How do the Days of Awe Provide Hope for Us in Today’s World?
Judaism is unique as a spiritual system in how, instead of distancing us from life’s unpleasant realities, it engages real world conditions directly: we are challenged to transform the negatives to positives and to dare to persist in dreaming of and working toward an age of Shalom.
We can appreciate the potency of the Days of Awe in likening them to the classic remedy we are often told to utilize when the computer stops working. Do a reboot! However frazzled we may have become by so many distressing conditions in the world, with the arrival of the Days of Awe, we are given an opportunity and mandate to begin anew, in welcoming a new year, 5785. In our Torah, on Rosh Hashanah, we turn to our origin stories: the birth of Isaac, the second generation of a family that would become the Jewish people. Story one, the birth of Isaac reminds us of life’s frailty, vulnerability and preciousness. The contrast is made between God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah of becoming the origin of countless generations to follow, and the reality that only in old age, with overwhelming tenuousness, would they give birth to the second generation; it gives testimony to never taking life for granted, nor assuming that with God’s help, life would go the way we want and expect.
Story two, the second day Rosh Hashanah Torah reading of the near sacrifice of Isaac, that second generation, at once accentuates not only life’s precariousness, but also the understanding that, from that time forward, life was to be considered sacred above all else. With that backdrop, we begin a new year committed to all values that treasure and sanctify life, with an understanding that we are in this world to be adherents to and protectors of life and to do all we can to make the world a safe and healthy home to life, and all who dwell on earth.
The three themes of Rosh Hashanah provide our blueprint and guideline to the principles for vouchsafing life and persevering in doing all we can to turn negatives to positives, and to bring life affirming blessings into the world whenever and wherever we can. The first, Rulership, reaffirms that no matter how much humanity fills the world with its realities of might makes right, and whoever has the “ball” controls the game, the bigger reality is as in the song, He's got the whole world in His hands, that this world is God’s to give as home to life. We can make up whatever truths we want about that matter (i.e., God may just be a figment of imagination, or a concept to be debated) human interpretation of God’s existence, or not, does not matter to God, as much as what we do with our brief time in this physical realm. Judaism affirms, whatever one’s opinion on the matter, that God exists, and is present. The theme of God’s Rulership is premised on the “reality” that God is the Source and Author of Life. If anything, the mess the world is in, and arguably has been in, in varying degrees, since biblical times, is a result of treating life as if God were not a factor (except when misinterpreted by some through the ages, that God favors them and not others). Rosh Hashanah affirms that this is God’s world, and we are responsible for being God’s physical partners to reflect God’s Presence through our actions and decisions to treat Life as sacred.
The second Rosh Hashanah theme, Remembrances, is predicated on our understanding of the significance of history, not as justification for past behavior or explanation for how we got to be this way, but as lessons learned generation to generation, with focus on improvement through the ages. It has been pointed out that the problem with treating the past as “history” vs. lessons to learn, is that “his story” more often addresses the past from a narrow point of view, often justifying unjust behavior, simply because the one remembering has control of the story and can include the part of the past that serves her/his purpose. The Torah uses a different word for connecting with the past: Toldot, Generations. In recounting the stories of the Ancestors in the Torah, Toldot, we learn of the steps and missteps of the Ancestors, to learn to improve (leshaper in Hebrew [related to Shofar!]) living conditions, where possible, generation to generation. There is no sugar coating of mistakes made by previous generations. So, Remembrances is opening the book of Life and looking back on areas to address, to move us in positive directions, toward partnership with God in Tikkun Olam, repairing the world in the Rulership of God. The secular celebration of a new year is often accompanied by the mantra, out with the old and in with the new. In contrast we are mandated to study the past, the good and the bad, in moving us closer to an era of Shalom, wholeness, where everyone has a place, and each person belongs.
The third theme, Shofar Sounds, is accompanied by the sounding of the Shofar. It serves (as the sage Maimonides accentuated) to awaken us, to stir us beyond our capacity to think, and thereby rationalize and excuse humanity’s misbehavior and missteps. It is to let the Shofar penetrate our inners, beyond reasoning, and awaken our Souls to God’s call to remember why we exist and what our purpose is in this physical world, to serve God by the way we treat one another.
Regardless of conditions in the world, and especially in the aftermath of a brutal year for the Jewish people, including growing anti-Semitism, and Hamas’ pogrom on our happiest day of the year on Simchat Torah/Shemini Atzeret, we now enter a period of renewal and hope. With the Days of Awe, we reboot our lives and rededicate ourselves, as a people, and carriers of a partnership, a Covenant, to not let despair overtake us. We are to persevere with our hope and optimism that we can join with the efforts of all well-intended people of all backgrounds, to redouble our efforts to turn this world to the positive, even as we extend our support and prayers for Israel to prevail against enemies that would destroy us.
And so we thank God for the opportunity to celebrate our fall holidays, with hope and even joy. We again anticipate celebrating the holiday of Sukkot and Simchat Torah, remembering all the devastation of last year, yet celebrating hope and possibility for a better year ahead.
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David White
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707-592-4711 (c)