Rabbi's Teachings

The countdown clock to Rosh Hashanah has been ticking away. You have received registration information for the High Holidays and in a few weeks you will receive your seats. Hebrew School registration is well under way and teachers are gearing up for another fabulous year. It seems we are really underway to begin the year.

I heard recently that people conceptualize time in different ways. For some people, it is a straight line from January to December. Others imagine the year in three month increments, like a staircase, climbing down from January to December. I think of the calendar as intersecting circles with no one clear start to the year. Is it January when the secular year restarts? I think of January as solidly in the middle of the programmatic year. Is it Nisan when the Hebrew months restart and we celebrate Passover? I think of Passover as one of the final large programs we have before we start to calm down for the summer. Is it Rosh HaShanah with the changeover of the Jewish New Year? Yes and no. It is much like January where the year changes, but it still feels like we are in the middle of something. The High Holiday season starts with Rosh HaShanah, but it also flows naturally from the summer 3 weeks of mourning and 7 weeks of consolation. In that way, it is more of a culmination than a new beginning.

The truth is, we begin again in Rosh HaShanah, but we can begin again at any time during the year. The rabbis teach that the gates of tears, of honest and soulful prayer, are never locked from us. Rosh HaShanah, however, provides us a gift. The gift of being solidly marked on our calendar in a world where getting on each other's calendar feels like an Olympic sport. Every year on the 1st day of Tishrei, the 7th month of the Jewish calendar, we take the time to actively work towards beginning again. We actively work towards the culmination of all we have worked towards this year, to see if our path is serving us or working against us.

In the weeks ahead, I will continue to push and guide us as a congregation to do the inner work that is required this time of the year. I also want to hold space for the fact that this has been a difficult year for the Jewish people, and for many of you personally. As we think about beginning again, make sure it is a gentle return to yourself. Rosh HaShanah is just one of the interlocking circles in which we get to begin again. 

So do both. Don’t let Rosh HaShanah go by without at least trying to begin again. But, if you find yourself needing a spiritual reset in November, January, or April, remember you can also begin there as well. Every other day of the year, when we are fully committed to it, as long as we have breath in our lungs, is another opportunity.

Time, by Lanre Madiba 

Tick-tock-tick-tock 

Time speaks loudly when it's at its slowest. 

Time–like ocean waves break onshore, 

It erases my every footprint as I move into the future 

Leaving no traces back to the past where I took my first step. 

Time plays tricks with us 

Time always wins.