We Reform
Jews have radically changed our perception of the High Holy Days. We have
left hints of the original holidays in our liturgy, but our personal focus is so
different from the traditional view that this season is completely transformed
for us.
Traditionally, Rosh HaShanah is the Day of Judgment.
Our personal angels (we each have two….) have spent the entire month of Elul
gathering evidence against us, noting every time we broke one of the 613
commandments during the past year. (One tradition maintains that every
time we break a commandment, we create a "bad angel," and these angels
themselves go up to the Divine Court to testify against us by their very
presence.) Rosh HaShanah is our Day in Divine Court. Our lives, our
souls are judged; our very lives are in the balance; if our breaking the
commandments outweigh our fulfillment of commandments, we are doomed.
Traditionally, Rosh HaShanah was a day of awe, fear, and dread.
Yom Kippur was the Day of Sentencing. That which had
been judged on Rosh HaShanah was finalized on Yom Kippur. The last service
on Yom Kippur is called "Ne'ilah," the Locking, referring to the Gates
of Heaven being locked shut with our sentence determined.
Our ancestors understood that our only possible hope during
these Days of Awe was to throw ourselves on the mercy of the Divine Court, to
beg for forgiveness. That was the entire goal of Selichot (this year on
Saturday, September 20 at 7 pm), Rosh HaShanah, the Ten Days of Repentance
(between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur) and Yom Kippur. Our rabbis
emphasized that for sins between humans, forgiveness from God can only occur
after we have been forgiven by the ones we have wronged. Moreover, our
liturgy repeats again and again, "Repentance, Prayer, and Tzeddakah can
overturn the stern decree." That "stern decree" is God's sentence
against each of us personally. Little wonder that for traditional Jews
this season calls for introspection, asking forgiveness, thinking about
our own mortality, thinking about God and our covenant with the Divine, and
thinking about how we've lived our lives during the past year. Prayers
during this season are heavy-duty for traditional Jews; their lives and souls
are at stake.
This sense of immediacy tends to be foreign for most of us.
We have transformed the High Holy Days into a time to get together to re-affirm
our Jewish identity. We come to listen to the choir, to hear familiar High
Holy Day music, to hear the shofar, to see friends whom we might not have seen
since the last High Holy Days. The High Holy Days frequently become our
annual Jewish check-up: everything's in place, the building looks good, we've
paid our "spiritual dues," all is in order for our Jewish year.
Mitzvah, sin, repentance, judgment, God, and a sense of mortal immediacy have
been removed from this season by most of us.
Rabbi Julian Cook provides us with the following image:
A young man comes to a hermit and says, "I want to study with you."
The hermit asks "Why?" The young man answers, "I want to
find God." The hermit immediately grabs the young man and holds his
head underwater. The young man struggles but to no avail. After a
minute, the hermit pulls the struggling, frantic young man out of the water.
He asks the young man, "What did you want most of all when you were
underwater?" "Air!" answered the young man. The
hermit smiled. "When you want God as much as you wanted air, come
back."
We don't equate God, the High Holy Days, or our Judaism with
life, with air. It's a loss. I believe that it's possible to imbue
Reform Judaism with a traditional sense of immediacy, of importance. Our
best chance to begin to do so is at the High Holy Days, when these themes are
enunciated in the liturgy. Let's use this sacred time to think about our
lives, to think about God, to think about what mortality and immortality mean.
May 5764 be a sweet and good year for all of us.
Robyn, Kivie, Shira, Aviva, Shira, and ZZ join me in wishing all of you a fond
Shanah Tovah.
