Note: A reading is attached, which you might like to read first.

September 24, 2006

 

     When we have done or said something wrong that has harmed another person, do we feel it, know it in some way, and experience discomfort because of it? Most people would answer, “Yes.” We are not raised with noticing this and so the harm that we do accumulates and we can end up feeling bad about ourselves. If, however, we were able to address what’s bothering us, we would lead a much happier life (and I don’t mean a return to daily confession—not that I ever did it personally but my mother used to joke about her experience).  Addressing each and every thing we’ve done wrong just isn’t possible in our busy lives. The busier we are, the more likely it is that we’ve done many things wrong that we’d like to put right and didn’t. The Jewish festival of Rosh ha-Shonah gives us precisely the opportunity to do this.

     Although the Rosh ha-Shonah period is 40 days, the first 30 are supposed to be spent reviewing our lives. During the last ten days, we are to be more earnest about examining our past behavior and trying to make amends. The first day is Yom Terua, or the day of blowing the Shofar, a ram’s horn; the sound of the horn is like no other and it is supposed to be a “wake-up” call—a wake up to the possibilities of a new year that can begin with a clean slate and all the benefits that this offers. This is a much deeper practice than our familiar New Year in January when we pop champagne corks at worst and make New Year resolutions at best. The Lenten season is the closest in terms of depth and solemnity to Rosh ha-Shanah.

     One of our ministers tells a story of receiving a telephone call once a year from her former college room-mate who was Jewish. When she heard her voice on the telephone, she knew it was probably Rosh ha-Shonah and she came to expect that by the end of the conversation, her friend would have apologized for not keeping in touch and would ask for forgiveness. This was her friend’s time of repentance and restitution and forgiveness.

     There is no doubt in my mind that human beings are designed to be holy, wholesome creatures, and this is when we are happiest. If we are not holy, we just want to get away from ourselves; some of us get away from ourselves by overwork, constant entertainment, involvement in melodrama, or addictions. The truth is that we get alienated from our own deep selves. Some would say that we are alienated from God; perhaps we are both! This alienation is caused from not being in alignment with our own natural goodness, our original goodness. We are designed for goodness—holiness. It’s an interesting concept, isn’t it? Rosh ha-Shanah is a good psychological insight into the human condition.

     Let’s look a little more at the history and practice of Rosh ha-Shanah and the Yamim Noraim, or Days of Awe. The commandment to observe Rosh ha-Shanah comes from two books of the Bible. We read in Leviticus:

In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns, a holy convocation... and you shall bring an offering made by fire unto the Lord. (Leviticus 23:24-5)

And in the book of Numbers, we read:

In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a holy day; you shall not work at your occupations. You shall observe it as a day when the shofar is trumpeted. (Numbers 29:1)

     Rosh ha-Shanah will always occur between September 6 and October 5. If we were orthodox Jews, we would have already been saying prayers at the synagogue for 30 days and the shofar would have sounded every day. But in more progressive Judaism, the shofar sounds 100 times on only the first two days of Rosh ha-Shanah to “wake up” the community to awareness. We would not work on these two days. When Jews greet one another, they will say, "Shana Tova," which means “A good year to you,” or “A sweet year to you.”

     On the first days, there will be the symbolic casting away of sin. In ancient times, the priest would take a goat and drive it out into the wilderness; the goat would carry away the sins of the entire community. (This is where the term “scapegoat” comes from.) Nowadays, Jews have reclaimed the symbolic ritual, not of the scapegoat, but of tossing pieces of dry bread into flowing water. Professor and Christian theologian, Harvey Cox, describes how he and his Jewish wife go to the pedestrian bridge over the Charles River and toss small pieces of bread into the water while she says a prayer of repentance for each piece of bread. He found this ritual deeply meaningful.

     In Jewish thought and Midrash accounts (that is, fictitious parable-like stories), God opens up the account books of Life and Death and ponders our deeds. Meanwhile, we do our “moral inventory” and try to make amends for our misdeeds. (This will sound familiar to people who know about the 12-step program.)  In the Jewish tradition, you can only pray to be forgiven for offenses against God. You cannot be let off the hook by God for offenses towards your neighbor. This is where it differs from Christianity; in the Christian tradition, God (or Jesus) can forgive all your sins. In Judaism, you must make amends towards your neighbor, ask for forgiveness and forgive others their misdeeds.  (The word “sin” in Judaism means “missing the mark” or not living up to your best self. There is not such thing as the Devil tempting you.) The zodiac sign of the balance scales is used as a symbol of this process.

     There is a special prayer book for the Days of Awe. When Harvey Cox attended the temple with his wife the first time, it disturbed him that the prayers of repentance were extensive and included every ill-deed you can think of. It began to dawn on him that the prayers were not for the individual but for the whole community, the Jewish community. There are also specific Bible stories that are told. One is the story of Jonah in the belly of the whale. Do you remember this strange and funny story?

     God wants Jonah to do something and, like many of the prophets, he says he is not up to the task; in this case God wants him to go and tell the pagan people of Nineveh that if they do not repent and turn away from their unwholesome behavior, they will be destroyed. (We must realize that Jews believe that a sinful life is a like a living death, so being “destroyed” can mean a morally corrupt existence, which brings misery not happiness. A primitive people, however, might interpret this as being killed.) We restore the life force by cleansing ourselves and becoming holy again. This will test your biblical literacy. I remember that Jay Leno went out onto the streets of Hollywood and asked people questions about the Bible. He asked one woman, “Which character in the Bible found himself in the belly of a whale?” The woman responded, “Oh, I know, it was Pinocchio!”

     To get back to the story of Jonah, he runs away and goes on a ship in the opposite direction. When the ship is tossed by storm after storm, the crew accuses Jonah, the newcomer, of bringing them bad luck and they throw him overboard whereupon he is swallowed up by a whale, which spits him out close to Nineveh, the very place he hoped never to see again. Jonah decides to get God off his back and goes to the people of Nineveh and is amazed that they actually listen to him and quickly repent and they are restored to goodness and happiness. (pp. 52-53, Cox) What a fabulous story; I hope you remind your children and grandchildren of this because this is a typical story of a reluctant prophet!

     If we have done our restitution and repentance and forgiveness well before Yom Kippur, which is the last day of the Days of Awe, we should be feeling hopeful that our names will be written in the Book of Life for the next year. (This judgment story is a very ancient Middle-Eastern story in ancient Egypt and Babylon.) Yom Kippur is the most solemn of all the days of the Days of Awe. Here is a little break from a Jewish Joke website:

Pronouncing the Name of the Holiday

     As we are coming up on High Holidays, it's time once again to explain the correct pronouncing of the holiday Yom Kippur. Studies have shown that how a person pronounces this is an uncanny indicator of their socioeconomic status.

     For example, a person who owns a Geo Metro or Kia car normally pronounces it "Yahm Kipp' er"

     A person who owns a Cadillac normally says "Yohm KeePoor."
     While the driver of the Mercedes Benz says "Merry Christmas!"

     Now, on the eve of Yom Kippur (or Yam Kipper, if you drive a Geo Metro), we must fast until sundown the next day. By dinner time that next day, we might be experiencing some anxiety as we say the final prayers, but fear not for we have done our work of repentance, restitution, and forgiveness and so we have high hopes of being written into the Book of Life for one more year. In the afterglow of an especially delicious dinner with all our favorite holiday foods, including apples dipped in honey, we are prepared to meet God as a holy person once more and we greet our neighbors with “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year. Shalom!” The process of  atonement has gotten us to At-one-ment with God.

     Rosh ha-Shanah began this year on September 22^nd.  We have this whole week to work on our salvation or return to holiness. And if we are successful, next Sunday evening will be the eve of Yom Kippur. One young writer on the Internet says: “Today is part of your Yamim Noraim—Days of Awe. These are days even more awesome than eternity…Use your days of awe wisely and become close to the divine. Bless and love others and make your day, well, awesome!” May we take that good advice!

Reading: from Common Prayers by Harvey Cox
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001

    An outsider participating in Jewish religious life soon learns that the way Jews affirm life is not by denying death but by facing it down. The Rosh ha-Shanah ritual takes the form of a dramatic confrontation with death and mortality. This happens in part through a carefully staged courtroom drama in which God is the judge, and everyone who comes before his presence is being tried for his or her life. In fact, to my astonishment, according to one Jewish prayer book, even the “hosts of heaven” are called to account at this time. Nobody, human or angel, escapes this sweeping indictment. In the end, life and mercy win out over death and judgment, but the Rosh ha-Shanah liturgy is designed to elicit the same cold dread anyone would feel in a human courtroom under such formidable circumstances.

     The trial actually goes on for days and ends only on Yom Kippur, a week and a half after Rosh ha-Shanah, when the verdict is finally announced. But getting to that final acquittal is not easy. Between the two come what are called yamin noraim, the Days of Awe. During these ten days the defendants must undergo the most intensive sort of self-scrutiny, reviewing a year’s deeds and misdeeds, both major and minor. They must ask forgiveness from anyone they have wronged and—when possible—make restitution. God, the tradition says, forgives only the sins we commit against him, NOT those committed against other people. The objective is to move the soul to teshuvah, “repentance.” The symbolism states that throughout the trial, God is pondering whether to inscribe our names in the Book of Life or in the Book of Death. The hope is that, having undergone such a rigorous moral inventory, the New Year can begin with a clean slate. (pp. 28-29, Cox)