klahr@csd2.UUCP (09/10/85)
ROSH HASHANA- some reflections
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When the sun sets on Sunday, September 15, the new Jewish Year 5746
will begin. Rosh Hashana is called the Day of Judgement, and is the start of
the Ten Days of Repentance that culminate in Yom Kippur.
Curiously, for a time when each person, as well as the world as a
whole, is judged for the actions done in the past year, Rosh Hashana may seem
a bit "laid back" and relaxed. Unlike Yom Kippur, when we fast, we don't
practice any physical deprivation on Rosh Hashana. To the contrary, we have
festive meals. Unlike the prayers of Yom Kippur, the Rosh Hashana prayers do
not include any confessions of sins we have committed against G-d and people,
nor do they stress pleadings for forgiveness. Rather, they emphasize G-d's
sovereignty over the world, His creation of the world and His relationship with
its people, and that on Rosh Hashana He reviews our actions and judges us
accordingly. Why is this?
To answer this question, perhaps some etymology is in order. Rosh
Hashana is usually translated as the beginning if the year, but literally it
means the head of the year. Just as the head serves as the integrating center
for the body, receiving all our sensations and directing our body's actions, so
the beginning of the Jewish Year is a time for taking stock of our thoughts and
behavior, as well as serving as a model for how we should conduct ourselves
throughout the year. While Yom Kippur, a day of fasting and abstinence, is
necessary to focus us onto what our aims and goals should be, it cannot be
representative of how we should live throughout the year. Judaism is unique
in the extent to which it emphasizes that the physical and the spiritual are
NOT separable. G-d is not only served by prayer. Whether public or private,
every apparently mundane aspect of our lives can be suffused with holyness. We
regard Rosh Hashana as a festive time because through it we affirm our belief
in how, by following G-d's commands, the Torah, we can take the material
elements of the world and use them to make us better and more sensitive people.
Repentance- not only does the word sound hopelessly stuffy and
antiquated, but it also lacks the connotation of the Hebrew word it attempts to
translate, Teshuva. Teshuva literally means a return, a cycling back to a
point of origin. What we are trying to achieve is not to do "penance" and
start life anew, it is to return to our past, to our sources- to ourselves.
After a year in which we have allowed the ordinary ruckus of everyday life to
distance us from our ideals and values, to estrange us from both G-d and fellow
man, we now attempt to come back to where we came from. We try to improve our
behavior and remove the barriers we have interposed between our true selves and
G-d, between each other.
Returning home consists of two steps. The obvious step is the act of
returning. The more subtle step is figuring out where home actually is. On
Rosh Hashana, the emphasis is on renewing our recognition of the sources we
have strayed from. Both with prayer and the blowing of the Shofar (Ram's
Horn), we remind ourselves that G-d is the Creator and Ruler of the world, that
He created man (which our Rabbis tell us occurred on Rosh Hashana), and that He
gave the Torah to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. We remember that G-d is
judging us, recall major events of G-d's relationship with the Jews in
particular and mankind in general throughout history, and pray for a time of
universal peace when "all will do Your will with a complete heart". The cry of
the Shofar expresses what we cannot fully articulate with mere words- our
yearning to return to G-d, to awake from our year-long slumber and resolve to
follow His commandments, and to improve our thoughts, words, and deeds in
relation to ourselves, each other, and G-d. If we can sincerely feel this
resolve, G-d will forgive us and help us return home, so that the traditional
Rosh Hashana greeting will be applied to us: May you be enscribed for a good
year.
Tichle' shanah v'kilelosehah Let a year and its curses end,
Tachel shanah u'virchosehah May a year and its blessings begin.
Wishing everyone a good Rosh Hashanah and a good year, "may you be immediately
enscribed and ensealed for a good year and a good life".
Pinchus Klahr {allegra, ihnp4} cmcl2!csd2!klahr