The High Holy Days: Opening our eyes to the beauty of the everyday
RabbI Tom Samuels
Rabbi Rami Shapiro tells a beautiful Hassidic story. Once, during the High Holy Days, the great mystic Rabbi Yitzchak Luria heard a Bat Kol, Hebrew for ‘Daughter of The voice… God’s voice’, telling him that for all his prayerful intensity, there was one man in a neighboring town whose capacity for prayer exceeded even his own. As soon as he could, Rabb Yitzchak traveled to that town and sought the man out.
“I have heard wondrous things regarding you,” he said to the man when he found him. “Are you a Torah scholar?”
“No,” the man said, “I have never had the opportunity to study.”
“Then you must be a master of Psalms, a devotional genius who prays with great intensity.”
“No,” the man said. “I have heard the Psalms many times, of course, but I do not know even one well enough to recite it.”
“And yet,” Rabbi Luria cried, “I was told that the quality of your prayer surpasses even my own! What did you do during the High Holy Days that would merit such praise?”
“Rabbi,” the man replied, “I am illiterate. Of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, I know only ten. When I entered the synagogue and saw everyone praying with such Kavana, intentionality, my heart broke. I couldn’t pray at all. I didn’t even know where to begin. So I cried out loud: "Ribbono Shel Olam, Master of the Universe, here are the Hebrew letters I know: aleph, beit, gimmel, daled, hay, vav, zayin, chet, tet, yud… Combine them in a manner You understand, and I hope they will be pleasing to You." And then I repeated these ten letters over and over again, trusting God to weave them into words.”
The High Holy Days have the power to enrich and to transform our lives. To open our eyes to the wonder and surprise that continually surrounds us.
This is indeed an aspirational idea. But Tachliss, brass-tacks: is it possible to make this a reality in our own lives? To derive meaning and inspiration from the upcoming High Holy Day services?
With this question in mind, here are some thoughts and ideas on themes and texts that repeat themselves throughout this time of the Jewish year. A jumping-off point for further exploration of the High Holy Days as the Festival of Life that these sacred days have the capacity to evoke:
On Forgiveness
The ancient rabbis wrote that forgiveness involves diving into the muck of our human-to-human relationships, Ben Adam l’Chavero. First and foremost, we must recognize and acknowledge, with brutal honest, how we hurt the other person. Next, we need to genuinely regret our actions, and resolve not to repeat them. However, as Rabbi Irwin Kula writes, “Maybe saints and enlightened beings forgive neatly and fully, but for the rest of us, forgiveness is rarely achievable in some fairy tale way.”
And so, during the days between Rosh HaShanna and Yom Kippur, the Aseret Yemai Teshuva, the Ten Days of Returning (see below ‘On Repentance’), we ask from our friends and family for Mechila, Hebrew for the relinquishing of a claim or a debt. We say to each other: “If there’s anything over the last year that I’ve done to hurt or offend you, I’m sorry.”
While this type of forgiveness is certainly not the heartfelt forgiveness we all yearn for, it is a good start. After all, Rabbi Kula concludes, there is no ultimate moment of forgiveness. That “we are always making mistakes and correcting, offending and asking for forgiveness… We are never permanently guilty, nor permanently clean.”
On Repentance
During the High Holy Days we aspire to a state of Teshuva. This Hebrew term has often been mistranslated as “repentance”, a feeling of contrition, regret, or even shame for past wrongs. But Teshuva literally translates as ‘returning’. That is, a return journey, a Massa, back to that state of embracing our internalized Divine selves. That there always remains hope to return to our beautiful, and yes, messy core selves.
On Awe
The High Holy Days are referred to in Hebrew as the Yamim HaNoraim, ‘the Days of Awe.’ Awe, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught, through the acknowledgement of Someone far greater than ourselves. Awe where the first word we are taught to say each morning, immediately on waking, is one of gratitude, of thanks, Modeh Ani, “Thanks… I give.” (An inversion of the normal word order, Ani Modeh, “I… give thanks.”) That is: first, I am grateful, indebted, in awe… and then, and only then, can there be the ‘I’.
On Uncertainty
One of my favorite writers, Atar Hadari, wonders and asks himself during these days: “What will my life be like one year, one decade, from now? When I turn the next page of the Book of Life, there may be a tragedy that makes everything I strive for today seem worthless. Or maybe there will be a wonderful surprise that makes my striving irrelevant. How should I live right now, given this uncertainty?” Rabbi Nachman of Bretslov answers this age-old question: Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tzar me’od, veha’ikar lo le’fached klal, ‘All the world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is not to be overwhelmed by fear.’
These words speak a great truth. All the world, life itself, is indeed a very narrow bridge and continuous uncertainty. Each new place, new change, is scary. That life is so very precarious, and so very precious. And the most important thing, Rabbi Nachman encourages us, is not to be overwhelmed by fear, but to continue on.
May this precious time, these High Holy Days,Yamim HaNoraim, Days of Awe, provide us all with the freedom to be ourselves, while at the same time the ability to embrace our differences. To overcome challenges with compassion, compromise and respect. And, may each and every one of us build a home filled with the Torah of love.
כְּתִיבָה וְחֲתִימָה טוֹבָה
Ktivah V'chatima Tova
May you be inscribed and sealed for a Healthy and Happy New Year.
B’Shalom,
Rabbi Tom
RabbI Tom Samuels
Rabbi Rami Shapiro tells a beautiful Hassidic story. Once, during the High Holy Days, the great mystic Rabbi Yitzchak Luria heard a Bat Kol, Hebrew for ‘Daughter of The voice… God’s voice’, telling him that for all his prayerful intensity, there was one man in a neighboring town whose capacity for prayer exceeded even his own. As soon as he could, Rabb Yitzchak traveled to that town and sought the man out.
“I have heard wondrous things regarding you,” he said to the man when he found him. “Are you a Torah scholar?”
“No,” the man said, “I have never had the opportunity to study.”
“Then you must be a master of Psalms, a devotional genius who prays with great intensity.”
“No,” the man said. “I have heard the Psalms many times, of course, but I do not know even one well enough to recite it.”
“And yet,” Rabbi Luria cried, “I was told that the quality of your prayer surpasses even my own! What did you do during the High Holy Days that would merit such praise?”
“Rabbi,” the man replied, “I am illiterate. Of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, I know only ten. When I entered the synagogue and saw everyone praying with such Kavana, intentionality, my heart broke. I couldn’t pray at all. I didn’t even know where to begin. So I cried out loud: "Ribbono Shel Olam, Master of the Universe, here are the Hebrew letters I know: aleph, beit, gimmel, daled, hay, vav, zayin, chet, tet, yud… Combine them in a manner You understand, and I hope they will be pleasing to You." And then I repeated these ten letters over and over again, trusting God to weave them into words.”
The High Holy Days have the power to enrich and to transform our lives. To open our eyes to the wonder and surprise that continually surrounds us.
This is indeed an aspirational idea. But Tachliss, brass-tacks: is it possible to make this a reality in our own lives? To derive meaning and inspiration from the upcoming High Holy Day services?
With this question in mind, here are some thoughts and ideas on themes and texts that repeat themselves throughout this time of the Jewish year. A jumping-off point for further exploration of the High Holy Days as the Festival of Life that these sacred days have the capacity to evoke:
On Forgiveness
The ancient rabbis wrote that forgiveness involves diving into the muck of our human-to-human relationships, Ben Adam l’Chavero. First and foremost, we must recognize and acknowledge, with brutal honest, how we hurt the other person. Next, we need to genuinely regret our actions, and resolve not to repeat them. However, as Rabbi Irwin Kula writes, “Maybe saints and enlightened beings forgive neatly and fully, but for the rest of us, forgiveness is rarely achievable in some fairy tale way.”
And so, during the days between Rosh HaShanna and Yom Kippur, the Aseret Yemai Teshuva, the Ten Days of Returning (see below ‘On Repentance’), we ask from our friends and family for Mechila, Hebrew for the relinquishing of a claim or a debt. We say to each other: “If there’s anything over the last year that I’ve done to hurt or offend you, I’m sorry.”
While this type of forgiveness is certainly not the heartfelt forgiveness we all yearn for, it is a good start. After all, Rabbi Kula concludes, there is no ultimate moment of forgiveness. That “we are always making mistakes and correcting, offending and asking for forgiveness… We are never permanently guilty, nor permanently clean.”
On Repentance
During the High Holy Days we aspire to a state of Teshuva. This Hebrew term has often been mistranslated as “repentance”, a feeling of contrition, regret, or even shame for past wrongs. But Teshuva literally translates as ‘returning’. That is, a return journey, a Massa, back to that state of embracing our internalized Divine selves. That there always remains hope to return to our beautiful, and yes, messy core selves.
On Awe
The High Holy Days are referred to in Hebrew as the Yamim HaNoraim, ‘the Days of Awe.’ Awe, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught, through the acknowledgement of Someone far greater than ourselves. Awe where the first word we are taught to say each morning, immediately on waking, is one of gratitude, of thanks, Modeh Ani, “Thanks… I give.” (An inversion of the normal word order, Ani Modeh, “I… give thanks.”) That is: first, I am grateful, indebted, in awe… and then, and only then, can there be the ‘I’.
On Uncertainty
One of my favorite writers, Atar Hadari, wonders and asks himself during these days: “What will my life be like one year, one decade, from now? When I turn the next page of the Book of Life, there may be a tragedy that makes everything I strive for today seem worthless. Or maybe there will be a wonderful surprise that makes my striving irrelevant. How should I live right now, given this uncertainty?” Rabbi Nachman of Bretslov answers this age-old question: Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tzar me’od, veha’ikar lo le’fached klal, ‘All the world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is not to be overwhelmed by fear.’
These words speak a great truth. All the world, life itself, is indeed a very narrow bridge and continuous uncertainty. Each new place, new change, is scary. That life is so very precarious, and so very precious. And the most important thing, Rabbi Nachman encourages us, is not to be overwhelmed by fear, but to continue on.
May this precious time, these High Holy Days,Yamim HaNoraim, Days of Awe, provide us all with the freedom to be ourselves, while at the same time the ability to embrace our differences. To overcome challenges with compassion, compromise and respect. And, may each and every one of us build a home filled with the Torah of love.
כְּתִיבָה וְחֲתִימָה טוֹבָה
Ktivah V'chatima Tova
May you be inscribed and sealed for a Healthy and Happy New Year.
B’Shalom,
Rabbi Tom
