This week, Jewish communities around the world are celebrating the advent of a new year, 5786, according to our calendar reckoning. Rosh Hashanah, the new year observance (occurring this year from sundown on Monday, Sept. 22nd to sunset on Wednesday, Sept. 24) inaugurates a 10-day season which concludes with the solemn fast day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (from sundown on Wednesday, Oct. 1 to sunset on Thursday, Oct. 2). The two holidays are known as the Days of Awe, indicating the emotion appropriate to our sense that we are standing in judgment before God and that our fate for the coming year is being determined.
In anticipation of the new year, friends and relatives exchange greeting cards; alluding to the ledgers of human destiny in which our fortunes for the year ahead will be recorded, we express the wish that our dear ones will be inscribed in the Book of Life. Family and friends gather on Rosh Hashanah for festive meals, which begin not only with the traditional blessings over wine and bread but also with the eating slices of apple dipped in honey, symbolizing the wish for a sweet year to come.
The music for the chants and hymns on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is different from that sung during the rest of the year. The Ark curtain and table coverings as well as the robes of the rabbis and cantors are white. Synagogue services on Rosh Hashanah highlight the themes of God’s sovereignty over Creation and God’s remembrance of us both in the sense of recalling and holding us to account for our past deeds and misdeeds and in the sense of taking note of us and providing for us in our times of suffering and need. Hence, Rosh Hashanah is referred to in the liturgy as harat olam, the birthday of the world, and as Yom Hazikaron, the Day of Remembrance.
Throughout Rosh Hashanah morning services, we hear the sounding of the shofar, the ram’s horn, an ancient musical instrument whose notes are produced by vibrating one’s lips against the mouthpiece. The shofar recalls the Akedah, what for me is the deeply troubling and perplexing story of the binding of Isaac, when a ram caught in a thicket was substituted at the last moment for the lad who was to be sacrificed by his father at God’s command. Italso alludes to the Revelation of the Torah at Sinai, which was accompanied by thunder, lightning and the sound of the ram’s horn and to the teachings of the prophets, whose voice rang out as loud and clear as a shofar. Finally, in keeping with the season’s themes of judgment, penitence and forgiveness, the shofar summons us to self-reflection and self-accounting. The medieval philosopher Maimonides interpreted the shofar as a call to us to awaken from our slumbers, to take stock of ourselves, to desist from our preoccupation with what is vain and frivolous, and to pursue that which has enduring value and meaning. When we engage in cheshbon hanefesh, spiritual self-accounting, an honest assessment of our strengths and weaknesses, our merits and our shortcomings, we must strive to avoid excuses, deflection, projection or self-justification; we must forthrightly take up the challenge of seeing ourselves as we are and becoming (not perfect but) better versions of ourselves – more loving, more caring and empathetic, more trustworthy, honest and generous, more devoted to family and community. And since Jewish worship is a communal as well as an individual experience (our prayers speak of “we/us” rather than “I/me”), I understand the obligation to undertake a self-accounting to apply to the nation and the community as well, an obligation that takes on a special urgency in these troubled and tempestuous times.
On Yom Kippur our prayers focus on imploring God to take note of our fragility and vulnerability, to accept our sincere desire to repent, to temper judgment with mercy, and to forgive our transgressions. The daylong fast is meant to serve as an expression of our remorse for the sins that we have committed. Jewish theology teaches that sins that are offenses against God may be forgiven through confession and acknowledgment that we have gone astray, through fasting and determination not to repeat the offending behavior. Sins against a fellow person require additionally making an apology, offering restitution where appropriate, and asking that person for forgiveness. Yom Kippur for me has always been a difficult and emotional day (and for the 47 years when I conducted services physically exhausting) but one that has given me a sense of being cleansed and ready to enjoy the blessings of a new year.
Rabbi Barry Marks is rabbi emeritus of Temple Israel in
Springfield.
