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September 14, 2001/Elul 26, 5761, Vol. 54, No. 1
Celebrating a God of renewal, compassion
Torah Study
RABBI SHLOMO RISKIN
Nitzavim/Deuteronomy: 29:9-30:20
What is the real significance of the Jewish New Year?
We must examine the main sources of the Bible, Talmud and prayer book to discover the answer.
Rosh Hashana is defined by the Bible as "the day of the Shofar sound," and the Mishnah records that the shofar is to be sounded after each of the three unique blessings of the new year worship service: Malchuyot (Kingships), Zichronot (Remembrances), and Shofarot (Ram's Horns).
Obviously, the shofar is related to each of these three motifs by which our liturgy defines the special quality of our new year festival: on the anniversary of the day of the creation of the world we first declare God as our King; we then affirm the importance of history and the unique function of the nation of Israel and every individual, as God remembers and takes note of all our thoughts and deeds; and finally we acclaim our commitment to the Torah revealed by God which is the prescription through which a more perfect society will eventually be formed.
As you can readily see, the traditional liturgy takes advantage of the New Year to remind every Jew that his or her obligation to the world is to attempt to bring it closer to perfection by means of the God-given Torah which is a birthright.
There is, however, one strange feature of the liturgy which deserves comment. The blowing of the shofar is a shrill and piercing sound. It consists of sounding a sharp, straight blast (tekiyah) followed by three or nine staccato, broken segments (shevarim - t'ruah) and concluded with another firm, searing and soaring short (tekiyah).
These shofar sounds are sounded in the very midst of our poetical prayers. Does such an intrusion not constitute an interruption, a foreign and jarring element which can only serve to upset the serious congregant's concentration and introspection?
More than three decades ago, when my Lincoln Square Synagogue was housed in a first-floor apartment, a distraught young mother asked me to pray for her baby daughter who was dying of leukemia. Of course I agreed, but I asked the mother to pray as well. Then she explained that she did not know how to pray.
I took her into the living room/sanctuary, pushed aside the curtains of the holy ark revealing the Torah scrolls, and placed a Hebrew-English prayer book in her hands opened to the page of the Shema. After leaving her alone for about 25 minutes, she returned to my office - her cheeks wet with tears - and thankfully returned the prayer book.
"But it didn't work," she said as she was leaving. "I still couldn't pray."
"But what did you do for close to 30 minutes?" I asked.
"I wept," she replied.
I gently explained that the most profound prayer was a mother's tears.
The Talmud describes the short staccato sounds of the shofar as sighing (shevarim) and sobbing (teruah); we communicate with God through poetry and prose as well as through tears. After all, God gave us a recipe for the right way to live and we have often neglected to accept the divine advice. And the world - and often our personal life - is in a mess.
We pray with sobs and we also pray with exultant shouts. We have a King who forgives - and so we sound the straight shofar shout of joy; we have a God who remembers and loves - and so we joyously shout again.
In the final analysis, the God of the Jewish New Year is a God of love and compassion who yearly provides new opportunities for renewal and eventual redemption.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is the spiritual leader of Efrat, Israel.
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