Starting about sundown on Monday, Jews around the world celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, for 5766.
My congregation, Temple Beth Or in Everett, conducted an evening service and a morning service the next day. We heard the sound of the shofar, a ram’s horn that serves as a moral alarm clock, calling us to change.
We ate round challot, egg breads, whose shape reminds us of the potential wholeness of our world, which generally feels quite fragmented. We dipped apples into honey, wishing each other “l’shana tova,” to a good year, a year of sweetness (honey) and fruitfulness (apples), that is, one in which we produce more good than evil.
We begin a season of reflection and celebration, leading to Yom Kippur on Thursday, and Sukkot, starting on Oct. 18. Our temple’s Sukkot celebration includes a talk by visiting scholar Hal Lewis, from Spertus College in Chicago, about “Good God- Raw Deal: Jewish Responses to Suffering,” on Oct. 21 and 22.
Jews consider our life task, as a people, “tikkun olam,” literally “repair of the world,” which means, in the words of Rabbi Harold Schulweis, “transforming our world from how it is to how it should be.”
Rosh Hashanah is a time for personal tikkun, or repair, when we seek to transform ourselves, away from what we are and toward what we should be.
We call this process of transformation “teshuvah,” or “turning.” Rosh Hashanah begins a 10-day period, concluding with Yom Kippur, which we call the “10 Days of Teshuvah.” This is our prime time for focusing on reshaping our lives, on writing ourselves into the “Book of Life,” the book reserved for those who are righteous, and for those who seek to become righteous.
Yet the time for teshuvah, according to an ancient Jewish teaching, is “one day before one’s death” – in other words, every day.
We do not assume that we are, fundamentally, “sinners.” While we want to change what needs changing, we also celebrate all the good that we have done, are doing and will do. Much in our lives calls not for changing, but for reinforcing; not for regretting, but for rejoicing.
One description of the process of teshuvah (from Maimonides) lists four steps. First, we conduct an “accounting of the soul,” an annual review of what we have done right, and what we have done wrong. At this stage, some of what we might have originally considered to be our mistake may turn out to be a wrong committed by others, such as in the case when we are victims of abuse. At the end of our introspective accounting, we should have a list of wrongs.
We should also have a substantial amount of unresolved guilt. Part of the goal of teshuvah is resolving our guilt. We do not forget what we did wrong, and, sadly, we often cannot undo all of the harmful consequences of our wrong. Yet, if we finish the process, we can put our guilt “in its place,” enabling us to overcome the paralyzing effects of avoiding what we should be doing because we feel guilty about what we did in the past.
Second, we confess those wrongs: to ourselves, to God, and, in general categories, to our congregation, when, on Yom Kippur, we all recite the same list of categories of sins.
A common Hebrew term for “sin,” either of commission or of omission, is “chayt,” which might translate as “missing the mark.” We assume that our intentions were good, although we know that may not have been true, at the time we committed our sins.
The third step is an attempt to undo as much of the consequences of the sin as is reasonable. We apologize to those whom we have significantly hurt. That often includes others, often includes ourselves and always includes God. We also offer and give compensation, when appropriate and feasible. Finally, we take the transformative step of committing to “do it right” when we confront a similar situation.
In effect, we make two turns in teshuvah, one away from our wrong steps and one toward the right path. We need not “do teshuvah” alone. We always have God’s help. She wants us to succeed. We can also seek help from God’s partners, from other people, at all steps.
Rosh Hashanah is an amazing opportunity for transformation, made possible by a willingness to change for the better, and by an understanding that however difficult the process of teshuvah, repentance, may feel today, it will be even more difficult tomorrow.
May all Jews and all people have a good year throughout 5766.
Rabbi Harley Karz-Wagman is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Or in Everett, Snohomish County’s only synagogue.
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