Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Here we are, at the beginning of a new secular year, the first day of 2025. At the same time, we are on day 453 of war. These truths coexist, and they shape us.
While the secular New Year might not hold religious significance in Jewish terms, we are taught that every moment carries the potential for holiness. Every breath, every thought, every intention has the power to bring more Divinity, more hope into the world. We are vessels for shefa, the flow of Divine Abundance. So why not see this morning, this day, this moment as a possibility that wasn’t here before?
A new year can be more than just a date on a calendar—it can be an invitation to open our eyes, to notice the beauty that surrounds us but often goes unseen. Just this morning, I found myself singing a blessing and, for the first time in what feels like ages, I noticed the trees outside my window. They’ve been there all along, steady and silent, but I hadn’t truly seen them.
This realization brings to mind Wordsworth’s words: “The world is too much with us.” How often do we rush through life, missing what is right in front of us? Perhaps the beginning of something new starts with simply noticing, with pausing long enough to see.
As we step into this year, there are deep, heartfelt hopes we carry. The end of war. The safe return of the hostages. A world where we don’t wake to news of violence and loss, like the tragic event in New Orleans yesterday. A year without those burdens—that would be good.
But even as we hold these hopes, we also hold responsibility. What will we bring to this year? What will we notice, and what will we build? As we conclude Hanukkah, with its culmination in the power of the eighth night, we are reminded of the mystical significance of the number eight: creation plus one. It’s the world as we know it, plus something more.
What is your “plus one”? What light, what strength, what love will you add to the world this year? For me, that “plus one” begins with seeing the trees again. It begins with noticing the beauty that has been waiting patiently for my attention.
Martin Buber taught us that even a tree can become a thou, a presence with whom we are in relationship:
"...I can perceive it as movement: flowing veins on clinging, pressing pith, suck of the roots, breathing of the leaves, ceaseless commerce with earth and air—and the obscure growth itself. ...I can subdue its actual presence and form so sternly that I recognise it only as an expression of law — of the laws in accordance with which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or of those in accordance with which the component substances mingle and separate... It can, however, also come about, if I have both will and grace, that in considering the tree I become bound up in relation to it. The tree is now no longer It. I have been seized by the power of exclusiveness. (Buber, "I Contemplate a Tree")"
The tree is not just an object—it is an “other,” silently waiting to be noticed. And so, I ask you, friends: what is right in front of you that you’ve been missing? What beauty, what possibility, what connection is quietly waiting for you to pause, to see, to step into its potential?
As we recite - and count - our blessings this morning, let’s embrace their essence: gratitude for the ability to see, to take one step after another, to differentiate between night and day. Let these blessings remind us to notice the world around us, to notice who we are and what we can offer.
May this year be one of noticing and building. May it be a year of healing for the broken-hearted, comfort for those who mourn, and freedom for the captives. May we find strength in each other and in the beauty of this world. And may we choose, every day, to bring our full selves into this life, so that the world can grow stronger, brighter, and more whole.
Let’s begin, friends. Let’s see the trees. Let’s see each other. Let’s see the beauty waiting to unfold.
