You’re Getting Everything Done, But Where Are You Going?

From an Elul/Rosh Hashanah shiur by Rabbi Mendel Schapiro, mashpia in Yeshiva YOEC
Prepared by Rabbi Levi Gelb

There are things in life that demand your attention. The email needs an answer. The bill is due. Someone needs a ride. Dinner has to be made. The appointment has to be scheduled. Your phone is buzzing. Something at work needs to be finished before the end of the day.

And then there are the things you would probably say are actually the most important things in your life. Your relationship with Hashem. Your marriage. Your children. The kind of person you are becoming. The values you want your home to reflect.

Those things matter far more. But they usually do not send notifications. They do not flash red. They do not say, “Due by 5:00 PM.” And that may be exactly why they are so easy to neglect.

The practical things in life become urgent. The important things often do not — until they do.

We do not usually wake up one morning and decide that our deepest priorities no longer matter. We drift. We get busy. We take care of what needs to be taken care of. And somehow, while handling everything that is urgent, we can slowly move further away from everything that is important.

The Truth Is, Life Can Be Boring

There is another uncomfortable truth behind all of this. A lot of life is repetitive.

You wake up. Get everyone where they need to go. Work. Answer messages. Eat. Clean up. Go to sleep. Then you wake up and do it again.

Even the things we care deeply about can begin to feel that way. Another Shabbos. Another week of davening. Another school year. And now, another Elul. Another Rosh Hashanah. Another machzor. Another shofar. Another round of resolutions.

We did this last year. And the year before that. Maybe that is part of why we are constantly looking for something new. A new purchase. A new trip. A new restaurant. Even just something new to scroll through.

Ordinary life can feel repetitive, so we keep looking for something that will make it feel fresh again. But Rosh Hashanah offers a very different kind of newness.

It does not promise that next year’s schedule won’t look a lot like this year’s. You may still wake up at the same time, go to the same job, drive the same carpool and deal with many of the same problems.

What’s new is not necessarily the life you’re living. What’s new is the life flowing through it.

The Head of the Year

In Likkutei Torah, in the Rosh Hashanah maamar beginning V’hayah Bayom Hahu, the Alter Rebbe explains that Rosh Hashanah is not merely the beginning of the year. It is the head of the year.

Just as the head contains the vitality that flows into the entire body, Rosh Hashanah contains the general vitality that will flow into all the days of the coming year.

There is a powerful lesson in that image. A person’s feet can move. His hands can work. His eyes can see. His body can function perfectly. But the head determines where he is going.

And the same can be true of a life. A person can answer every email, pay every bill, make every meeting, finish every task, take every child where he needs to go, and handle every responsibility. He can be remarkably productive. And still never stop to ask:

Where am I going?

What am I building? What matters most to me? What do I want all of this activity to add up to?

That question is easy to avoid because it is rarely urgent. But it may be more important than almost everything that is.

Not Another Year

The Alter Rebbe explains something even more remarkable. The vitality drawn down on Rosh Hashanah is not simply last year’s vitality being switched back on. It is an “or v’chayus chadash mamash” — a genuinely new light and vitality drawn down for the new year.

Rosh Hashanah is genuinely new.

That changes the way we can look at another Elul and another Rosh Hashanah. We are not simply being asked to replay last year.

A new year means the possibility of new vitality in our relationship with Hashem, in our homes, in our learning, and in the kind of people we are becoming.

The routines may look similar. The machzor may be the same. The shofar sounds the same. The calendar starts again.

But we don’t have to be the same.

And perhaps that is part of what Elul asks of us. Before the new year begins moving, we are given time to ask where we want it to go.

Not necessarily because everything in our lives is wrong. Sometimes everything is functioning exactly as it should.

The problem is that functionality is not the same thing as purpose.

You can run a home efficiently and still lose some of the relationship inside it. You can take care of your children all day and realize you barely had time to actually be with them. You can spend your days providing for a family without noticing how little of yourself the family is actually getting.

And a person can live a frum life filled with davening, learning, Shabbos and mitzvos while slowly allowing them to become simply the things that come next on the schedule.

Nothing is necessarily wrong. But something can still be missing.

The question of Elul is therefore not only:

What did I do wrong this year?

There is another question:

Where am I going?

One looks backward and asks what needs fixing. The other looks forward and asks what we want our lives to become. We need both.

Because once the year gets moving, life becomes loud again. The emails will come. The bills will be due. The carpools will start. The appointments will fill the calendar. There will always be something that needs our attention right now.

So Elul gives us the opportunity to think about the things that deserve our attention even when they aren’t demanding it.

What kind of spouse do I want to be? What do I want my children to remember about growing up in my home? What place do I actually want Torah and davening to occupy in my day? What kind of relationship do I want with Hashem? What kind of person am I trying to become?

Not every answer needs to become a dramatic resolution. Sometimes the most important thing is simply remembering the direction.

The work will still matter. The bills will still need to be paid. The rides will still need to happen. The meals will still need to be made. Life may even remain repetitive.

But repetition feels very different when you know what it is building.

The feet will keep moving.

Before they do, the head needs to decide where they are going.

Based on Likkutei Torah, Derushim L’Rosh Hashanah, ד״ה והיה ביום ההוא יתקע בשופר גדול.