2009/5770
Rosh Hashanah, 5770
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur often run together in our minds into the
big event known collectively as the High Holidays. It can be hard to
articulate the difference between the two: on Rosh Hashanah we start to
say we're sorry, and on Yom Kippur we really try to mean it? Rosh
Hashanah marks the beginning of the New Year, so Yom Kippur gives us a
chance to clean the slate?
There is truth to both of these explanations,
but Jewish tradition offers us a clearer distinction. Anthropologists
tell us that sacred drama is at the core of religious behavior: our
rituals begin as a kind of high theater, through which we act out our
understanding of the deep forces of the cosmos, personified as gods who
are celebrated for their command of life and death.
Whether we chose to believe it as literal,
transcendent truth, or potent myth, this is also where the pageantry of
the High Holidays comes from. On Rosh Hashanah, the anniversary of the
creation of the world, God, the creator and sustainer of all, ascends
the Holy Throne, to receive the praise and adulation of all creatures.
And on Yom Kippur, these creatures beseech God for the gift of
prosperity, and the mercy of remaining among the living, seeking to
merit beneficence by purifying themselves of sin.
As a Reconstructionist congregation, seeking
to blend a respect for Jewish tradition with a mandate to make sense of
this heritage according to our contemporary sensibilities, I doubt
there are many of us who take this story literally, and I also imagine
that not everyone is even comfortable appreciating it as myth. But,
I'd ask you to hold on to the kernel of this teaching, that somehow,
throughout the High Holidays, there is a systematic pairing of majesty
(the enthroned King), with tshuva (the process of repentance or, more literally, "returning.")
A sense of majesty (the Hebrew term is malkhut, from the word melekh,
or "king") can mean at least two things. It can be the recognition of
forces beyond ourselves, external obligations (ranging from loving
relationships to economic circumstances) that call us to examine
ourselves so that we can reformulate the resolve we need to meet them.
And majesty can also mean an apprehension of the grandeur, the kedusha or holiness, of the world around us, which inspires us to still our minds so that we can be present and conscious.
Rosh Hashanah, then. is the recognition of
the majesty in our lives, and Yom Kippur is the response of our souls
to this awakening.
Whether you're an old hand or a new face, you
are equally welcome to Mishkan Ha'am's High Holidays services this
year. May we be blessed to experience malkhut and tshuva together.
l'shana tova,
Rabbi Benjamin Weiner
Please also feel free to contact me personally, if I can be of any assistance: ravbenweiner@gmail.com
Link to previous RABBINIC MESSAGE
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