This course is led by Immanuel Shalev, CEO of Aleph Beta. Much of the material is based on the teachings of Rabbi David Fohrman. You can watch the videos at Aleph Beta.
Based on the teachings of Rabbi David Fohrman. With slight amendments by Yehuda ben Aaron.
Segment 1
We have entered the month of Elul. Rosh Ha'shanah and the High Holy Days are coming. It feels so ominous. I don’t know about you - I teach Torah for a living - but each year, I dread these days. I’m dreading sitting in synagogue for hours and hours, doing my best to pay attention, but mostly spacing out. The prayers are in Hebrew, but even in the English, there’s so much poetry, it’s difficult to understand, and relate to. I feel guilty about that. Guilty that these days are supposed to be really important, and more often than not, I don’t prepare, or don’t prepare well enough that I can understand and follow everything.
Could it be that these days are so difficult to relate to because of all the guilt? Rosh HaShanah is known as the Day of Judgment; Yom Kippur as the Day of Repentance or Atonement. It’s like guilt-fest. Each year, we sit and remember about how horrible we’ve been, and we resolve never to be that way again... Except, how many of us really do, are even able to do, complete and utter repentance, walking away from our sins, never to repeat them?
I’m supposed to feel guilty for my failures. I try to do teshuvah, repentence, but really I know I’m just gonna sin again, so I feel guilty that my teshuvah isn’t real teshuvah, and that kinda makes me not wanna do teshuvah, and then I feel guilty for that, I mean, it’s just one big, bad loop.
What if I were to tell you that the words Yom HaDin, Judgment Day, never appear in the Torah?
That’s it! Cancel shul! We’re going to Disneyland!
No, not quite. The sages in the mishnah are the ones that teach us that Rosh HaShanah is Judgment Day. But what I want to suggest is that the reason why you can’t find Judgment Day in the Torah, is because judgment... isn’t the true essence of the day. And until we understand what Rosh HaShanah really is about, at its core, we’re not really ready to observe it with the right frame of mind.
Let us explore deeper what Rosh Ha'shanah is really about, and how it might help us stand before G-d, and before ourselves, not feeling the harshness and the gloom of guilt, but truly celebrating.
Segment 2
Firstly we have to deal with this problem: The words Yom HaDin, or Judgment Day in English, don’t appear anywhere in the Torah. The Rabbis in the Mishnah call this day “Judgment Day,” and that’s how we got to all the laws and the customs and the prayers about Judgment Day. But still, that should give us pause. I mean, did the rabbis just make this stuff up? Where did they get this from?
Let’s take a look at what the Rabbis themselves say about this day and see if we can pick up any clues. Here's how the Mishna describes that judgment. On Rosh HaShanah, "all the inhabitants of the earth pass before G-d", like “a flock of sheep.”
וְכָל בָּאֵי עוֹלָם יַעַבְרוּן לְפָנֶיךָ כִּבְנֵי מָרוֹן כְּבַקָּרַת רוֹעֶה
עֶדְרוֹ מַעֲבִיר צֹאנוֹ תַּחַת שִׁבְטוֹ כֵּן תַּעֲבִיר וְתִסְפֹּר
וְתִמְנֶה וְתִפְקֹד נֶפֶשׁ כָּל חָי
וְתַחְתֹּךְ קִצְבָה לְכָל בְּרִיָּה וְתִכְתֹּב אֶת גְּזַר דִּינָם
As a shepherd herds his flock,
Causing his sheep to pass beneath his staff,
So do You cause to pass, count, and record,
Visiting the souls of all living,
Decreeing the length of their days,
Inscribing their judgment.
As it says in Psalm 33:15 - הַיֹּצֵ֣ר יַ֣חַד לִבָּ֑ם הַ֝מֵּבִ֗ין אֶל־כׇּל־מַעֲשֵׂיהֶֽם
- G-d, the One who forms all of our hearts, who understands all of our actions, examines our souls, looking at us closely, at who we are and what we have done with our gifts - like a shepherd counting His sheep. So it’s exactly what we have been told. The sages are describing G-d, kinda like the eye of Sauron, lidless, always watching, seeing all the sins and misdeeds, judging us for them.
But that’s not all the sages say about Judgment Day. In fact, upon further study, we begin to see that they actually gave us a different notion of this day. It discusses what are the appropriate prayers to say on Judgment Day. Instead of telling us to be guilty and pray for mercy because: “the great lidless eye is watching, the shepherd’s gaze escapes no one, beg, beg for forgiveness!” The sages in the Talmud say something else. They suggest three basic themes of prayer.
- Praise: Malchiyot - Kingship
These are verses that describe G-d’s kingship. Imru lefanai malchiyot kedei shetamlichuni aleichem - "say before Me verses of praise so that you will crown G-d as king over yourselves". - Remember: Zichronot - Rememberance:
These verses describe fond memories that G-d has of His Holy people of Israel. Say verses of memory - Kedei sheya’aleh zichronchem lefanai l’tovah - "so that your memory should come up to Me in a good way". - Sing: Shofrot - from the shofar, the ram's horn, sound.
These verses reference the shofar. In the words of the Gemara: "Ba’meh, how will you be remembered? You will be remembered through shofar".
All told, it’s a kind of mysterious three-fold formulation of the day. These three categories of verses end up being the center of gravity around which our prayers on Rosh HaShanah revolve, but why? What does malchiyot, zichronot, and shofrot, have to do with this larger idea of Yom HaDin - a day of judgment?
Well, it seems, the prayers aren’t quite what we’d expect them to be when we consider Judgment Day. They seem to see something deeper about this day than simply weighing your deeds and confessing your crimes. Something that has to do with malchiot, zichronot and shofrot, Kingship, Memories, and the shofar. This is kinda nice, what kind of Judgment Day is it without guilt? And - if none of this is in the Torah - are they making all of this up?
Segment 3
Let’s take a look at what the Torah itself says, and see if it can give us more clarity on the essence of the day, and maybe help us see what the sages saw that made them understand Rosh HaShanah, our day of Judgment, as a day of kingship, memories, and shofar. In fact, that description does not reference the idea of a day of judgment at all, instead the Torah characterizes Rosh HaShanah with as a day of Zichron Teruah - a day to remember the sound of the shofar!
What exactly does this mean? It seems to be hopelessly ambiguous, a day of remembering the cry of the shofar. But whatever it means it certainly doesn’t seem to be saying it’s a day of judgment. I mean if you wanted to say it was a day of judgment, just come out and say on the first day of Tishrei, that’s a Yom HaDin - a day of judgment during which G-d has these scales and weighs the lives of everybody. Instead it is Yom Zichron Teruah - a day of remembrance of the cry of the shofar, as if there was some event that we are supposed to remember involving a shofar.
And, guess what? There actually was, and the Sages actually tell us exactly what event it was. Listen to the words that we say as part of our Rosh HaShanah prayers right before we actually declare the verses of shofrot - the verses during which the shofar speaks. Here’s the text: Atah nigleita ba’anan kevodecha - "You, G-d, revealed Yourself in a cloud of glory"; Al am kodshecha - "to Your holy people"; L’daber imam - "to speak with them"; Min ha’shamayim hishmatam kolecha - "from the heavens You made Your voice heard"; V’nigleita aleihem b’arpelei tohar - "and You revealed Yourself to them in thick clouds of purity". And when it happened: Gam ha’olam kulo chal mi’panecha - "the whole world trembled before Your Face"; B’higalotecha Malkeinu al Har Sinai - " when You, our King, revealed Yourself on Mount Sinai". Yes, that’s the event the Torah is talking about. Zichron Teruah - that is what we’re supposed to remember on Rosh HaShanah. It’s the memory event in which we first heard the cry of the shofar - the cry of the shofar that we all heard, way back at Sinai. If you read the text of revelation at Sinai you’ll find there was a shofar blast there. The sound of the shofar seems to be what the remembrance of this day is about.
Let’s pause here for a second. If it’s really true that on Rosh HaShanah we’re supposed to remember the revelation at Sinai, so the Torah could have just named it Yom Zichron Sinai - a day of remembering Sinai - that would have been clear enough. However, for some reason, the Torah is emphasizing the shofar blast at Sinai as a key part of the experience of revelation. Which is strange, as most of us would say that the main aspect of Sinai is the Torah. Yet, Rosh HaShanah comes along and says, Yom Zichron Teruah. Which is actually saying that the way to remember Sinai, is when we
blow the shofar Yom Zichron Teruah, in essence, that the shofar blast is the way you should remember it forever. Why would that be? Why would the sound of the shofar at Sinai be so important?
Well, this is revealed in the very first words of that paragraph we’ve been reading, Atah Nigleita - "You revealed Yourself". Listen
to the sentence one more time. Atah nigleita ba’anan kevodecha - "You revealed Yourself in a cloud". Strange, that’s an oxymoron. How could G-d have revealed Himself in a cloud? Clouds don't reveal, they conceal. Even later on in Deuteronomy when we talk about the Sinai experience, we talk about it in terms of Choshech - "it was dark", Anan - "it was a thick cloud", Arafel - "you couldn’t see a thing". How disappointing! Here’s the greatest event in the history of our nation, a Divine Revelation shared by the community, and it’s obscured by clouds. It’s like the biggest anti-climax. So what’s going on? How come it was so cloudy? How come it was so dark?
Actually that wasn’t coincidental. There was a reason for that. Later on in Deuteronomy, again talking about the Sinai experience, Moshe picks up on the fact that you couldn’t see anything. He tells the people, "You didn’t see anything at Sinai" - U’temunah einchem ro’im - there was no vision, there was no picture, nothing to see, Zulati kol - all there was, was sound. Eventually that sound coalesced into words, and you heard the Ten Commandments, but even before that you heard the shofar: Kol shofar chazak me’od - "the voice of the shofar was very loud indeed". There weren’t any physical shofars that were blowing at Sinai, what you heard was a supernatural sound. The sound of the shofar was G-d communicating with you even before He spoke to you.
Why was sound the medium through which we encountered G-d, not sight? If you and I could choose to encounter the Almighty with any one of our senses, we probably would choose sight. It’s the most certain way of perceiving something - "I saw it with my own eyes. It's true!" - and the way we would want to encounter G-d. But sorry folks, that’s not the way it works. You can’t see G-d. Because sight is a sense by which human beings directly encounter something. When you see x you perceive x directly. Fragile human beings can’t have that direct an experience with the Almighty in this world, they won’t survive. As G-d says to Moshe later: Loh yirani adam v’chay - "A person cannot see Me and live" through that experience. But you can hear Me, you can hear My Voice. When you hear something that comes from 'x', you don’t perceive 'x' directly. You hear an vibration that emanates from 'x', but hearing is still a genuine encounter. It’s the most direct encounter I can provide for you, G-d says, you can encounter Me through My voice, and live.
Now every year we have Yom Zichron Teruah - a day of remembering the voice. When we hear the shofar it takes us back, it stirs something in our collective human souls. We know that voice. It was the moment we made contact. It’s the moment that changed everything for us. After that moment we could never be the same.
That memory of the shofar, of that first encounter with G-d, that actually is the essence of Rosh HaShanah. I’d argue that if we aren’t relating to that, if we don’t remember that core encounter, we’re missing the essence of the day. Yom HaDin, malchiyot, zichronot, and shofrot. They are all expressions of that primal encounter with G-d, of the day we first met Him and heard His voice. That’s a very different Rosh HaShanah than the one many of us are used to, but I believe it’s the one the Sages intended.
Segment 4
We have discussed about the real essence of Rosh HaShanah - the memory of our first encounter with G-d, at Sinai. Now we’ll try and examine how the sages understanding of Judgment Day relates to the essence of Rosh HaShanah and the encounter with G-d. I guarantee your Rosh HaShanah will never be the same again. But we still need to answer that gnawing question we’ve had from the beginning: What about this Day of Judgment thing that the Sages talk about, that seems totally unrelated to zichron teruah, to hearing G-d’s voice at Sinai. Where do they get that from?
I don’t think the sages got it wrong. Rosh HaShanah is judgment day, just, not in the ways we always thought. I want to suggest that the sages knew that the essence of this day is Zichron Teruah, a day where we remember that close encounter with G-d. But the sages see expressions of that essence as a day of judgment, and as a day that is worthy of declaring G-d’s kingship, a day of memories, and shofar. Let me show you what I mean.
Put yourself in the shoes of the nation at the moments leading up to Sinai. Imagine hearing G-d’s voice sounding something like a shofar, getting louder and louder. You’re trembling, hearing, and feeling, even seeing - the Torah describes this as total sensory overload, so that they were seeing His voice and not only hearing it. If you encounter G-d, what would that event have meant to you? How would you have processed it, rationally, and emotionally?
The sages give us a guide: malchiyot, zichronot and shofrot.
When we first heard G-d’s voice, in that instance... you know that there IS G-d. Not just that He exists - I think the generation that went through miracles in Egypt and the splitting of the sea, they knew He existed. But also that there is no denying that knowledge when you encounter G-d directly. At that moment, as we stood in front of G-d, we knew, He is our Lord and our Master, He is our leader, our G-d. This is how malchiyot, at least, is just one expression of The Sinai event.
The Sinai event, the revelation event, what was that really about? One way of thinking about it is that day was the day that we recognized G-d as King. It was, in a word, coronation day. The Torah itself seems to call it that. G-d proposes to Israel this grand bargain at Sinai: Atem tiheyu li mamlechet Kohanim - you’re going to be a nation/community of priests. No such thing as a community without people, and priests without a Divine Source.
// A kingdom is a community ruled by a king. A community with a leader is not a kingdom - it is just a functioning community. The kingdom flourishes or descends according to the whims of the king. A community rises or sinks according to the efforts of the leader AND the community. Fascism, and dictatorships, are just kingdoms under a different nomenclature. That is the problem I have with these appelations of king and royalty. It brings in images of gold and jewels, grand castles and produce grand egos, and embedded power structures. We have to find a new language to express this relationship with G-d. I would not call G-d a leader either - that is what Moshe Rabeinu was, He is more, much more, than a leader, or a king. Perhaps it is sufficient to say simply that He is our G-d, and we accept Him as That, Ha'Shem, creater of the Universe, Source of all existence. //
To accept G-d (as king) is really to accept Him as our Leader. // leader - as the one who guides us along His Path. Difference from the modern spirituality which is to ask G-d for help to follow "my own true path" - not realising that your only true path is His Path. // It is to make a commitment to follow His Voice, to let Him lead you, and that, of course, was the Sinai experience. We accepted the Torah from G-d, which contained the directives of the Master of the Universe. Our acceptance of these laws indicated our willingness to follow Him, as we considered those laws binding.
Every year when we remember that day, when we remember that sound on Rosh HaShanah, we crown G-d anew. It’s a day to declare anew our oath, our binding. We’re just re-enacting what that first moment of meeting.
We’ve explored malchiyot. What about zichronot, shofrot and Judgment Day? How are they expressions of the essence of Rosh HaShanah - of that Divine encounter with G-d?
Segment 5
We suggested that malchiyot, declaring G-d’s kingship, is an expression of the idea that we are remembering Sinai. When we hear G-d’s voice, we know He is All-powerful, and thus we tremble in awe as if to royalty. However, this is no mere king, it is the King of the Universe. Could it be that zichronot, shofrot and Yom HaDin are also a reaction to hearing G-d’s voice? Let’s start with zichronot - memories:
What role does memory play in Rosh HaShanah? Does that too take us back to the Sinai experience somehow? Go back to Sinai - really consider that experience. We talked about that experience from the perspective of accepting G-d’s leadership. But, as wonderful as accepting the Torah is, as wonderful as accepting G-d’s kingship is, that event can also provoke a crisis.
You see, you and I, the average, everyday Joe or Jane, who doesn’t experience revelation, live what one might call normal lives. I’m doing my own thing. I was born in San Francisco and then I moved to New York when I was a teenager... I can tell you the whole story of my life, what I’m trying to achieve, what I’m trying to do. I have my story.
But imagine what happens if Joe or Jane experiences revelation at Sinai. The Being who originated the universe is right here and you are standing around the mountain. It changes everything. Who am I anymore? I am so small in the face of the Master’s immensity. I am so overwhelmed that I am in danger of losing my entire sense of self. What does my little story matter anymore? What significance does it have that I moved to New York when I was thirteen and a half?
That is the crisis. But if malchiyot provokes that crisis it also contains the seeds of an answer to it and those seeds are known as zichronot - the notion of G-d’s memories Akashic Records. Let us explore the idea of memory. What does memory do? What exactly is its function? Well, obviously, memory helps you remember. But memory does far more than that. It’s actually the way we grasp who we are. Our identity itself, the way we understand ourselves, is formed through our memories - the reason being that memory is really about storytelling, about creating a narrative. When you remember things you’re actually connecting the dots between your various experiences, weaving them together to form a tapestry - your story. That’s actually the only way you do remember anything.
If you think about it, that means that some points in my life are going to be more important to the story than others. Let’s say I’m a big, fancy investment banker. As I’m rushing out the door to work one morning, on the way out, my seven-year-old daughter spills orange juice on the floor and I need to clean it up before I go to work. That might have been what actually happened, but in the way that I talk to myself about my life, you know it’s a rather disconnected dot, it doesn’t really contribute to the grand story of my life - at least the way I see it. However, the birth of my first child will be a well-connected dot that will contribute greatly to the grand narrative of my life.
Here, now, there’s another way to think about the crisis of malchiyot that we talked about before. If there really is a King in this universe, maybe there’s a grander story than the one I’m telling myself? Maybe the Creator has a story too?
You think your life is about your story, and from your perspective when your daughter spilled orange juice that wasn’t a big deal, it was a disconnected dot. But maybe the Creator in His story, maybe He doesn’t think so? Maybe when you stopped and you patiently cleaned up that mess and smiled to your daughter, maybe that was a really meaningful dot? Maybe everything needs to be seen as how it connects to that dot? Maybe your life in the Creater’s view is not just about what a good hedge fund manager you are but how well you balance your career and family? Because if there’s a Creator there is a grand soundtrack out there. There’s a story being told in this universe, and it’s so much larger than just you and me. There’s a grand weave of history and if you could be part of that weave in a meaningful way, if you and your whole life could be a dot that connects in some visceral, significant, redemptive way in the world, how can there be more meaning in life than that?
We speak about Rosh HaShanah as the beginning of the Yomim Noraim - "the Days of Awe". What is awe? We feel awe sometimes when we’re in the presence of something like the Grand Canyon, or when you sit on a grassy knoll looking up at the stars at night. But ask yourself, why do you feel awe? Is it just because you feel like you are small and this is big? I don’t think so. Then you would say, "Okay, fine. So I’m small, and that’s big." The reason why you feel awe when you have those experiences is because you sense that there might just be a larger story here. And if there is, I have to figure out how I fit because I want to be a part of that larger story. Sure, if you don't want to you don’t have to - you can continue telling your own story, but at what price?
For those of you who read Harry Potter, remember that moment when Harry is at Platform 9¾ and he’s trying to figure out where that train to Hogwarts is. So he’s asking around and he asks somebody, a guy by the name of Joe, and Joe doesn’t know. He says, "I’ve no idea. I’ve never seen Platform 9¾ before". Imagine you’re Joe. You have your life. You’re doing your own thing, but one day you figure out you’re part of J. K. Rowling’s novel. There’s a creator here and there’s a grand epic story. It’s Harry Potter, and he just bumped into you and asked which way the train was?
Now in that moment of revelation - revelation itself - when you see the Creator and you realize there’s a grand story here - the Sinai moment as it were - what do you want most deeply? It’s like you could petition the author and ask, "Could I have a more significant role in this story? I don’t want to just be the guy who got bumped into to ask where the train is. How can I help? How can you take my life, my personality, my gifts, my track record, what I’ve done, and weave me into that story?"
So yes, on the one hand, the Sinai moment, the encounter with the Kingship, implies Din - judgment. You’re going to look at my life. You’re going to examine who I am. You’re going to look at my record, what have I done, how I can contribute. But that is a glorious thing that judgment. It’s not judgment in order to be punitive and decide what terrible things you deserve to be subjected to in orderto be paid back for all your sins. No. This judgment is a marvelous opportunity. It’s my opportunity to be a part of the grand unfolding story.
Count me in.
// The grander the narrative, the greater the challenges, thus the greater the trials and risks.
It’s incredible to think of judgment as an expression of our original closeness with G-d. It’s a thought that gives us great hope. A place that we can leave the guilt of Rosh HaShanah behind, but also approach Yom HaDin with a certain kind of reverence and even joy... It’s an idea that promises to transform how we stand before G-d on Rosh HaShanah.
Segment 6
Over and over, we’ve asked where the sages got the idea of Yom HaDin from and how it relates to Sinai and now, I think the answer is finally clear: Rosh HaShanah is all about closeness with G-d. Zichron Teruah, the memory of Sinai, is really about waking up to the fact that G-d is our Master, our Leader, and so we spend time during Rosh HaShanah recognizing G-d’s mastery. But the memory of that encounter also fills us with awe and creates a crisis - G-d is the memory-keeper for all humanity. He is the great storyteller in the sky. How do I fit into His story?
// On this plane, it is like working for a year at a company, and doing a "performance review". Did you achieve your goals set out in the previous review? That is how we mark it here - in the world of measurement.
However, Yom HaDin is the adult version, and more like, after a year of work at your company, filing documents, landing clients, pursuing marketing campaigns - whatever it is you do at your business - you take a day out each year to look at the corporate mission statement. How do my action align with the corporate goals? It states here we’re pursuing growth, profit - did I make money this year? Great. Check. Let me keep reading... pursue growth while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Hm, how’d I do there? Well, I missed all of my kid’s soccer games. I haven’t been connected with my wife lately. I need to change something!
The adult version of Yom HaDin isn’t the court case of G-d vs. Rivka Stern, “haul in the scales of sins vs. merits!” - it’s WHO AM I? What does G-d want of me? What is my true mission statement? How do I align with that? What is G-d’s story, and what’s my story? Do they align?
Is there guilt involved? Yeah, sure. But we’re not meant to worship that guilt. It’s not a blessing to fill yourself up with self-loathing, and the more you hate yourself, the better Rosh HaShanah you will have. If you do that, you’re missing the point. It’s about the encounter with G-d. It’s about closeness. It’s about a relationship. Life is complicated. We have families, we have work, we pursue leisure. Sometimes we forget that G-d wants us to live that life with Him, not around Him.
How are our businesses a part of G-d’s story? How are our families a part of G-d’s story? The simple things that we enjoy - how can we enjoy them together with G-d, as part of our relationship with Him. That’s Yom HaDin. That’s a day of Zichron Teruah.
Take a look at that teaching again, the one that is the source for Yom HaDin:
On Rosh HaShanah all the inhabitants of the earth pass before G-d like “a flock of sheep.”
Do you see the difference now? G-d’s judgment isn’t the great lidless eye of Sauron waiting for you to fail. It’s that of the loving shepherd, who, honestly has a lotta sheep, but is taking the time to tend to each one and making each one of us feel special - making our stories matter. And remember, the Rabbis gave us a verse to support this conception of Din, it was a verse from Psalms, הַיֹּצֵ֣ר יַ֣חַד לִבָּ֑ם הַ֝מֵּבִ֗ין אֶל־כׇּל־מַעֲשֵׂיהֶֽם - "G-d, the One who forms all of their hearts, who understands all of their actions".
He’s not probing our thoughts and our hearts to find our misdeeds. Consider the difference between a judge in a courtroom, and our Judge the Creator. When a person judges you, they don’t know your full story. They don’t know your desires, your passions, your struggles in life, what led you to the moment of “failure”. They judge you on an objective scale, that frankly, isn’t fair. But The Creator? He formed our hearts, He understands the true nature of all of our deeds. He judges us subjectively, and that’s a good thing. That is the judgment of Avinu Malkeinu, our merciful and loving Father and the all-knowing, all-seeing leader.
I don’t know about you, but this conception of Yom HaDin is a very different one than the one I grew up with. So we’re going to spend some time together trying to fuse the Rosh HaShanah we experience every year with this deeper Rosh HaShanah that celebrates our encounter with G-d.
If this notion of Rosh HaShanah as commemorating Sinai feels too foreign for you and you’re looking for just a little more evidence, I recommend you check out this video of the only recorded Rosh HaShanah celebration in the Torah, and the echos of Sinai you’ll see there. I really recommend it.
Segment 7
Up until now we’ve talked about a bit of a paradigm shift from Rosh HaShanah as a scary guilt-fest into something more mature, the memories of that Divine encounter at Sinai, and how those memories produce a sort of Yom HaDin, causing us to take stock of who we are vis-a-vis G-d, and to do some re-aligning.
But that’s only part of the story. Rosh HaShanah is also, essentially, a celebration. It’s a holiday, remember? We’re feasting, we’re partying. It’s not just the solemn task of mission statements, there’s something to be enjoyed about, and I don’t want us to forget it. Remember, the fundamental idea of Rosh HaShanah is remembering that primal encounter with G-d. That relationship itself is worth celebrating. It’s coronation day, remember? We make G-d Lord over us because we’re utterly dumbfounded that the Master of all the Universe should care about us. That the Master Storyteller should weave us, US, into His story!
Consider what that means. If G-d is the great storyteller in the sky, He is shaping the future, determining, yeah, the basic things like health, security, the plight of the sick, the destitute. He is deciding whether the things we pour our lives into should succeed: our careers, our relationships, our dreams. When we pray to G-d, the memorykeeper, the storyteller, we beseech Him to shape our story for good. That’s what so much of our prayer on Rosh HaShanah is doing.
The Sages tell us how to pray on Rosh HaShanah - through malchiyot, zichronot, and shofrot. Let’s revisit those prayers one more time:
- malchiyot - say before Me verses of kingship so that you will crown G-d as king over you.
- zichronot - say verses of memory; remind me of your shared story, remind me of your merits Kedei sheya’aleh zichronchem lefanai l’tovah - "so
that your memory should come up to Me in a good way". So that G-d will incorporate us into His story. The Talmud continues - Ba’meh? - how will G-d remember us? Through the shofar!
The shofar has a double meaning for us on this day. On the one hand, we use it to remember G-d’s voice. When we’re in shul on Rosh HaShanah, and we hear the shofar being blown, we are transported back to the primal voice. Remember it, and remember all of its implications.
But the sages have us pick up the shofar, not just to remember G-d, but to have Him remember us too. G-d chose to communicate with us wordlessly, at first. So we could just hear His voice and know him. We do the same. We blow our shofar, back to G-d. It is our wordless prayer, a desire to fuse our kol with his kol, the perfect union - to join our voices with His voice, to join our story with His story. And in the end, to join our souls with His.
When the shofar blows, forget the words to your prayers. What do you want? Rosh HaShanah is a day of celebration because it celebrates our relationship with G-d. It reminds us that He cares about us enough to hear our voice, to hear our desires, our hopes, our prayers, and to weave them into His story. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s remarkable, it’s awe-inspiring.
Segment 8
We now have a transformed vision of Rosh HaShanah - a day of connection with G-d. But, how can we make these ideas practical? How can we really transform our experience to bring some of these ideas into Rosh HaShanah?
Take the opportunity to reflect on some of the ideas we’ve been speaking about. Let me ask you some questions that are difficult to answer - that only you will be able to answer.
At this point, we recommend grabbing a pen and paper, or opening a new document on your computer. Writing will give you a ritual to force yourself to articulate these thoughts honestly and clearly, and it will also give you something you can come back to.
But writing is not sufficient. Daily practice, and constant striving to hear the call of the shofar, is necessary.
We’ve thought about our story, and about G-d’s story. But spend today considering:
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What do you want your story to be?
- Your story, your family’s story, the story of the world? In other words - what will you pray for on Rosh HaShanah?
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What is your story?
Write a short paragraph encapsulating the story of this past year.- Consider: What roles are important to you:
- Parent? Husband/Wife? Son/Daughter? Boss? Student? Employee? Friend?
- Consider: What events or achievements/failures stood out for you?
- What are you proud of?
- What are you ashamed of?
- Consider: What roles are important to you:
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Who are you?
- Past
- Present
- Future
- Be specific
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What do you want your story to be?
- Pick a specific aspect of your story
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Sound of the shofar W
- When we sound the shofar, imagine how far or how close that might be to the sound of G-d's voice.
- What if you paid attention and focused on your voice, your words, and how close your voice is to G-d’s voice?
- How might you express your emotions if you were in the presence of G-d on this day?
- Through the shofar?
- What might your shofar sound like?
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Consider the encounter with G-d.
- What do you think G-d’s story is?
- And think about your life, your story - but from G-d’s perspective.
- How does your story align with His?
- Standing in front of G-d,
- What are you proud of?
- What are you ashamed of?
Write a short paragraph on your reflections.
- What do you think G-d’s story is?
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Consider
- How would your family/friends/community
- answer the question about G-d’s story?
- answer the questions about your story?
- Would a conversation like that help your relationships, or your family/community realign around a collective purpose?
- How would your family/friends/community