Fully Alive

Goodbye 2025. Hello 2026!

We close out 2025. As a friend texted me today: good riddance. A year of fires, uncertainty, chaos, and profound loss—so much so that it’s sometimes hard to remember that threaded through it all were also delight, love, depth, and connection. Living in our times asks us to hold multiple truths at once.

I think of January, with fires blazing through Los Angeles, and I also remember another truth: my family was together and safe, celebrating my mom’s decision to have a Bat Mitzvah at 70. Fear was present, nearly overtaking the moment. And yet, choosing to celebrate—to feel joy in the midst of what was hard—felt like a declaration of life itself. This is how 2025 entered us: piercing and harsh, with beauty wrapped around its arrow.

I want to say that 2026 will be different—that we are entering a season of delight. Yes, please! According to the Chinese zodiac, we move from the Year of the Snake, a time of shedding, into the Year of the Fire Horse: a year of boldness and forward motion. I’ll take it. May it be so.

And if it isn’t—if the world continues in its familiar chaos—then the question becomes not what will happen, but how will we meet it? Life is always a mix of flow and muck. The work is learning to find the flow within the muck, to stand firmly in our truth, knowing that even in difficulty, beauty remains available.

Lately, I’ve been immersed in family research, following breadcrumbs toward ancestors who perished at Auschwitz—seeking glimpses of who they were before they were taken. It’s dark work, and strangely comforting. For grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, the search itself can become an act of love.

And so I turn again to Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira—the Esh Kodesh, the Warsaw Ghetto rebbe—who taught faith in the midst of the unthinkable. On this week’s parsha, Vayechi, he writes:

“The Torah says ‘vayechi’—that he lived—even though this was in Egypt, the place of constriction… life is not dependent on place, nor on outward freedom, but on the inner bond of the soul with its Source.”

It is precisely in moments of constriction that this bond becomes visible. This is my blessing for 2026: that we remember what cannot be taken from us, that we stay rooted in something deeper than circumstance, and that from this inner vitality we continue—open-hearted, courageous, and fully alive. It is with this attitude that we may invite delight, sweetness, and connection as each unfolding moment makes it possible.

I wish you and yours the happiest new year. I hope that you feel all the joy and sweetness that life has to offer and mostly, I pray that you feel the fullness of life.

With love,

R’ Tova

p.s. Here are some New Years Eve Questions to consider asking those you love:

1.What was your personal theme song for 2025? Now… Dance it Out!

2. When were you brave? When were you kind? When were you most yourself?

3.Who in your life was really an anchor this year? Now, send them a thank you.

4.Is there a book or film that you read of watched this year that moved you? Tell your people about it.

5.Was there a place that you visited this year that resonated? Describe it.

6.What area in your life did you hit the mark (You did well at)? What area in your life did you miss the mark (that you need to work on for 2026)?

7.Tell us something that surprised you about you this year. What do you hope for more of in 2026?

8.What spirit animal matches your 2025 experience and what spirit animal are hoping to bring in for 2026?

9.If 2025 were described as a title of a book/film what would it be?

10. Describe a moment that was funny- really funny. Laugh it out. More please 2026!