuff said.

5. You will no longer smell. Throughout Jewish history, anti-Semites have claimed that Jews smell; one Medieval writer even cautioned that you can “identify the Jew by his reek of garlic,” according to the Wikipedia page on anti-Semitism. While stopping smoking will have no effect on your garlic consumption (and in fact might increase it due to the compensatory munchies), you will no longer make strangers’ noses wrinkle up on the subway, or announce your entrance with an overwhelming stench of smoke.

6. Things will become slightly less awkward with your relatives. At family shivas, for example, your aunts and uncles will no longer glare at you and mutter, “You’ll be next if you keep smoking!” Your mother will stop worrying about your habit, although she will probably find other things to worry about (have you considered announcing your intent to stop smoking at your wedding? Oh, you’re not getting married this year? Why not?)

7. You will suddenly have new reasons to pray. Informal, meditative prayers are a great way to get through the ordeal of quitting smoking; plus, your interior monologue will already sound pretty close to the Book of Job at this point anyhow (“Dear God, help me get through this day without murdering anyone in cold blood.”) (“Dear God, was nicotine another one of your cruel jokes, like this pounding headache?”). When your prayers become indistinguishable from kvetching, rest assured that this is also a Jewish art, one that it definitely serves your interests to perfect. If you are considering joining a minyan to help break up your suddenly smoke-free days, remember to brush up on your pronunciation; it is “shema,” not “shemarlboro,” Yisrael; likewise, “camelluyah” is not the opening to any of the psukei d’zimra.

8. Food will taste and smell better. The Jewish culinary tradition is as vast and wide-ranging as our peripatetic history. Blast your newly sensitive taste buds with some Teimani jachnun or kibbeh, or stick close to Eastern European comfort food like cholent, and the ubiquitous chicken soup. Bonuses of cholent: if you eat enough of it, you will still be emitting clouds of gas like you did when you smoked!

9. Increase your lung capacity. While this is a general health benefit, it will also increase your ability to do all kinds of Jewish things, like blowing shofar (it’s well known that heavy smokers can produce only like three seconds of a tekiah gedola, which hardly counts) and, later on in the year, saying the names of all the sons of Haman in one breath.

10. Better your odds of living to 120. 120 is the age Moses lived to according to the Bible, and “may you live to 120” has been a traditional Jewish blessing ever since. While it’s a long shot for any of us, stopping smoking will certainly increase your chances of arriving at this august milestone; plus, you will live longer in general, and don’t you want to live long enough to spoil/guilt/annoy/smother/dandle/embarrass/tell stories to your many bouncing Jewish grandchildren?

(Image via Shutterstock)

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Our friends at Tablet Magazine have put together a great list of Rosh Hashanah resolutions from a wide range of well-known Jewish figures. Each response offers advice for the coming year and some things for all of us to think about, and do, over the next 12 months.

Here are our five favorites—you can check out the rest over at Tablet.

Dr. Ruth, sex therapist

The one thing you must do in the New Year is pay greater attention to the humans next to you than the gadget in your hand. No matter how much you love your phone, it will never hold your hand or make your heart flutter. If you want to have a productive year, if you want to feel the warmth of human contact, if you want to marry or stay married, have children and get the most that life has to offer, put your gadgets down and connect to those around you with your mind, your arms, and your heart.

Mayim Bialik

The last time I was in Israel was two years ago. I’ve almost gone a few times since then but just have never gotten around to it. This past year has seen an increase in my Jewish learning, observance, and sense of connection to the State of Israel. I had a serious car accident a month ago, and since then I’ve felt a very strong pull to go back to Israel. I would go so far as to say I feel like I need to go to Israel this year to heal from the accident, to heal from a particularly rigorous year emotionally, and to put my feet back on the Land.

Jonathan Ornstein, director of the Jewish Community Center in Krakow, Poland

Go to Auschwitz. Feel sad. Feel angry. Contemplate the unimaginable loss. Weep for the souls of the victims. Say “Never Again.” Then go one hour down the road to Krakow and learn the real lesson of the Holocaust. Go meet a growing, vibrant, optimistic, pluralistic, forward-looking Jewish community that refuses to allow itself to be defined by tragedy—the one community in Europe where it is getting better, safer, and easier to be Jewish every single day. Learn the lesson of the Holocaust that the Krakow Jewish community has learned: The strength of the Jewish People lies in defining ourselves by what we do, not by what is done to us.

Emily Nussbaum, television critic for The New Yorker

My goal this year is to use the word “ham-handed” in a TV review. I also want to cook 4 percent more (I’m a terrible cook), wear eyeliner, buy a bunk bed for my two boys, go see more standup comedy, read something fancy like Montaigne, and convince my husband to grow a mustache. Plus, write notes to people when I admire something they wrote (like Nora Ephron and David Rakoff did) and gossip more.

Joshua Cohen

My New Year’s resolution is straight-ahead: Stop imposing Hallmark® goyisher narrischkeit on Jewish tradition. It isn’t New Year’s. It’s Rosh Hashanah.

Happy 5773, people.

(Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

What To Do in 5773 [Tablet Magazine]

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