September, 2009
The Interfaith Union
A Rosh Hashanah Reflection, 5770
Shofar
L'Shanah Tovah  and Gut Yuntiff (for our Yiddish speaking friends!)

May I wish you all a Blessed New Year, and May you be written in the Book of Life. I am honored to share with you a reflection from our friend and colleague Kate Kinser during this holiday time. Enjoy!

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.

tallit
We hope to see many of you in October at one of the THREE (3) Under 5's; the dates will be posted in next month's newsletter.
Eileen O'Farrell Smith
eileen@theinterfaithunion.org
312.401.8200