Meaningful Life Center

The simple, literal meaning of Rosh Hashana is “head of the year,” an appropriate name for the day which begins the Jewish New Year. However, this simple meaning belies the deeper, more profound content of this great two-day holiday:

· It is a holiday when we celebrate the birthday of the world[1]—the day that humanity came into existence.[2] We set out lavish feasts, dipping apples in honey, for a sweet new year.

· It is a holiday when the earth trembles as the shofar is blown, its heart-rending sounds vibrating through us. It reminds us that this is the day when G-d sits in judgment of us.

· It is a holiday when, after a month “in the field,” the King returns to His palace, and we come to Him to pay homage and to acknowledge Him as our King.

· It is a holiday when we ask G-d to remember us for life and to inscribe us in the Book of Life.

Regardless of background or affiliation, it is a holiday when people feel compelled to attend a synagogue, any synagogue, in order to fulfill some obligation, even though they are not even sure what it might be.

And yet when they get there, many inevitably get lost in the hundreds of pages of prayers, which are moving at a brisk pace in Hebrew, a language which many don’t understand well enough to truly connect to the meaning of the words.

If you feel like this on Rosh Hashana, the key thing is not to be intimidated. It’s definitely good to follow along with the cantor and to pray with the group. But even when you are able to do that, you’ll find that there are times when the cantor falls silent and you are on your own before G-d. Ultimately, this is what counts.

Rosh Hashana is the day when G-d judges you, and only you—not the cantor, not the rabbi, not anyone else—can know how to answer Him.

Rosh Hashana is called “the day of judgment.”[3] But what this mean exactly? Many people believe that it means we should be trembling before G-d. If we sinned (and who hasn’t?), G-d’s wrath and punishment are imminent.

But that kind of thinking is a religious distortion. It is a perpetuation of the negative stereotype that G-d is “angry” and “vengeful,” filled with rage and determined to “get even with us.”

Yes, Rosh Hashana is a day of judgment, but not the kind of judgment we imagine. It is the ultimate insult—and nothing more than anthropomorphic projection imposed by human beings upon G-d—to think that G-d judges us the way we judge each other.

Instead of imposing our ideas of judgment upon G-d, we should be seeking to discover how does G-d judge us. In fact, the better question might be: “Does G-d judge us?”

G-d created a universe of mortal, imperfect human beings. Does He now demand to know why we are not perfect? Clearly that can’t be it.

The truth is that the relationship between us and G-d is a partnership. Partners are accountable to each other. In the month of Elul, we do our accounting. Rosh Hashana is audit day. G-d checks the books to see how we took care of His investment in us.

Thus Rosh Hashana is actually a day of compassion—a holiday and cause for celebration. On this day G-d gives us the opportunity to face Him and report on our progress in fulfilling the Divine mission we were charged with. And we are given the power to renew our “contract” with G-d.[4]

Even if we feel uncomfortable with how little we have accomplished, there is nothing to fear. G-d’s judgment is filled with wisdom and mercy. He doesn’t look for perfection. He knows that He created imperfect human beings. He doesn’t ask, “Why weren’t you perfect?” He asks us only, “Why aren’t you as much as you could have been?”

The judgment of Rosh Hashana is thus really a great gift: G-d’s vote of confidence in us that we can live up to our greatest potential.

This is what we should keep in focus on Rosh Hashana as we open our hearts to G-d in prayer.

The two meanings of the Rosh Hashana prayer, Hayom harat olam, communicate succinctly the essence of the day: “Today the world trembles/ Today the world is born.”

We feel this message most acutely when the shofar is blown. On the anniversary of the day on which the first human being possessing a Divine soul was created, we blow the shofar which mirrors the cry of that soul—our soul.

On this day G-d breathed the soul of life into man. And now every Rosh Hashana man blows his breath—the breath that G-d breathed into him—through a ram’s horn in order to hear the sound of his soul reverberate.

The ram, a male sheep (the animal that Abraham offered in sacrifice in place of his son Isaac), is the most gentle and innocent of creatures, untainted by the aggressive nature of other animals. The ram reminds us that our soul is that part of ourselves that is gentle and innocent, untainted by the aggressive, manipulative world we inhabit. And the ram’s horn is the simplest of instruments—not carved, molded or strung like other instruments which testify to the ingenuity of man—and it produces the haunting, resonating, piercing cry that most closely approximates the pure sound of the soul.

The prayer that we recite before the blowing of the shofar further unlocks its secret: “From my narrow place, from my depths and constraints, I call to You, and You respond to me from Your expansive place.”

The pressures and challenges of life that force us into a “narrow place”—a place of difficulty, pain, frustration, regret, or sorrow—are meant to be catalysts that compel us to cry out to G-d for something more than our earthbound materialistic reality.

This prayer assures us that when we cry from our “narrow place,” the response flows from G-d’s most expansive generosity. In fact, the shape of the shofar—narrow at one end and wide at the other—mirrors this experience.

The purest cry that is emitted from the constraints of our lives reaches the purest place in heaven and opens up the channel of all blessings.

First of the Ten Days of Teshuvah which end on Yom Kippur. In these ten days we rebuild malchut (“kingship”) in all its Ten Sefirot—the ten spheres or channels of Divine energy with which G-d created the world and which permeate all forms of existence.[5]

According to Ramak, this day corresponds to malchut (“kingship” or “nobility”).[6]

“Every year there descends and radiates a new and renewed light which has never yet shone. For the light of every year withdraws to its source in the Essence of the Ein Sof on the eve of Rosh Hashana, ‘when the moon is covered.’ Afterwards, by means of the sounding of the shofar and by means of the prayers, a new and superior light is elicited… a new and more sublime light that has never yet shone since the beginning of the world. Its manifestation, however, depends on the actions of those below, and on their merits and penitence during the Ten Days of Teshuvah” (Tanya Igeret HaKodesh ch. 14).

3760 BCE: Creation of the first human beings—Adam and Eve.[7] On the same day they are created, Adam and Eve commit the first sin of history: Eating from the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil." They are then judged and banished from Eden. On that day they repent and are pardoned.

2084 (1677 BCE): Akeidat Yitzchak—Abraham's supreme test of faith, his binding of Isaac in preparation to sacrifice him as per G-d's command. On the same day, when news of this event reaches Isaac’s mother, Sarah, she passes away at age 127, and is subsequently buried in the Cave of the Machpelah in Hebron.

5683 (1923): Launch of the Daf Yomi (daily page) daily regimen of Talmud study (in which the participant studies one folio a day to complete the entire Talmud in seven years), initiated by Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin.

Rosh Hashana morning and special Musaf prayers, Torah readings and shofar blowing (except on Shabbat)

Following the prayers, we go home for lunch and make a special Kiddush, prefacing with the verse “Tiku Ba’chodosh shofar b’keseh l’yom chageinu. Ki chok l’Yisroel hu, mishpat l’Elokei Yaakov (Psalms 81:45). [On Shabbat, add references to Shabbat].

Tonight, the second eve of Rosh Hashana, before sunset, light candles, transferring the fire from a pre-existing flame. If the first day of Rosh Hashana falls on Shabbat, candle lighting must be done after nightfall.

A new garment is worn and/or a new fruit (i.e., one that has not yet been tasted this season) is placed on the table and eaten after Kiddush, in order to enable us to make the Shehecheyanu blessing.[8] [When the second eve of Rosh Hashana is on Saturday night, we add in Kiddush a special Havdalah prayer.[9]]

[1] The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 10b-11a) documents a debate between two sages: "Rabbi Eliezer says: The world was created in Tishrei... Rabbi Joshua says: The world was created in Nissan." Tosafot (Rosh Hashana 27a) reconciles between them by saying that the creation happened in two stages: First it was conceived in G-d’s mind, and then it was actualized. The Arizal explains that Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua are not debating the date of G-d's actual creation of the universe, which, after all, is a matter of historical fact. Rather, Rabbi Eliezer is discussing the physical (‘outer’) world which was created in Tishrei, and Rabbi Joshua is addressing the ‘inner’ (spiritual) dimension of creation which was created in the month of Nissan. They differ on the question of priority and emphasis: is the primary anniversary of creation the day when the universe was physically created, or is the world's true date of birth the day when it was spiritually created?

Note as well, that Nissan is known to be the ‘new year’ of the miraculous order, while Tishrei is the new year of the natural order. See also Tishrei xxx.

[4] When someone does teshuvah on Rosh Hashana G-d considers it as if he was just created anew, because through teshuvah a person is considered a new creation and G-d calls him with a new name (Midrash, cited in Avudraham Rosh Hashana).

[6] The Tzemach Tzedek however rejects this, arguing that we cannot say that Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are lower levels than the other days of teshuvah (Oh HaTorah Shabbat Shuva p. 1461).Instead, he orders the days as follows: The two day of Rosh Hashana are chochma and binah, the next seven days of teshuvah are the seven emotions (chesed through Malchut), and Yom Kippur is keter.

[7] The Talmud delineates what took place on each of the first 12 daytime hours of the day: The first hour, the human’s dust was gathered; The second hour, he was made into a form; The third hour, his limbs were formed; The fourth hour, a soul was put into him; The fifth hour, he stood on his feet; The sixth hour, he named the animals; The seventh hour, [man and woman were separated and] Eve was created; The eighth hour, they had relations and two children; The ninth hour, he was commanded not to eat from Tree of Knowledge; The 10th hour, he transgressed; The 11th hour, he was judged; The 12th hour, he was expelled ((Sanhedrin 38b)

[8] Because the two days of Rosh Hashana are regarded as "one long day", the Shehecheyanu blessing, recited on the festivals by the women when lighting the candles and by the men in Kiddush, requires an additional source of rejoicing

[9] The order of the kiddush is then called Yaknahaz, acronym of the Hebrew words for "Wine, Sanctification, Candle, Separation, Season:” Blessing on the wine, blessing on the sanctity of the day, blessing on fire, "separation" blessing marking the close of the Shabbat, and the Shehecheyanu blessing.