Los Angeles Jewish Home

A few weeks ago I heard a wise and learned rabbi say something that really made me think. How odd, he said, that Judaism gives us first Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and then Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement! First we celebrate the New Year with apples and honey, and then after just a few days, we spoil the celebration by having to repent and ask forgiveness of all we did wrong the previous year.

Wouldn't it be better to do it the other way around? Shouldn't we first seek atonement, and then — cleansed and joyful — enter into the celebration of the beginning of a fresh new year? Certainly that would make good sense; but there is another way of looking at the sequence, which adds extra power to these High Holy Days.

A major aspect of Rosh Hashanah is celebrating the creation of the world. As the prayer book says, Hayom harat olam — today is the birthday of the world. So let us on this day contemplate and celebrate the beauty and wonder of the world God has created:

• A world where we can look after our environment, so that the atmosphere is free from pollution, the air is clean, and the seas are pure.
• A world where rain is abundant in its due season; where rivers flow full but safe within their riverbanks, irrigating the land and giving human and animal alike plentiful and pure life-giving water.
• A world where people and nations pursue justice, so that every person in the world has his or her share to eat, access to drinking water, and safe shelter.
• A world where rulers and governments are wise and just, assuring a decent and good life for all their citizens.
• A world where women, and people of all sexual orientations and races and religions, are treated honorably and with equality.
• A world where immigrants seeking safety and a good life are respected and enabled to play their part in society.
• A world where war is unknown, as nations know the value of seeking peace and cooperation with their neighbors.
• A world where people have an overwhelming desire to spread happiness and to be compassionate and protective to others.

Just describing this world makes me feel so good, that I want to praise God and to say to everyone; what a wonderful world we live in! ... Wait a minute though! did that sound anything remotely like the world we know? or was it more a description of an idealized Garden of Eden? We have only to contemplate the actual world we live in, and compare it with the world we all know it should be — the world I have just described — to know what a gulf there is between the two.

I understand the creation story as God's gift of a potentially wonderful world. Just as we human beings, created in God's image, have the potential to be so much more than we often manage to be, so too the world is only a beginning of what it could be. Let us, on this Rosh Hashanah, this birthday of the world, celebrate that potentially wonderful world, with an honest recognition of all the ways it falls short.

At this season, we are not only celebrating, we also are starting the process that culminates on the day of Atonement, a process of looking at what we have achieved, both personally and collectively, and what we have failed to achieve; what we have done for the good of the world, and the negative things we have done that contribute to the world's shortcomings. Every act we do or don't do makes a difference to the health of the world we are passing to our children and grand-children.

As well as enjoying the good and the love in our lives, and wishing each other a new year filled with sweetness and good, we can hold in mind that idealized picture of the world, and know that it is within the power of every one of us to move this imperfect world an inch or two towards that beautiful potential.

Labels: Elman, For the Spirit, High Holidays, Letter from the Rabbi, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur

During the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah, I am going to be making a lot of noise here at the Jewish Home’s Grancell Village.

At lunch time every weekday, I will be visiting 18 dining rooms and blowing four powerful blasts of the shofar in each one. The residents and staff love these moments, and so do I. But they are intended to be more than mere fun.

The shofar, of course, is the herald of the New Year. It is also a call to prepare ourselves for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur — the “Days of Awe.” So what kinds of preparation are appropriate?

We are all familiar with the “outer” preparations for family gatherings at the New Year. There are the dinners we will share; the clothes we will wear in synagogue in honor of the occasion; the beautification of the synagogue itself, the flowers and the white coverings for the Torah scrolls.

But when we look beneath the surface, and let the sound of the shofar touch our hearts, we hear the call for another kind of preparation — the beautification of our selves, deep down inside. The way we do this is through personal reflection. This is the true call of the shofar, and the grandest task in Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah.

In preparation for the New Year, I find it helpful to ask ourselves a few important questions, such as:

• Of all the things I have accomplished in the past year, what pleases me most or makes me most proud? In what ways did I live up to my highest standards?


• How have I let myself down by failing to live up to these standards, or being less of a mensch than I could have been?


• Have I apologized to people I’ve wronged? Can I find the courage to do that?


• What can I do that will make my life and the lives of others a little better in the coming year?


• What can I do next year that will make me more proud of who I am?

On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we commune with a compassionate and forgiving G-d, and realize that it is also time to forgive ourselves. It is important to understand that acknowledging the ways we have fallen short does not mean we should beat ourselves up. Far from it!

Our goal should be to come out of Yom Kippur free from sense of guilt or failure, and inspired to improve ourselves in the coming year. That is why the end of Yom Kippur is such a joyful time.

At the New Year, we will share apples and honey with families and friends, and wish each other a happy and sweet new year. We will ask to be written into the Book of Life for a good year ahead.

Our preparation in the coming weeks enables us to come confidently before G-d to make that plea. May the sweetness of the New Year arise from your true striving to become the best person you can be.

I wish you and your family a Happy, Healthy, and, yes, a Sweet New Year.

Labels: Days of Awe, Elman, Feature Articles, For the Spirit, New Year, Preparation, Rosh Hashanah, Shofar, Yom Kippur