Rabbi Roundtable: Jan. 31, 2026

In partnership with the Atlanta Rabbinical Association, the AJT’s monthly Rabbi Roundtable brings together rabbis from across Atlanta representing each denomination.

For this month’s discussion, each rabbi was asked the following question:

What does the secular New Year make possible that the Jewish calendar does not, and where does it fall short?

Rabbi Michael Bernstein

A teaching in the Talmud links the Jewish New Year to its secular counterpart. When Adam and Chava (created on Rosh Hashana) sinned and were exiled from the Garden, they noticed that the days grew shorter. Not knowing of the nature of the seasons, they despaired, believing they had caused the world’s return to darkness. Only after the winter solstice did they understand that the light would grow again. They established a festival that became Calends, the Roman New Year celebration. Only the future Jewish people would instead mark years as the days first begin to darken.
The secular New Year arrives at midnight deep in the darkness, just after the longest night of the year. The calendar tells us something new has begun even though the cold persists and the days will be short for a while longer.
There is a value to imposing our own meaning in the middle of the night. We count down on our terms and turn a new page, ready or not.
The Jewish New Year comes in a different way, following the pattern of the Jewish day, beginning as darkness falls. We do not wait till either the darkest point or the new break of light to declare a new day; instead, we prepare for the light to retreat. In that sense, the Jewish New Year is less about crossing a line and more about setting a table. Rather than postponing renewal until conditions improve, the Jewish calendar insists that we reflect and take stock of who we are and how we have lived before asking what the future might hold. The Jewish New Year teaches that renewal is like lighting a Shabbat candle, not about escaping the dark, but about entering it with intention, clarity, and purpose.

Rabbi Alexandria Shuval-Weiner

For those of us living within the construct of a post-modern, non-halachic American Jewish life, this is a vital question to ponder. We are masters of multiple calendars. We easily toggle between multiple worlds, tracking the fiscal year for our careers, the school year for our children, and the NFL schedule for our Sunday afternoons — all while navigating the holidays, festivals, and sacred times of the Jewish year. When it comes to the New Year, we essentially pivot between two annual resets: the shofar-blasts of Tishrei and the ball-drop of January.
There are those who dismiss the secular New Year as merely “Rosh Hashanah Lite”—a party without the prayer. While this is far from the truth, I would argue that Jan. 1 makes something possible that our own tradition, by design, does not: it offers the grace of a low-stakes Software Update, whereas the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, represent a full System Reboot.
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are high-stakes and cosmic. Standing in community before the open ark, we grapple with the hard truth of the human condition, stripping away our masks and looking deeply into our choices. We recite the Unetaneh Tokef, asking who shall live and who shall die. It is a moral inventory of the soul that requires an honest assessment of our lives and the repair of our relationships while confronting our mortality. It is beautiful, and it is heavy.
Jan. 1, by contrast, offers the gift of the mundane. It is the season of the gym membership, the organized closet, and the professional goal. It makes possible a focus on self-optimization rather than soul-correction. In the secular New Year, we are allowed to be “merely” human—to focus on our habits and our physical selves without the sacred weight of covenantal reckoning.
Yes, both are about change, yet there is a fundamental difference in how we change. Jan. 1 is often about the “New Me”—the quest to replace our old selves with a newer version. But our Jewish tradition is built on the concept of Teshuvah, which literally means “returning” to our truer, higher self. Teshuvah doesn’t ask us to become someone else; it asks us to return to our best selves. It is a spiritual course-correction that understands that growth isn’t a straight line — it’s a process of constantly drifting and then intentionally coming home. Teshuvah is the psychic understanding that your “original code” is already good; you just need a regular reboot, recalibration to keep the heart and soul running smoothly.
The secular New Year falls short exactly where the Jewish calendar shines. The secular resolution is almost entirely individualistic. If you fail your Jan. 1 resolution, you have only failed yourself. That for some may bring a sense of isolation and loneliness. Unlike the Jewish New Year, Jan. 1 offers no ritual for the “broken resolution,” no Kol Nidrei, no Vidui to remind us that we all stumble, and no mechanism for forgiveness. If you miss your mark this year, that time or opportunity is simply gone. In contrast, Jewish time is a spiral. We know we will be back, we pray for it “Hadesh yamenui k’kedem’, -renew us- renew our time- The words “us” and “our”, returning to that ideal of infinite potential for ourselves and our community. So, while we are each growing individually, we do so in community. What a beautiful value!
To answer the original question: we need the secular New Year to help us manage the “business” of being alive — to set our goals and join our neighbors. But we need the Jewish New Year to remind us why we are living in the first place. One gives us the tools to change our habits; the other gives us the vision, within community, to change our hearts—and, in turn, impact our worlds.

Rabbi Adam Strater

Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of the Reconstructionist movement, taught that community is essential for what he called “salvation”— the realization of the fullest potential of every human life. We achieve our potential only in the context of community. Jews in America have both the ability and the opportunity to realize that potential among other Jews and within the broader secular, predominantly non-Jewish society.
The secular New Year presents an interesting opportunity for Jews to connect with the latter. It can be something as simple as a greeting. In the United States, there is an implicit social contract that outlines how we address one another at the end of December: after Christmas, people greet each other, regardless of whether they know one another, with “Happy New Year!” This simple exchange creates a moment of connection among strangers.
It reminds me of life in Jerusalem. Every Friday afternoon, the Shuk is crowded with people gathering supplies for Shabbat. Regardless of whether they know one another, people greet each other with “Shabbat Shalom!”
There is something especially intimate and personal about what happens in the Shuk that gets to the heart of how we Jews interact with our own calendar. Whether we are saying “Shabbat Shalom,” “Shanah Tova,” “Gut Yontif,” “Gmar Tov,” etc., there is, at some level, the acknowledgement that we are a part of a specific community within a larger one; that we are connected at a deeper level because we are Jewish and because we do Jewish things according to Jewish time.
Rabbi Toba Spitzer explains that our values and moral commitments are formed in the context of the communities and traditions in which we are raised and live. American Jews have the privilege of being part of a large, diverse, and dynamic secular society, one that offers a wide range of values, commitments, and traditions beyond Judaism. At the same time, we can find what Kaplan referred to as salvation within the Jewish community itself, where our own values, commitments, and traditions bind us to one another.

Rabbi Isser New

Most calendars mark a new year as a simple change in time. One date ends, another begins. Fireworks go off, resolutions are made, and life continues much as before, only with a new number at the top of the page. The calendar new year merely acknowledges that time has passed.
The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is something entirely different. According to Jewish, and especially Chassidic thought, it is not just a marker of time but an existential reset. It does not simply announce that a year has changed; it determines whether and how existence itself continues.
To understand this difference, we need to examine how Judaism understands time.
In most frameworks, time is neutral and automatic. Seconds move forward whether or not anything meaningful happens within them. A new year is simply the result of the Earth completing another orbit around the sun. Nothing essential changes because of it.
Judaism rejects this idea. In Jewish thought, time is not an empty container. It is alive, charged with meaning, and even responsive to human action. Certain moments are not merely later than others; they are different in essence. Shabbat, for example, is not simply the seventh day of the week, but a day with a distinct spiritual reality. Likewise, Rosh Hashanah is not just the first day of a new year. It is the source point from which the entire year flows.
Kabbalah teaches that creation is not a one-time event in the distant past. The universe exists only because Divine energy is continuously invested into it at every moment. If that energy were withdrawn even for an instant, existence would collapse back into nothingness.
Rosh Hashanah marks the moment when that sustaining energy returns to its source and must be drawn down again for the coming year. The world is not simply moving forward in time; it is being re-created. Rosh Hashanah is therefore not a celebration of age, but a moment of renewal at the deepest level of being.
This is why Rosh Hashanah is a day of judgment. Not judgment as simple reward and punishment, but a deeper evaluation: Is the world, and is each person within it, worthy of continued existence and purpose?
A calendar new year says, “Another year has passed.” Rosh Hashanah asks, “Should the year exist at all, and if so, for what purpose?”
That is the existential power of the Jewish New Year. It is when humanity is invited to consciously choose why the world should continue.
Sometimes, we just want some spectacular fireworks.

About the Rabbis:

Rabbi Michael Bernstein, Conservative
Rabbi Bernstein welcomes you to Congregation Gesher L’Torah, a vibrant and dynamic synagogue community where Judaism is personal and each person’s story is embraced. Michael Bernstein was ordained as a conservative rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 1999 and came to GLT in 2009 to serve as spiritual leader. He has always had a special interest in finding new ways to experience the ancient and timeless wisdom of our tradition in contemporary and impactful ways. For Rabbi Bernstein, the most important goal of a synagogue community is to foster a meaningful connection to being Jewish for every participant, whether in religious services, marking significant moments in life, or in getting together with family or friends.

Rabbi Alexandria Shuval-Weiner, Reform
Since 2015, Rabbi Shuval-Weiner she has served as the Senior Rabbi of Temple Beth Tikvah in Roswell. She made Atlanta history as the first woman to rise to the presidency of the Atlanta Rabbinical Association, and the third woman to serve as senior rabbi of a synagogue in the Georgia State history. She served on the Central Conference of American Rabbis convention committee for five years, culminating in chairing the 2020 national conference. Ordained in 2008 at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, Rabbi Shuval-Weiner also holds a Master of Hebrew Letters and a Master of Jewish Studies. She earned an M.Ed in School Administration from the University of Central Oklahoma and holds her B.A. in education and humanities from Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Aviv, Israel. Before her tenure at Temple Beth Tikvah, she served as Associate Rabbi at the historic Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah in Kansas City.

Rabbi Adam Strater, Reconstructionist
Adam is a Jewish educator and U.S. Army chaplain. He was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and holds a PhD in Hebrew Bible from Emory University. Originally from Des Moines, Iowa, Adam earned a BA in philosophy and religion from Buena Vista University, an MA in Jewish studies from the Graduate Theological Union, and an MA in Bible and the Ancient Near East from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research integrates Hebrew Bible scholarship, Jewish liberation theology, Peace and conflict studies, and Jewish ethics. Adam is married to Sharon, a fellow Jewish educator, and they have two children, Milo and Lucia (“Lulu”).

Rabbi Isser New, Chabad
Rabbi Isser New grew up in Atlanta and attended Yeshiva in Chicago, New York, and Israel. Rabbi New received his Smicha as a member of the inaugural class of the Atlanta Smicha Program. He served for a period as interim rabbi at Congregation Netzach Israel in Toco Hills. Rabbi New and his wife, Musha, were married in 2008, after which he studied in Kollel in Brooklyn, N.Y., until their move to Atlanta in November 2008. Rabbi Isser New holds the position of associate director of Chabad of Georgia and development director of the Chaya Mushka Children’s House. He also coordinates programming for Chabad of Georgia and Congregation Beth Tefillah which includes the Young Adult Division of Congregation Beth Tefillah.