Fear, Judgment, and Strength in Unstable Times
The past year on the Jewish calendar has been insane. The climate, political, social, and even moral, is boiling. The heat has been dialed up so high that what was once unthinkable is now discussed openly, even justified. Political murders, race-based attacks, and atrocities that people excuse depending on which side committed them. Intolerance no longer hides in the margins; it is proudly worn on both ends of the spectrum.
I do not think the coming year will cool down. I think it will get worse. We are living in an age where the unimaginable quickly becomes the new normal. People adapt not by resisting, but by lowering their standards of what is acceptable. And once you lower them, it rarely stops.
That is why Rosh Hashanah carries weight. It is not a holiday of sweets and songs. It is a reckoning. It is the reminder that time is not endless, that judgment is inevitable, and that strength is not optional if you want to live with dignity.
Protecting What Matters
Everywhere you look, people are screaming about defending their values. But look closer, and you see most of them are just defending their egos. Their tribe. Their party. Their side of the argument. They are more interested in being right than in protecting what is right.
The real question of the New Year is not whether you can shout louder than your opponent. It is whether you can hold firm to what actually matters when the noise gets unbearable. Family. Health. Integrity. Truth. These are worth protecting. The rest is distraction, and distraction is how people lose themselves.
The Illusion of Time
People act as if there is endless time to fix things. As if the spiral of division will stop on its own. As if the violence will burn itself out without taking more lives. That is the illusion of time, the false comfort that tomorrow will be different because we hope it will.
But Rosh Hashanah interrupts this illusion. The shofar is not gentle. It is not music. It is a scream into the silence of complacency. It says: Wake up. Time is not on your side. The storm is not waiting politely for you to prepare.
Judgment and Responsibility
Jewish tradition speaks of judgment on this day. Not the judgment of others, the judgment of ourselves. You can lie on social media, you can posture in debate, you can even convince your friends of your excuses. But you cannot escape yourself.
You know when you surrendered to fear. You know when you acted with courage. You know what you avoided, and what you compromised. The problem is not that people fail. The problem is that people refuse to face their failures honestly. And without judgment, there can be no growth.
Fear and Choice
Fear is the constant background noise of our times. Fear of violence, fear of being silenced, fear of being on the wrong side. Fear is real, but it is also blinding.
The prayers of Rosh Hashanah speak of who will live and who will die, who will rise and who will fall. They are not predictions; they are reminders. Life is unstable. You cannot control the chaos around you. You cannot control the intolerance eating away at society. But you can control whether you meet fear as a slave or as a fighter.
That is the only real choice. Not whether fear exists, but whether it dictates your actions.
Community and Belonging
On Rosh Hashanah, people who rarely pray all year still show up. They gather, even if they do not believe. Why? Because at some level, everyone knows survival is not individual. We need community.
In times of fracture and hate, this becomes even more urgent. The instinct is to isolate, to protect only yourself, to trust no one. But isolation makes you weaker, easier to manipulate, easier to break. Belonging to a community that is built on trust, not blind ideology, is what gives strength when everything else is collapsing.
A Different Kind of Resolution
In the West, New Year’s is about resolutions. Diets. Productivity. Breaking bad habits. Rosh Hashanah is not about that. It is not about adding more. It is about returning.
Teshuvah means return, not to the past, but to yourself. To the person you were before, fear and hate distorted you into the strength that was buried under excuses. To the clarity you had before the noise drowned it out.
Training teaches the same lesson. You do not become someone else when you fight. You become who you are. Rosh Hashanah demands the same to strip away illusions and stand face to face with yourself.
The weight of the New Year is not in the calendar. It is in reality that time is short, storms are coming, and weakness is no longer an option.
The question is not whether the next year will be calmer. It will not. The question is whether you will meet it prepared, clear, and strong enough to protect what truly matters.
That is the work. That is the choice. And that is the only way forward.
Do something amazing,
Tsahi Shemesh
Founder & CEO
Krav Maga Experts
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