By Valerie Brown, Community Educator. Dear Friends, I just started a new school year, pursuing of my Masters in Jewish Education, and I'm already feeling overwhelmed with all the things I want to get done this year: personally, academically, and professionally. And of course, all my human habits that get in the way of being the productive robot person who can do it all.

In the intermediary days of Sukkot, I took myself to one of my favorite places, DaySpring Retreat Center in Germantown, MD for a Quiet Day. Early in the day, I walked around outside on the beautiful grounds and by the pond, I just started speaking outloud to God. This is a chassidic form of meditative prayer called Hitbodedut, in which one speaks aloud spontaneously, offering the words of the heart.

During the Art & Visioning workshop I led on January 1, I had a few moments to sit down, breath and do my own artwork. The room was full of participants working on their own visions - drawing, writing, or searching for images that spoke to them from the collage supplies. My teachers in Rabbinical School used to tell us how inspiring it was to walk into the Beit Midrash (the house of study) and see all of the students studying together in chevruta (with a partner) translating texts, deciphering meanings, studying commentaries. The room was abuzz with students trying to figure things out, make sense of things, understand each other's opinions and reasoning for how to read a line of text as a statement or a question. The sights and sounds of the Beit Midrash inspired my teachers and reminded them why they loved learning Jewish texts so much.

New Years are opportunities to check in with yourself, to take stock and do some reflection and to also set intentions. But I am not a fan of "new years resolutions" which often come from a place of self-judgement, self-criticism and self-restraint. These resolutions often set us up to be hard on ourselves.

Rather than setting a resolution, I see each New Year - and each new month in the Jewish calendar - as good times to set intentions.