Chabad.org App Reminds People to Keep Resolutions

A little nagging’s not so bad – if it’s electronic. That’s the idea behind a new email-alert service a group of Crown Heights rabbis devised to prod people to keep their Jewish New Year’s resolutions.

“[It] can nag you once a day. It can nag you weekly, monthly, but it rests on Shabbat,” Rabbi Motti Seligson, 30, said of the Resolution Solution, which he created with a team of tech-savvy rabbis.

More than 1,000 users from Arkansas to Mozambique have signed up on www.Chabad.org/Resolution since it hit cyberspace last week, posting New Year’s promises on a public message board that lets them choose how often they want the bossy reminders to hit their inboxes.

Making resolutions is one of the traditions of Rosh Hashanah, or Jewish New Year, which started at sundown Sunday and ends Tuesday night. Rosh Hashanah ushers in the High Holy Days, a 10-day period of repentance that ends with Yom Kippur.

The alert system takes aim at a “3,000-year-old Jewish problem with resolutions,” said Rabbi Seligson of Chabad.org, a website about Jewish culture operated by the Chabad Lubavitch Media Center.

“It is hard to keep your resolution and go all the way,” he said. “Most people do it for a week or two.”

Daniel Nottes, 28, signed up last week, asking for frequent reminders about his resolution to use his gym membership four times a week.

“It’s like a virtual Jewish mother,” the Upper West Side lawyer said. “Jewish mothers aren’t annoying. They are persistent. They keep you in check.”

The emails show up just when he gets off work — and so far, so good: “I’m going to the gym,” he said.

Other fitness-focused resolutions on the message board include promises to stop smoking, lose 50 pounds and “drink less wine in the coming years.”

Many people pledged to pray more or devote themselves to religious study. Some took a stab at remedying personal failings: one anonymous poster pledged “to work on my anger and lessen the amount I yell,” another promised “to not use bad language” and a third resolved “to call mom more often.”

Rinat Badash, 24, joined in with a New Year’s resolution “to be assertive and to stay awesome.”

But she opted not to have email reminders sent to her.

“It’s like having a nagging Jewish mother — and I don’t need that,” said the Marine Park teacher. “I don’t need a reminder to stay awesome.”