In postscript to “Thirty on Psalm 30,” here are some related words from R. Aviva Richman, faculty of Hadar. Meant as a teaching for Chanukah, this strikes me as just as applicable to beginning a new calendar year or, indeed, to starting any new day:
The work of hanukat habayit [dedication of the house], then, takes place in multiple spheres—in our homes, in our communal structures, and in our own bodies independent of any particular larger structure. Any narrow focus on one of these aspects of hanukat habayit to the exclusion of others will necessarily leave gaps—some people will not be able to fully participate in the critical transformation that is Hanukkah if we neglect any of these modes.
— “Communal and Private (Re)dedication“
Richman goes on to urge that we work “within all of these sites of rededication, to create homes, communal structures, and selves where brokenness is allowed to be visible and can be transformed into rejuventation and healing.”
The idea of allowing brokenness to show and become rejuvenated also reminds me of the Marge Piercy poem, “The task never completed”:
No task is ever completed,
only abandoned or pressed into use.
Tinkering can be a form of prayer.
…
Each night sleep unravels me into wool,
then into sheep and wolf. Walls and fire
pass through me. I birth stones.
Every dawn I stumble from the roaring
vat of dreams and make myself up
remembering and forgetting by halves.
Every dawn I choose to take a knife
to the world’s flank or a sewing kit,
rough improvisation, but a start.
— from The Art of Blessing the Day (NY: Knopf, 1999)
This poem, like Psalm 30 in its position in the morning liturgy, knows that making a truly fresh, joyful start involves acknowledging that weeping spent the night. (Re)dedicating the house — in multiple spheres — requires knowing where a knife or a sewing kit is needed.
"A Song Every Day" 