This coming Friday evening we will mark the beginning of the Jewish holiday season known as the Days of Awe. Rosh Hashanah, observed this year from Sept. 11 through sunset on Sunday, Sept. 13, is the Jewish New Year. For religious purposes, Jews use a lunar calendar, and the appearance of a new moon marks the start of a new month. Lunar months are either 29 or 30 days. Hence, a 12-month lunar year is 11 days shorter than the solar year of 365 ¼ days, so that the dates of the Jewish holidays on the civil calendar will fluctuate from year to year. This Rosh Hashanah, we will be ushering in the year 5787, according to the traditional Jewish reckoning, which was likely influenced by what was known about the beginnings of civilization and recorded history in the Middle East.
Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of the world, and its theme is the acclamation of God’s sovereignty over the universe. It also inaugurates a season of judgment, when God determines the destiny of every creature for the coming year. The traditional image that occurs in the liturgy depicts God writing down each person’s fate on Rosh Hashanah but not sealing the ledgers until Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, 10 days later. These days of penitence give us an opportunity to “avert the evil decree” through prayer, repentance and deeds of charity and lovingkindness. Jewish tradition instructs us regarding the requirements of repentance – remorse over the sins we have committed, a sincere determination not to repeat the offending behavior, and, where another person has been hurt or damaged by our words or actions, an apology and the making of restitution.
The most striking feature of worship on Rosh Hashanah is the sounding of the shofar, the ram’s horn, a musical instrument harking back to ancient times, whose long, intermediate and staccato blasts are a salute to God, a remembrance of the Revelation at Sinai and a harbinger of future redemption, but preeminently a call to awaken from our slumbers, examine our ways and return to God and to our better selves.
For all of its seriousness and solemnity, Rosh Hashanah is a day of celebration and joy. We have faith in our ability to change and to embark on a new beginning and in God’s willingness to forgive. We send greeting cards to friends and family, expressing the wish that they will be inscribed and sealed for a good year to come, and gather with them for festive meals that feature sweet foods, harbingers of a sweet future. Each family has its culinary traditions for Rosh Hashanah, but it is most common to begin the meal with slices of apple dipped in honey and to have honey cake for dessert.
Yom Kippur, by contrast, is a day of fasting and deprivation. Both the prayers recited individually and those read or chanted by the congregation together include lengthy confessions of the sins we have committed over the past year, concluding with the plea, “for all of these, God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.” The concluding service of the day, as the shadows of evening fall, is called Ne’ilah – “closing” (alluding to the closing of the gates of prayer at the end of the day’s worship). The melodies and chants for the Days of Awe are distinct from those heard during the rest of the Jewish year, but the music of Ne’ilah is particularly both haunting and inspiring. The end of Yom Kippur following the setting of the sun is marked by one lengthy blast on the shofar. In many congregations, it is customary to have a communal break-the-fast meal before departing from the synagogue.
I have been observing Yom Kippur as a Jewish adult for some 70 years. I find now that the rigors of the day leave me with the feeling of having been cleansed and with a determination to bring about the changes in my attitudes and behaviors that I deem necessary and desirable.
Will I be able to bring that desire to fruition? We all tend to be creatures of habit and resistant to making changes. However, Jewish tradition affirms that change, though difficult and challenging, is possible and that we can turn back from sinful, immoral, idle and self-destructive actions and strive to live in harmony with God, with ourselves and with our fellow persons. So much in the circumstances of our lives is determined by heredity, by environment, by the influences of parents and family during our growing years and by the impact of others’ actions, but there remains a realm of moral agency (sometimes more expansive and sometimes more limited) where we are free to act. This is neatly expressed by a saying found in the Talmud: “everything is in the hands of heaven except for the fear of heaven.”
Rabbi Barry Marks is rabbi emeritus of Temple Israel in Springfield.
