Language evolves through the crucible of catastrophe.

I learned that in real time in 1991, when I was in Israel during the first Gulf War. Although the uncertain terror of Saddam Hussein’s aerial dispatches quickly yielded to inconvenient middle-of-the-night sirens, the era did feel catastrophic. For me, my peers on gap years and the entire country, we were at war. And we spent our nights in sealed rooms, protecting ourselves from chemical weapons with which the Iraqi scuds might be tipped.

Before the Gulf War, in Israeli idiomatic Hebrew, the adjective אטום (atum) was commonly appended to the noun ילד (yeled, or boy) to refer (rather insensitively) to a child with some intellectual disability. A “sealed child.”

But nine months later, that two-word phrase took on new meaning. There was a significant baby boom in Israel in the fall of 1991. Israelis, up in the middle of the night, facing potential death, chose to cherish and produce new life. And so, yeled atum came to refer to a child conceived in that sealed room.

Language transformed. But not just that. The transformation of the language codified something larger than letters, something the society had experienced and achieved — extracted hope and vitality and light from muck and darkness and fear.

The Jewish people have learned and taught that there can always be laughter and life — even and especially in the face of unspeakable horror. But to live and to laugh amidst that horror does not diminish it — rather, it renders the horror markedly less horrible. Life and laughter cannot bring back the victims of war or shuttered businesses. But they can be one of the buoys that keeps our heads above stormy waters.

Life and laughter can be one of the buoys that keeps our heads above stormy waters.

2020 has been catastrophic for many reasons. But COVID-19’s specter looms the most ominously. There is no way to look back upon this year and ameliorate it with magical thinking. The losses of life, well-being, livelihoods and the societal fabric we relied upon are incalculable and mostly irreversible.

But there also has been beauty in 2020. We all have been witness to countless examples of good people mustering strength and fortitude when circumstances conspired against them. I have been uplifted by how people I know (and people I don’t) have transformed this year’s sense of being atum, sealed, into glimpses of being free, liberated and soaring.

My own minor example of this has been how a schedule both more onerous and more flexible, combined with the urge to break out of quarantine, has gotten my rabbinic tuches on the bike more than ever before. As many people know, biking, which I just picked up about nine years ago, is a balm in my life. It brings me to the salty air of the beach. It gets my body moving, heart racing and calories burning. It bonds me with a dear set of friends, relationships burnished somewhere between Playa del Rey and Palos Verdes. It gives me a reason to get up early on a Sunday, squeeze in rides within the smallest of windows and challenge my own physical abilities.

COVID-19, for all its treachery, has been a boon to me and my biking group. We found its appeal at paces we previously never would have considered. And it allowed us to extract life, beauty and health from a miasma of despair, confinement and hovering illness.

I leave 2020 not only gratefully alive — and more grateful than ever before — but perhaps living in the healthiest body that has ever encased this soul.

Somewhere in the late summer or early fall, when I saw the miles pile up on my Strava account, I realized that pushing my previous annual high of 2,700 miles to 3,000 or even 3,600 miles was insufficient. 4,000 was in reach. A couple of extra rides to Terranea, an inaugural century and plenty of early morning rides did the trick. And with three days to go in the year, I have eclipsed 4000 miles.

I have no verbal or etymological schtick to consecrate this achievement. Nothing as profound as heder atum to yeled atum. But it feels as monumental as that did then. I don’t mind saying that I am proud of myself. And I am proud of all who have, in ways minuscule and gargantuan, forced order and goodness and life upon this landscape of loss and devastation.  There have been gems glistening all around us. The woman who lost her job and found a new one; the college or gap-year student who gained unexpected time with family; the Jews (and others!) who have found Zoom prayer across time zones and communal boundaries. The examples abound if we search for them.

So as 2020 dissolves into 2021, ask yourself how you created your own yeled atum. What beauties have you birthed, and witnessed, this year? What did you open within this extended sealed room?

Happy New Year to all those who transformed, like language, in the wake of tragedy.

When New Year’s rolls around, I, like most people, review the things I promised I would change from the previous year. Sadly, the platitudes of my resolutions could be better described as my “New Year’s Delusions.” My grandiose ideas about integrating growth and discipline into my life remain just that: ideas.

But resolutions for 2021 need not be as bleak. In fact, Judaism gives us incredible tools to transform lofty concepts into day-to-day practice. I discovered these opportunities on a mind-blowing study trip to Israel in my twenties, where I met a cadre of individuals who were actually growing spiritually and ethically. This journey toward personal mastery is called Tikkun Middot, the healing of our character traits.

Middot comes from the word “measure.” We are measured by our middot, or, alternatively, we must balance each of our character traits within limits. For example, if we are too charitable, we may neglect our own needs. If we are too compassionate in justice, murderers may go free. Parents who are overly strict with children might stifle their natural curiosity. Any given middah isn’t good or bad until it becomes extreme. When we notice one side getting off-kilter, we have to emphasize the other side of the continuum to restore equilibrium.

Judaism rejects “I am who I am” thinking, maintaining that we are all works in progress. According to Rashi, the Torah should have begun with the first laws given to the Jews in the book of Exodus, at the cusp of our liberation from Egypt. But God included the adventures of the patriarchs and matriarchs so that we can learn about their middot. Learning how to be a mensch comes before appreciating our liberation from Egypt and the gift of the Torah. The Talmud echoes this priority, stating “derech eretz kadma Torah” (common decency comes before Torah wisdom). Our brilliant laws are irrelevant if they don’t result in creating a just, compassionate society.

Don’t know where to start with middot? Try a mussar vaad, a group that systematically analyzes and applying specific character traits. Some vaadim spend a few weeks or a year on a given middah, and many are “locked in,” meaning that once the group is established, it cannot be joined by others, which allows the unit to bond without outside distraction. Text study is selected to reinforce a specific middah, and passages are exhaustively reviewed to inculcate the message. The goal is to settle for nothing less than heroic character, to emulate the patriarchs and matriarchs in the quest for ultimate human nobility.

The goal is to settle for nothing less than heroic character.

But if you don’t have time to dedicate to a vaad, what’s the next best option? Work independently on one middah at a time. The best way to figure out where to start is to contemplate which middah is the hardest to keep in balance. Once you deduce whether it’s impatience, laziness, selfishness, callousness or anger, learn to focus on the appropriate counterpart — patience, industry, generosity, compassion or composure.

I know firsthand how the repeated exhibition of negative traits can be destructive to all in our midst. For example, I used to be baited into arguments and would lose my temper, saying things I regretted. I hated feeling out of control, and I knew I had to change.

So, I worked on that middah. When I said the Modeh Ani prayer each morning, I contemplated how joy, patience, selflessness and compassion would fill my day. I trained myself to do the diametric opposite of getting irate. Rather than retorting with a snappy comeback, I would offer the gift of silence, removing myself from the altercation. I would only respond when I cooled down and regained my composure. Rather than a reaction, I took positive action.

Here are some further techniques for transformation of anger, which can also apply to other middot:

1. 1. Keep written track on a calendar of the times you lose your temper. You will have a running list where you need to focus, and you can visualize the patterns of your emotional output.
   2. Rabbi Zelig Pliskin recommends “reframing.” Imagine someone you respect entering your room; certainly, you would not act rashly in their presence.
   3. If you are prone to blowups when you are hungry, eat a granola bar before you face others.
   4. If you cuss out everyone on the highway, it works wonders to leave an extra fifteen minutes for the trip.
   5. Always have your favorite music available to soothe you in a traffic jam.

Preparing yourself for the moments that you are unbalanced is crucial to mastering a middah. If you struggle with miserliness, for example, make sure to leave the house with twenty dollars in singles in your pocket for the sole purpose of sharing. Force yourself to overtip, sponsor a Kickstarter campaign and put an extra ten bucks in the pot when splitting a check.

Can’t decide where to begin? There are multiple middot lists available. Perhaps the most famous is the “Forty-Eight Ways to Wisdom” enumerated in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers 6:5). This is the fount from which Aish HaTorah’s Rabbi Noah Weinberg (z”l) drew so much inspiration. The ethical program influencing Founding Father Benjamin Franklin is Rabbi Mendel of Satanov’s Cheshbon Hanefesh (Moral Accounting).

Tikkun Middot is hard work. Yet, it is the very task we were placed on this planet to accomplish. We all want to be experts at life, but no expert gets credentials overnight. Hillel the Sage asserts that the primary mitzvah of the Torah is to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” One way to understand this precept is that love of self is the prerequisite to loving others. When we master our shortcomings, we gain self-respect. When we gain self-respect, we are more likely to gain the respect of others. We become less self-absorbed and are able to truly radiate love.

Realizing one’s New Year’s resolutions is a multi-year effort. The key is persistence and patience. As Rabbi Yisrael Salanter once said, “I wanted to change the world, but it was too hard, so I tried to change my city. I couldn’t do that, so I tried to change my family. I finally realized I could only change myself.”

Sam Glaser is a performer, composer, producer and author in Los Angeles. He has released 25 albums of his music, and his book, “The Joy of Judaism,” is an Amazon bestseller. Visit him online at www.samglaser.com. Join Sam for a weekly uplifting hour of study every Wednesday night (7:30 pm PST, Zoom Meeting ID: 71646005392) for learners of all ages and levels of knowledge.