The High Holiday season-- the time of the year including the most important Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur-- is beginning. It starts with Rosh Hashanah, the new year. Rosh Hashanah is a time to reflect on the previous year and commit to being a better person.

This year, my Rabbi has been focusing on the theme of kindness. He is encouraging us to spend the next year trying to be kinder, more thoughtful people. This is not a particularly revolutionary message, but it is an important one. After all, one of the most famous and well-respected Jewish teachers in history, Hillel, once said, “What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man. That is the whole Torah; the rest is just commentary.” There is, of course, more to leading a good life, Jewish or gentile, but kindness and respect are among the essentials.

Unfortunately, real life isn’t as easy as just deciding to be kind. We encounter irritating situations and people all of the time, we live in a fast-paced world with constant demands, and we often have perspectives so different from those around us that what seems fine to one person is deeply hurtful to another.

And women, particularly women in competitive, male-dominated fields, face an additional challenge: balancing kindness and assertiveness, strength and compassion. Being a woman in a competitive field means constantly proving your strength. Any form of kindness can be seen as weakness, which can mean being completely written off by your peers and superiors. This is not to say that men never face similar problems, but women come from an automatic disadvantage, because we are assumed to be weak.

I want to be a compassionate person. I want to be a force for good in this world. But I don’t want to be taken advantage of or be too meek. It’s so easy to veer into one extreme and forget the other.

I’m not entirely sure what balancing these qualities looks like, but it’s my goal out in this new year.

Shana Tova, everyone. Welcome to 5777!