Greetings and blessings to all for a
beautiful New Year and holiday season. The
Jewish New Year is not just a time of
commemoration of the passing seasons, but a
call to remember who we are, where we are and
what is asked of us. It is a time to
intensify study and mitzvot, to heighten our
awareness of what is possible in our
lives..
The main mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah
is to hear
the call of the Shofar, which sounds again
and again throughout the service calling us
home to Gd, to ourselves, and to the cries
of the world.
The Shofar is medicine. Our
hardened hearts
are the illness. This sound is intended to
pierce through our heart of hardness, to make
it soft, open, able to be broken in half, so
we can truly hear and to respond not only to
the calls of
the world but to the calls of our own particular
destiny.
Throughout the holiday
season, over and over again we ask for
forgiveness. We are instructed to say to
everyone we know, "If I have done anything to
harm you, please forgive me."
It is
beautiful and important to ask for
forgiveness, but unless we become able to
truly hear the cry of the Shofar, and of each
other other, and to respond, our hearts
harden, we become numb and inevitably committ
the same errors repeatedly.
Today a great
spiritual hunger is surfacing as many seek
comfort, support, and meaning in a world that
has spun out of control. Our lives are
filled with noise, static and confusing
communication of all kinds. But in the midst
of this chaos,comes the sound of
the Shofar, clearing confusion, and
teaching us to listen beneath the
surface to
to the true request that
is constantly being made of us. Not only to
listen, but to answer the call.
The
Shofar sounds different to
each person, and sounds different year after
year. One year we hear it as a fierce
reminder, another year it is a soft, pleading
sob. As we change, so does the way the sound
enters our heart. The important part is to
know that just as the sound is different for
each person, so is the call made upon each
life. Each must learn to listen for their
own sound of the Shofar and become
courageous enough to answer their particular
call in their own way.
A life without a call
is a life that meanders and can seem to lack
meaning. Once we learn to listen however,
then the exquisite sound of the Shofar keeps
reminding us and keeps sounding in our lives
all year long.
May we all be blessed with a
year of love, healing and wisdom
