This fall, the JCC is dedicated to help people RESET...to find a healthier and happier path for themselves and their families in the new year. Our innovative programming supports participants getting physically engaged, creatively inspired and intellectually stimulated. It reflects a contemporary approach to a long held Jewish value that is at the heart of the Holy Day of Rosh Hashana.

Rosh Hashana, often translated as the “Jewish New Year” literally means the “head or start of the year.” The Hebrew word Rosh is embedded in the first word of the Bible in the Book of Genesis, Breishit-In the beginning. The Hebrew word Shana-year, comes from the root of the verb “to change.”

The importance of this short lesson in Hebrew is to convey that Rosh Hashana could be translated as “the beginning of change.” We could be greeting each other at this time of year by saying “may you have a healthy and happy beginning of change.” RESET!

In speaking with a group of older adults at the JCC I asked them what had been the most profound change in their lives from last Rosh Hashana to this one.  One woman spoke of moving from a home of 40 years to an apartment, what to save and what to store, what to put up on new but less numerous walls. She was reexamining and resetting the priorities in her life. One offered that she had taken charge of her own healthcare and was phasing out the strong but not particularly effective medication prescribed for her. Resetting her physical well-being was the key to a renewed sense of energy and emotional health.

This new year, like every new year before it and those yet to come, is an opportunity for each of us to begin to change. The need to change is sometimes foisted upon us by the circumstances of our lives. Sometimes change happens because proactively we decide that physically, creatively, intellectually we aspire to take control over those things in our lives that we can control. Often it helps to have a community of friends that support you and care about you.

This JCC is dedicated to helping you RESET, whatever your path has been to the decision that it is time to change.

May you and your family have a happy and healthy beginning to change, and a sweet new year.

Mark Sokoll, President and CEO

Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston