As Rabbi Noah Weinberg explains, it may be that the biggest individual fence against wasting your life is what we call in Hebrew Cheshbon Hanefesh -- Spiritual Accounting, a regular system to evaluate how well you perform and to take stock of where you stand.

If someone would ask us: Are you eating to live, or living to eat? Of course we would tell him that we are eating to live. Now if someone would ask us: What are you living for? We won't always have a good answer.

Unfortunately the majority of humanity is very busy doing and accomplishing, but they don't know for what. However, everyone has instances in life where something wakes them up and they're confronted by the question: "What has my life been all about up till now?" This is the process a Jew goes through on Rosh Hashana: "What am I living for?" and "What am I doing to attain my goals?"

Now, once the question has been asked, there are many ways to face it.

Rabbi Aaron Feldman suggests that when we are faced with a question that implies a possible change in our behavior, we usually have one ultimate response. "That's how I am." I am what I am.

This answer, in effect, is a way of saying that we are not responsible for our actions. We are saying that we cannot change ourselves because that is how we were constructed. In other words, we do not have free choice to be otherwise.

According to Rabbi Feldman, "That's how I am" is such a popular response because, in fact, most of us do not believe that we have free choice. This is one of the characteristics of modern man.

Rosh Hashana is a time when we can begin ridding ourselves of this attitude. This is the day, the first of Tishrei, which corresponds to that day when the first human was created. We, as well, are able in a sense to recreate ourselves on this day.

Man's creation was unique among all beings created before him. He was the first being created with free choice. Only he could decide his fate. Only he could choose between good and evil. Only he could rise above his nature.

Man was given this unique quality because God wanted him to choose out of his free will to recognize God and to adhere to His commandments. In fact, this is the purpose for which God brought all of creation into being. To do this, man had to have free choice.

This is why the Sages say, metaphorically, that on the first Rosh Hashana, God was recognized for the first time as "King." Similarly, in our prayers on every Rosh Hashana, we address God as our "King." The word King -"Melech" in Hebrew- has a special connotation. A king is a sovereign who is accepted willingly by his citizens, unlike a ruler – "Moshel", in Hebrew - who imposes himself on his subjects against their will. Since a "being with free will to choose" now existed, God could now be recognized for the first time as "King," willingly accepted by mankind.

The first day of man's creation is also the day of his judgment. Because man has free will, he is responsible for his actions. A responsible person has to answer for his actions. Just as on that first Rosh Hashana man was given life, similarly on that day every year God judges man as to whether he deserves to live for another year.

There is a natural fear when we imagine "God and judgment." Yet the Sages tell us explicitly that you're not allowed to confess your sins on Rosh Hashanah. According to Rabbi Yitzchok Berkowitz we don't need to get scared and think of transgression, even though it's the Day of Judgement. Keep the confidence that what you need for a successful Rosh Hashanah is a basic commitment to the right values.

The way to do this is to ask the question: "What am I living for?" It's not necessarily difficult to answer, but the hard part is you have to mean it. Are you really interested in changing -- or is this just lip service?

On Rosh Hashana we speak about making God our King. This means giving the Almighty a vote of confidence that life is beautiful even if it involves struggle. That's because the reality of God is that He will often bring us struggle in order that we should grow.

Every person will, at some point in their life, take an accounting. You don't have to be old to ask these questions. But the older you are, the harder these questions are to face... and the more frequently they rise to consciousness.

Rosh Hashana trains us to think through and face these questions "now", as opposed to "later". To take the pain of "now," rather than the anguish of "later." "Now" is the opportunity to decide where you want to go, rather than being led where the world wants you to go.

Choosing to subordinate our lives to the service of God is not an easy task; and it is not possible unless we bring home to ourselves that we have free choice to act as we want. For without the capacity to choose, how can we decide how to direct our lives?

The holiday of Rosh Hashana is a time when it is vital that we regain our belief in our free choice and the knowledge that there is nothing stopping us from changing. The next time we feel like saying, "That's how I am," we should ask ourselves instead, "What would I prefer to be?"

On the other hand, our day-to-day actions need to be reviewed constantly. All the little steps are critically important. We can't just dream and fantasize about our goals and forget to do the steps to accomplish them, or we'll never get there. Great people started at the bottom too, and worked their way up. And we should do the same.

We have to take responsibility for our lives because no one else will do it for us. We are all created in God's image and have the potential for greatness. The most important thing is to ask ourselves and clarify "What am I living for?"

In his classic book of Jewish ethics, "The Path of the Just", Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato says: "The foundation of good action and the root of true service of God is for a person to know his goal in this world." This is our motto in Judaism. If a person has clarity on where he's going in life, he'll get there. This is the common denominator of "free will" available to every human being.

However, the beginning of any change is the commitment itself to change. To accept the sometimes painful but rewarding decision that if there is something that is in our hands, it is our ability to exercise our free choice, for good, for better, and that includes our personal life, our family life, our Jewish life and our congregational life.

Rosh Hashanah is all about change; and as everything changes, so we too should keep open our option to change.

May this Rosh Hashanah – the beginning of this year- become "Rosh Hashinui", the beginning of a change, and may this year and its changes bring to all of us and our families health, and joy, sustenance and fulfillment, sweetness and peace.

Shanah Tovah!