I hate New Year’s resolutions. I apologize to those of you who committed to some sort of positive change in your lives at the beginning of 2012 or of 5772, but I think that our current system of once-a-year goal-setting is silly. The problem with New Year’s resolutions is evident from their title: They only happen once a year! We decide to go to the gym on a daily basis on Rosh Hashanah, and by Sukkot most of us are already attempting to convince ourselves that shaking the lulav counts as a legitimate workout. In the Jewish world that I envision, effort toward self-improvement would be the foundation for all of what we do. We would set personal kavanot (intentions) on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis, and the result would be a thoughtful, purposeful community, constantly working to become better Jews and better human beings.
Now that I’ve gotten the utopian talk out of my system, it’s time for me to break down my proposal for a form of Judaism would accomplish this outrageously idealistic goal. The answer is to pull an idea from the distant past: the neder.
A neder is a vow that you can take in order to basically create a law for yourself. One type of traditional neder that many Jews are familiar with is the Nazirite vow as laid out in the Book of Numbers. Individuals who took this vow refrained form shaving or cutting their hair, and abstained from all grape products, such as wine, for a period of time, often 30 days. (The most famous Nazirite is Samson, whose long, uncut hair gave him super-strength.) But Jews made up their own nedarim as well. In the Talmud, various scenarios are outlined where people forbade themselves from sexual relations, from specific food items, or from various types of clothing – sometimes for a month, and sometimes for years. To advocate for that system would, in many ways, be a more complicated way of advocating for asceticism. Instead, I foresee a system where Jewish people would perhaps make vows like those described in our ancient texts – perhaps prohibiting themselves from imbibing alcohol here and there – but additionally, they might take vows to spend more time with their children, refrain from curse words, or to increase their giving of tzedakah.
On some level, people already attempt to alter their lives in these positive ways, and in many others. I do not mean to minimize those individuals in any way. But we have no formalized system to remind ourselves to work towards these goals. Generally, we like reminders in Judaism. We wear tefillin to remember the commandments laid out in the Torah. We post mezuzot on our doorposts to remind us of the importance of the Shema. We are supposed to remember the Exodus from Egypt every single day! We have a whole host of holidays that exist primarily to remember certain events in our history. But we do not have any system that helps us stay true to our own personal kavanot. The idea is that the study of Torah will accomplish that task, but many modern Jews do not feel any reason to study Torah on a regular basis.
For that reason, I hope to bring nedarim back to life. It is certainly tricky, because anyone who fails to follow through on their neder is technically obligated to bring a sacrifice to the temple. Because there is no temple standing in Jerusalem, anyone taking a neder who slips up would technically be in an insurmountable sort of purgatory where they are unable to atone for their sin. Kol Nidre, the signature prayer of Yom Kippur was created to fill that gap by annulling our vows, but traditional Jews may still be uncomfortable taking on what they would see as an unnecessary risk.
For that reason, my goal is not to bring this to Jewish people who already connect to Judaism through more traditional channels. Instead, I believe that this system could help otherwise disengaged Jews feel some sort of link to their Jewish identity on a day-to-day basis.
The neder is a powerful idea because any individual person can, to some extent, create their own Judaism. Our world is becoming more and more customized. On my college campus, I can choose to join any of 56 different ethnic or cultural student groups, or, if I’m not into that, I can instead affiliate with one of 76 clubs devoted to social justice. After I finish my club meetings for the day, I can log in to the iTunes music store and create my own iTunes library from a short list of approximately 20 million songs. We live in a create-your-own world, and it is time for the Jewish community to put some effort into create-your-own Judaism. We cannot lose sight of the tradition that unites us all, but we have to take steps to ensure that there remains an “us” to unite.
Lex Rofes is a rising senior at Brown University, majoring in Judaic Studies. He is the student president of Brown RISD Hillel and serves as a student representative on Hillel’s Board of Directors. Contact him at alexander_rofes@brown.edu.
