ROSH HASHANAH 5770:
We're All Babylonians
Now!
As we
approach the Jewish New Year this weekend (and really a whole month of holidays
from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur ten days
later, shifting the following weekend to the week-long harvest holiday
of Sukkot, culminating in Simchat
Torah, when in synagogue ritual we roll from the end of Deuteronomy back to the
beginning of Genesis ---a literary
New Year in itself), we may comfort ourselves by thinking, "We celebrate
because this is always how the Jewish people recognized the changing of the
year. It is ancient and
immutable," when actually the celebration of a fall new year was an innovation,
adopted after a critical event in Jewish history.
In
the Torah, a holiday of the "blowing of the shofar" followed by a "day of atonement," is commanded, but
not as a new year festival. "The first of months" in the Torah is Nissan, the month when
Passover occurs, with all the newness that springtime represents. It was only after the destruction of
the First Temple (586 BCE) and the subsequent exile in Babylonia, where the New
Year is celebrated in the fall (ask any of your Assyrian Christian friends),
that Jews began celebrating the "Yom Teruah"/The Day of Shofar Blowing as a
"new year" as well.
To
place the new year at the time of harvest, the time of when leaves are falling
off the trees, long before the rejuvenation of the spring (even in the
middle-east, the signs of spring do not appear for another four-five months)
puts a different emphasis on our spiritual preparation and practice during this
time, something that Jews and Christians can share, and can be meaningful to
children as well as adults.
The
three themes that are named in the Rosh Hashanah service are Malchuyot , the power of God; Zichronot , God's remembrance of the people; and Shofarot, the proclamation of God's word. Within the synagogue liturgy these themes are presented in
"high liturgical language," accompanied by magnificent music that we only hear
at this time of year. It's
edifying and esthetically beautiful, but the spiritual meaning for the
individual and especially children
can be lost or obscured. How,
then, can we transfer and
translate these concepts into our own language, and use them in our family
understanding of Rosh Hashanah?
As
individuals or as a family, we really need a quiet time to consider what Rosh
Hashanah means to us, and what the traditional precepts can add to our
spiritual lives: Malchuyot is a humbling realization that, no matter how old we are,
what our job is, what our prestige is in life, we are not in charge of the
world: A power
or process greater than human power and understanding is above us and around us
and we are small by comparison. We are God's partners in
repairing the world, but definitely junior
partners.
We can tell our children, while
we munch on a round challah or
admire the firm roundness of a
fall apple before we cut it, that at Rosh Hashanah we remember that we live in
a world that changes, yet remains the same in its cycles. We know there is a creator, and we can
call on the Creator when we are glad or unhappy or confused. It is the power that renews us, revives
us and asks us to be the best person we can be: Something we can all understand and accept.
Zichronot: Remembering. As God remembers us, WE remember us. This is the quiet time to pull out the family photos, scrap
books and journals from the last
year, to remember for ourselves and our children where we were a year ago and where we are now; what we
accomplished in the last year, and
what we dare to hope to accomplish in the year to come. This is also the time to remember those
our society forgets: the homeless,
the hungry, the disabled, the ill.
What can we do for them NOW:
Send a contribution of money?
Volunteer an evening?
Donate some cans of food. And
what can we do in the year to come:
How will we continue to remember?
Shofarot: PROCLAMATION: How do we speak for God, stand up
for what is good, true and beautiful, at Rosh Hashanah and all year round? How do the Jews among us talk about
Judaism and Jewish tradition and values?
How do the Catholics among us talk about Catholic belief, the sacraments
and social teaching? With pride,
understanding and love, or with resentment and impatience?
Moreover,
when those of you who have married some one of another faith community, and, as
an intermarried person, encounter
members of your own family who
stereotype or sputter hateful statements about the faith community of your spouse, you must heed the call and become the Shofar that
proclaims not only the universal truths in your own heritage, but in others as
well. How can you share those
truths with your children? You can go on line and order your own ram's
horn to blow (and toy ones for children), but being a real-life interfaith
shofar takes much more effort, and is a greater mitzvah.
The
affirmation and introspection we ask for ourselves at Rosh Hashanah does not
end at sundown on Sunday. Like
Christians who observe Lent or Muslims who are finishing their Ramadan fast
this weekend, this season of the New Year is only a "dry run" for how we should
act all year round: Full
participants in our spiritual lives, not just observers of the tradition.