By Ari Howorth

life, comes very much from a place of privilege. To commit to a Jewish life and adhere to all of the Mitzvot in the Torah, takes time and effort and a drastic lifestyle change. To commit to an active Movement life also requires resources. We often talk of the inclusivity of the movement (bringing it back to the unity of the Jewish People), but we must not forget the privilege that we have to be exposed to this movement at all, and that the choice to stay actively involved is not one that everybody can feasibly make. In the first scene of Danny Boyle's Trainspotting (which I am not going to link but highly recommend checking out), Ewan Mcgregor lists all of the different "choices" that he endures on the day to day, beginning and ending with "choose life" (just as G-d ends the covenant). Boyle is showing how hard it is to choose to simply live when there are all of the various stresses of every other choice that we have to make. The idea of priority of choices doesn't always seem relevant when the choices are bigger lifestyle choices (life, Judaism, bigger movement involvement) but these are affected by every other choice we make. To some, the choice is made for them, and while we can try to ameliorate that for them, we must also understand the place from which they come.

All that said, this new year, think about the choices that you want to make. Consider the role that the movement should have in your life, and while I implore you to dedicate what you can to it, I understand and support that you may not be able to.

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