Rosh Hashana
Rosh
Hashana presents a puzzle. It is a celebration of a New Year and a fearsome day
of the judgment at the same time. How are we to understand this contradiction?
Rosh Hashana is a paradox. On the one hand it is a celebration -- the sweetness
of a new year, along with festive clothes and special foods. On the other hand
it is a day of judgment: "Who will live and who will die?"
There are more puzzling elements to Rosh Hashana. The holiday includes the first and second of the Ten Days of Repentance, culminating in Yom Kippur. And yet, the prayers of Rosh Hashana mention nothing about repentance. There is no confession of our sins, no regret about the past, no recriminations. So, is Rosh Hashana a day of repentance, or not?
We know it's a day of judgment. And if we are being judged for our behavior this past year, then we'd expect to see at least a few repentance days coming before the day of judgment, not after.
And why are we judged on the first day of the new year? Wouldn't it be more fitting to be judged at the end of the previous year? Some way to celebrate a Happy New Year -- go on trial!
All these inconsistencies demand further investigation.
SPIRITUAL
ENERGY
Every holiday in the Jewish year has a certain spiritual energy
and potential which is responsible for creating the holiday. In essence, every
year we travel through the cycle of holidays and come again to that same point
in time, and to that same event which happened on this date with its spirit and
potential intact.
For instance, on Passover we come around to the time of freedom from bondage. All aspects of God's revelation and redemption are available to us again each year, as they were when the Jewish people left Egypt. Other holidays follow the same pattern.
So, what about Rosh Hashana? What historical event happened on this day? Are we commemorating anything? What's the energy inherent on the first day of Tishrei?
In
the prayers of Rosh Hashana we get a hint:
This is the day of the beginning
of Your creation, a memorial of the first day ... today is the conception of the
world.
It seems that the world was created on Rosh Hashana!
Tradition tells us that man was created on this day, and this is where our calendar begins. We date back to Day One of creation of man.
This is the day of the beginning of creation, like R' Eliezer said: "In Tishrei the world was created." (Talmud, Rosh Hashana 27a)
There is a dispute about this in the Talmud. Was the world created on Rosh Hashana, or on Passover? The Tosfot resolves the issue:
Rabbi Yehoshua says differently from Rabbi Eliezer that the world was created in Nissan (the month of Passover) but these and these are words of the living God. And we should assume that in Tishrei, the thought to create came up in [God's] mind, but it was not brought into creation until Nissan. (Tosfot Rosh Hashana 27a)
What could this mean? Does God have a mind? Can something come up in His mind and take six months to "gel"? To plan out and execute? God is above time, and the concept of time wasn't even created until the fourth day of creation along with the sun and the moon! This cannot be a literal description of events. What then is the lesson being taught through this resolution of the creation-day dispute?
God obviously didn't sit and mull over His grand plan to create the world from Rosh Hashana till Passover. Rather, God created the concept of the world on this day, the blueprint, the plan, the idea. This day is a day meant for conception anew, a re-creation, a "pregnancy" of a plan, not for the execution. This is the inherent energy which we can tap into every year.
Every Rosh Hashana we enter into that primal event of pre-creation once again, that time before all time began. There is a planning anew of the world -- in essence. We don't exist in the past at all -- there is no past on this day; the world has not been created yet!
We can begin to fathom the intensity of this idea when we return to one of our earlier questions. Why is there no repentance on this day? No regret, no mention of sins? Because there is no past to regret and repent for. We are recreated today from scratch, with an empty slate.
A
NEW PLAN OF ACTION
The prayers on Rosh Hashana focus instead on God's
reign, on God's renewal of His kingdom for another year. God judges His world
and the creatures within it on this day, determining their worthiness of existence
and their status and circumstances for the new year.
Since this judgment is not based on our past, for we are "new," pastless beings on this day, what then is it based on? How does God decide whether we are signed in the Book of Life?
We
are expected on this day to conceive of a plan, to engage in a vision of the future,
to have ambition and desire to take an active part in the Almighty's supreme kingdom
in the coming year. And this is what the judgment is based on.
To the extent
that we can remove ourselves from our past limitations, and reach for the stars,
see ourselves as new beings involved in a new and ambitious plan for reaching
our ultimate destiny, as individuals and as a nation, to that extent we have chosen
life and have, in fact, signed ourselves into the Book of Life for the coming
year.
On
Rosh Hashana, the Day of Judgment, we don't spend the day pleading for our lives
to be spared. Why not?
Jewish tradition teaches us that Rosh Hashana
is the Day of Judgment. The fact that we need tradition to inform us of this fact
is already indicative of the uniqueness of this holiday. In the case of all other
Jewish holidays, the Torah itself clearly explains the background and purpose
of each one, sometimes at length, and in some cases several times. In the case
of Rosh Hashana, only the merest hint is offered by the Torah as to the intent
and purpose of the holiday.
In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, there shall be a rest day for you, a remembrance with shofar blasts, a holy convocation. (Leviticus 23:23)
It
is only thanks to the rabbis and the Oral Tradition of Torah that we know that
this verse serves as a cryptic reference to a day of judgment. Just how precisely
to unravel the hint to judgment contained here is the theme of this essay. For
the moment, let us focus on the anomaly of the treatment of Rosh Hashana by the
Torah. Why didn't the Torah explain the significance and meaning of this holiday
to us, as it did in the case of all the others?.
Rabeinu Bechai, one of the
students of Nachmanides, and a famous commentator of the Torah in his own right,
writes:
Here, as well on the first day of the month, which is the beginning of the ten that end on Yom Kippur (i.e. the first day of the seventh month, Tishrei, which is Rosh Hashana and the first day of the Ten Days of Repentance) there is a hidden secret that the Torah must conceal just as it does in the case of other areas of the Torah that are concealed because of their lofty content. For this reason the world of souls is never explicitly referred to in the Torah but merely hinted at, for the Torah was given to the mass of Jews, not merely the select few, and the true nature of that world even many among the select few fail to grasp, never mind the masses. For just as the fish who lives in water cannot grasp the idea of fire which is its opposite, so it is with the world of souls which is a world of pure intellect, cannot be grasped by a materialistic being as long as he is still mired in materialism.
Thus, Rosh Hashana has to do with something so way above man's everyday level of consciousness, that it cannot be explicitly explained, only hinted at. Explaining it to us would necessitate a foray into the world of the soul, a world to which we are total strangers to the same degree as fish, whose habitat is water, are strangers to fire. Explaining Rosh Hashana to mortals is comparable to explaining fire to a fish!
Why?
THE
WORLD OF THE SOUL
Surely we mortals comprehend fully the concept of being
summoned to judgment. We are all fully familiar with courts and judgments and
obeying the law. We all comprehend that the commandments of the Torah are the
commandments of God, laws that must be obeyed. Obedience to them must be rewarded,
disobedience must be deterred and punished; and, to do both properly and efficiently,
periodic evaluations of performance are required. What does any of this have to
do with possessing detailed knowledge of the world of the soul?
Obviously, according to Rabbeinu Bechai this is not the type of judgment that Rosh Hashana represents. The secret seems to be that Rosh Hashana has something to do with the judgment of souls, an entirely different process. But how can this be? We know from our prayers that the judgment of Rosh Hashana concerns the events of this world as the prayers of the day imply:
Regarding
countries, it is said on this day which is destined for the sword and which for
peace, which for hunger and which for abundance; and creatures are recalled on
it to remember them for life and death. (Musaf prayer)
On Rosh Hashana will
be inscribed and on Yom Kipur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth
and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at
his predestined time and who before his time ... (Nesane Tokef prayer)
What does all this have to do with the world of souls?
Rabbi
Kruspedoi taught in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: "Three books are opened on
Rosh Hashana, one is the book of the totally wicked, one is the book of the totally
righteous, and the third is the book of the intermediate. The totally righteous
are written and sealed immediately for life into their book, the totally wicked
are written and sealed immediately for death into their book, whereas the intermediate
are held suspended from Rosh Hashana till Yom Kippur. If they merit it they are
then written up for life, if not, they are written up for death." (Rosh Hashana,
16b)
Tosfot asks on the spot: If the third book is the book of the intermediate,
that would indicate that anyone who is even a little beyond that point is referred
to in this context as being totally righteous or toally wicked. First of all why
should this be so? How can either the totally righteous or the totally wicked
be described as constituting the next step from the intermediate? But second,
this is simply not true according to our own experience -- righteous people often
die and the wicked often prosper.
If it were possible to understand totally righteous and totally wicked according to their simple meanings the question wouldn't bother us; for all we know anyone totally unblemished would live forever, but as they are contrasted with the intermediate, they are obviously not to be taken literally, and if so the statement of Rabbi Yochanan cannot be correct -- experience teaches us otherwise.
Tosfot answers that the life and death the Talmud refers to is not life and death in this world, but life and death in the World to Come.
NEW
QUESTIONS
But this answer raises new questions. What does the Tosfot mean?
The writers of Tosfot certainly knew the passages of the prayers as well as we
do, and the universal opinion of the rabbis that the judgment of Rosh Hashana
concerns life in this world. Moreover, their thesis does not make sense even quite
apart from the fact that it is contradicted by other information. It is impossible
to judge a person's status with regard to the World to Come till he dies. As long
as he is alive he has free will and is liable to change. How can it be determined
on Rosh Hashana what this person will be when he reaches the World to Come, righteous
or wicked?
The secret of how Rosh Hashana is now beginning to emerge.
The judgment of Rosh Hashana is truly a judgment about this world. But the heavenly court arrives at its decision based on a person's status in the next. It all happens following the rule stated by another passage of the Talmud quoted by Tosefos:
Whoever
has more merits than transgressions they give him the same horrible life as someone
who deliberately burns the entire Torah, and whoever has more transgressions than
merit they give him the same good life as they would give someone who kept the
entire Torah to the very last letter. (Talmud, Kidushin 39b)
The heavenly
court is never interested in this world per se. It's aim is always focused on
the soul rather than the body. A soul that is destined to live in the World to
Come must arrive there as totally righteous. Only the totally righteous are written
into the Book of Life. But what if the soul is not in such a pure state?
CLEANSING
OF THE SOUL
On Rosh Hashana a decision is taken to cleanse it. The soul
is cleansed by suffering imposed on the body to which it is also sensitive. On
the other hand, a soul that is not destined at this point to live in the World
to Come has no need to suffer. On the contrary it must be rewarded for its merits
in this world because it is in the Book of Death in which only the totally wicked
are written. Thus it must arrive in the next world in a state where all its merits
have been compensated and it is only left with its iniquities.
While a final determination regarding the next world cannot be made on Rosh Hashana; in fact, it cannot be made till a person actually dies as he has the free will ability to change as long as he is alive, a working definition of the direction in which he is headed can be made. It is this working definition about the status of the soul at this point in a person's life that determines what sort of year should be provided for him in this world.
If the soul's direction is positive, it needs to be helped on its way by providing it with a life of trials and tribulations so that it is able to work out its spiritual problems and attain spiritual purity. If the soul' s direction is negative, there is no point to putting it through trials and tribulations; on the contrary, it needs to be provided with a life full of comfort and luxury so that it will have no just claim to a share in the spiritual world to which it does not belong.
In either case, the person retains his or her free will and can change direction in the course of the coming year no matter what kind of life is provided for him or her on Rosh Hashana. Nevertheless, it is obviously much easier to reach your destination when the events of your life are pushing you in a certain direction. The judgment of Rosh Hashana involves a determination of the direction in which a human being is headed and an aligning of Divine Providence to help him along his way.
In fact, Rosh Hashana could more accurately be described as a day of "investment review" based on evaluation of performance to date.
ANNIVERSARY
OF ADAM'S CREATION
Rosh Hashana is the anniversary of the day Adam was
created. A lot of divine energy and planning was invested in man. The entire universe,
its myriad galaxies and stars, all its intricate life forms, whether spiritual
or physical, was created especially to provide a suitable environment for his
development and spiritual growth, and ultimately for his reward. Great investments
require periodic review and evaluation. When the anniversary of the birth of man
reoccurs annually, God sits with His heavenly court and sets the investment policy
for the coming year.
This explains an apparent anomaly concerning the prayers we recite on Rosh Hashana.
These prayers were authored for us to recite by the members of the Great Assembly who surely understood what the day is about. If we are truly facing a life or death judgment why is there so little mention of this fact in the Shemoneh Esrei we recite on Rosh Hashana. We should theoretically spend the day pleading for our lives to be spared. Instead we mainly talk about the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. What does this have to do with the judgment we are facing?
The answer is very clear if we understand it as an evaluation of the return on God's investment. The best way to prepare for such a review is to demonstrate a clear understanding of what the investment was for and show the investor that we are totally dedicated and focused on reaching His goals. The greater competence and dedication we are able to demonstrate, the more likely the Great Investor, God, is likely to reinvest in us, and the greater will be the size of His reinvestment.
Let us try to bring the concept of establishing the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth. The way most of us understand the idea of serving God, there is no need for God to be our King at all, He might just as well be our employer. After all, He gave us the commandments to perform; if we do a good job, He will reward us, if we perform poorly we might be downgraded or fired altogether. If this is the paradigm of serving God, there is no need to regard God as a King at all.
The truth is that we do not work for God. We represent Him. We are the embodiment of His Divine Glory. God created us in His image. When someone regards us, he is supposed to obtain some idea of what God Himself is like! We embody his character traits. When we carry out the commandments set forth by the Torah, we demonstrate the quality of divine interests and divine actions. We are not employees who only represent their company in the context of their assigned job. We are courtiers in the King's palace, and the prestige and glory of our Monarch is dependant on our very beings!
We are finally ready to uncover the hint to the essence of Rosh Hashana in the verse in the Torah, "a remembrance with shofar blasts."
The creation of man is described in the Book of Genesis (2:7):
And the Lord God formed the man of dust from the earth, and He blew into him the soul of life; and man became a living being.
The shofar is the sound of man's breath as it is blown into a ram's horn. Man is the sound of God's breath as it was blown into the dust of the earth. On the anniversary of man's formation God wants to see the results of His blast. He tells man to blow back the breath of God and listens carefully to the sound. It should still be reminiscent of God's own breath.
To the extent that it is, God is recognizable in the universe, and His glory shines forth.
Rosh Hashanah is the opportunity to renew the dream of what life can be -- to
come home to our true path, to fulfill our potential.
Q & A: WHAT
IS THE ESSENCE OF ROSH HASHANAH?
One of our worst mistakes is that we
give up on ourselves. We accept our limitations as status quo and cease believing
in our own potential for greatness. Over time, optimism becomes "realism,"
and we settle into depression and depressed expectation. We give up on ever being
really happy. We accept that we'll never really communicate with our spouses and
children. Parents tell their kids: "When you're my age you'll understand."
What they mean is: "When you're my age you'll have given up just as I have."
We stop trying to grow and start preparing to die. Rosh Hashanah is the opportunity
to renew the dream of what life can be -- to come home to our true path, to fulfill
our potential.
On Rosh Hashanah we make an accounting of our year and we pray repeatedly for life. How do we justify another year of life? What did we do with the last year? Has it been a time of growth, of insight and of caring for others? Did we make use of our time, or did we squander it? Has it truly been a year of life, or merely one of mindless activity? This is the time for evaluation and rededication. The Jewish process is called "teshuva," coming home --recognizing our mistakes between ourselves and God as well as between ourselves and our fellow man and then correcting them.
We begin by regretting past mistakes. What went awry with our good intentions last year? How did we hurt the people we love? Regret isn't guilt. Regret is a realistic appreciation of loss; guilt on the other hand is self-destruction. Guilt is indulgent self-abuse and avoidance of responsibility; regret is the pained consciousness of lost opportunities. When money falls from my pocket, I regret the loss, sew up the pocket and go on with life. I mustn't waste time with guilt. Mistakes are too costly to repeat. Our mistakes alienate us from ourselves and estrange us from others. The regret of past mistakes gives substance to new intentions.
For
the Jew, it is with great joy that we come home to ourselves, to the people we
love, to our Father in Heaven. Rosh Hashanah is a time of joy. On Rosh Hashanah
we all have a chance to come home!
Q & A: ROSH HASHANAH IS THE
DAY OF JUDGMENT. WHY DOES GOD JUDGE US?
Life is serious business. Every
action has its consequence. If God didn't judge us then there would be no justice
in the world. From our perspective, if we feel that we are being judged, we are
more likely to treat life seriously. We will then hopefully correct our mistakes
in dealing with other people, ourselves and with the Almighty.
Judgment
implies caring. If you don't care, you don't judge. We look at God's judging us
as the ultimate expression of His love and caring about how we live our lives.
Q & A: WHY DO WE BLOW THE SHOFAR ON ROSH HASHANAH?
The Shofar is
probably the original new year's noise maker. Unfortunately, when you ask many
kids "What is a shofar?" they think it is someone who drives a limousine...
Rav Saadia Gaon, in the tenth century, gave the following symbolic meanings for
the sounding of the shofar:
Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of the creation of the world and, therefore, the anniversary of God being Sovereign over the world. It is customary to sound trumpets before a newly crowned king and proclaim his sovereignty throughout the realm.
Rosh Hashanah is the first of the Ten Days of Awe (the days between and including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur). The shofar is sounded to call people to repentance.
To remind us of our standing at Mt. Sinai where the shofar was blown -- so that we should respond in the same manner as our ancestors to accept the Torah upon ourselves.
To remind us of the words of the Prophets who were compared to the sounding of the shofar in calling people to repentance.
To remind us of the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash (The Holy Temple) in Jerusalem (our enemies blasted trumpets as they attacked). Therefore, we should pray for its rebuilding.
To
remind us of the Akeidah, the Binding of Isaac, who offered his life to God. Likewise,
we are to dedicate our lives to God. (A ram was offered instead of Isaac and that
is why we use only a ram's horn to make the shofar blasts.)
To feel fear and
trembling, to humble ourselves before the Creator.
Q
& A: HOW CAN I MAKE MY EXPERIENCE IN SYNAGOGUE MORE MEANINGFUL?
Five
minutes of prayer said with understanding, feeling, and a personal connection
to the words and their significance means far more than five hours of lip service.
"Unfulfilled expectations lead to self-imposed frustrations." Therefore, don't expect to be "moved" by every prayer or to follow along with the entire service.
Read through the prayers and slowly think about what you're saying and don't be overly concerned about being behind. Look, the worst that could happen is that you will fall behind, but don't worry, they'll probably announce the pages so you can always catch up.
If a particular sentence or paragraph touches you -- linger a while. Say the words over and over to yourself -- softly, but audible to your ears. Allow those words to touch you. Feel them. And, if you're really brave, then close your eyes and say those words over and over for a couple of moments.
You're not that proficient in Hebrew? Don't worry, God understands whatever language you speak. And, like a loving parent, God can discern what's in your heart even if you can't quite express it the way you would like.
As you sit in your synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, you are joined by millions of Jews in synagogues all other the world. You are a Jew and you are making a powerful statement about your commitment to Judaism and the Jewish people!
Torah
Portion of the Week
Because the first day of Rosh Hashana occurs on Shabbat,
the special Torah reading supersedes the usual weekly portion (which is thus pushed
forward to next Shabbat). On the first day of Rosh Hashana we read Genesis 21
regarding the Almighty answering Sarah's prayers for a child. (The Almighty responded
to Sarah on Rosh Hashana.) The second day of Rosh Hashana we read Genesis 22 regarding
Aikedas Yitzchak, the test of Avraham to prepare his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice;
this, too, took place on Rosh Hashana.
Rosh Hashanah occurs on the first and second days of Tishri. In Hebrew, Rosh Hashanah means, literally, "head of the year" or "first of the year." Rosh Hashanah is commonly known as the Jewish New Year. This name is somewhat deceptive, because there is little similarity between Rosh Hashanah, one of the holiest days of the year, and the American midnight drinking bash and daytime football game.
There is, however, one important similarity between the Jewish New Year and the American one: Many Americans use the New Year as a time to plan a better life, making "resolutions." Likewise, the Jewish New Year is a time to begin introspection, looking back at the mistakes of the past year and planning the changes to make in the new year. More on this concept at Days of Awe.
The name "Rosh Hashanah" is not used in the Bible to discuss this holiday. The Bible refers to the holiday as Yom Ha-Zikkaron (the day of remembrance) or Yom Teruah (the day of the sounding of the shofar). The holiday is instituted in Leviticus 23:24-25.
The shofar is a ram's horn which is blown somewhat like a trumpet. One of the most important observances of this holiday is hearing the sounding of the shofar in the synagogue. A total of 100 notes are sounded each day. There are four different types of shofar notes: tekiah, a 3 second sustained note; shevarim, three 1-second notes rising in tone, teruah, a series of short, staccato notes extending over a period of about 3 seconds; and tekiah gedolah (literally, "big tekiah"), the final blast in a set, which lasts (I think) 10 seconds minimum. Click the shofar above to hear an approximation of the sound of Tekiah Shevarim-Teruah Tekiah. The Bible gives no specific reason for this practice. One that has been suggested is that the shofar's sound is a call to repentance. The shofar is not blown if the holiday falls on Shabbat.
No work is permitted on Rosh Hashanah. Much of the day is spent in synagogue, where the regular daily liturgy is somewhat expanded. In fact, there is a special prayerbook called the machzor used for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur because of the extensive liturgical changes for these holidays.
Another popular observance during this holiday is eating apples dipped in honey, a symbol of our wish for a sweet new year. This was the second Jewish religious practice I was ever exposed to (the first one: lighting Chanukkah candles), and I highly recommend it. It's yummy. We also dip bread in honey (instead of the usual practice of sprinkling salt on it) at this time of year for the same reason.
Another popular practice of the holiday is Tashlikh ("casting off"). We walk to flowing water, such as a creek or river, on the afternoon of the first day and empty our pockets into the river, symbolically casting off our sins. This practice is not discussed in the Bible, but is a long-standing custom.
Religious services for the holiday focus on the concept of G-d's sovereignty.
The common greeting at this time is L'shanah tovah ("for a good year"). This is a shortening of "L'shanah tovah tikatev v'taihatem" (or to women, "L'shanah tovah tikatevi v'taihatemi"), which means "May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year." More on that concept at Days of Awe.
You may notice that the Bible speaks of Rosh Hashanah as occurring on the first day of the seventh month. The first month of the Jewish calendar is Nissan, occurring in March and April. Why, then, does the Jewish "new year" occur in Tishri, the seventh month?
Judaism has several different "new years," a concept which may seem strange at first, but think of it this way: the American "new year" starts in January, but the new "school year" starts in September, and many businesses have "fiscal years" that start at various times of the year. In Judaism, Nissan 1 is the new year for the purpose of counting the reign of kings and months on the calendar, Elul 1 (in August) is the new year for the tithing of animals, Shevat 15 (in February) is the new year for trees (determining when first fruits can be eaten, etc.), and Tishri 1 (Rosh Hashanah) is the new year for years (when we increase the year number. Sabbatical and Jubilee years begin at this time).