We have arrived at the festival that the early rabbis called ‘the season of our rejoicing’ – z’man simchateinu. After laying bare our souls and immersing ourselves in the depths of Yom Kippur, the new year begins in earnest with a celebration of the bounty of life. On the surface the contrast between Yoma, ‘the day’^[1] devoted to confessing our misdeeds and seeking atonement, and Sukkot, the festival of the late harvest could not be greater.

After all, the Torah makes it clear that Sukkot is an agricultural festival, the last of the shalosh r’galim, the three pilgrim festivals mentioned in the Torah, when our ancestors would bring the fruits of their harvests to the Temple in Jerusalem. We read in Mishpatim, the first code of law in the Torah, at Exodus chapter 23:^[2]

Three times in the year shall you keep a festival to Me. / The festival of unleavened bread you shall keep; seven days shall you eat unleavened bread, as I command you, at the time appointed in the month of Aviv, for in it you came out of Egypt; and none shall appear before Me empty; / and the festival of harvest, the first fruits of your labours, which you sow in the field; and the festival of ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in your produce from the fields. / Three times in the years your males shall appear before the Eternal God.

So, Sukkot is Chag Ha-Asif, the ‘Festival of Ingathering’, celebrating the last harvest of the year. On the other hand, the seven-day festival of Sukkot and Sh’mini Atzeret, the ‘eighth day of closure’ that follows immediately after it, conclude the sacred days of the seventh month of the Jewish year, that begin on the first of that month. Sukkot intersects two cycles of three: Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot; Rosh Ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot; which makes Sukkot the sacred destination for both cycles.

The relationship between Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot is obvious, since each coincides with a crucial stage in the agricultural year: Spring, when the Earth puts out its new green shoots, early summer, when the first fruits are harvested, autumn, when the last harvest is gathered in and stored in readiness for the winter.  In ancient times, when our ancestors were an agricultural people, Sh’mini Atzeret, the ‘eighth day of closure’ following Sukkot was indeed a closure, representing an end to communal pilgrimage until Pesach in the spring.

So, what about the other cycle of three that occupies the first sixteen days of the seventh month? The relationship between the first and tenth days is obvious and came to be expressed by two designations: yamim nora’im, literally, ‘awed days’, more commonly referred to as ‘days of awe’ and aseret y’mei t’shuvah, ‘ten days of return’ to ourselves and others, inaugurated with the blasts of the shofar. But where does Sukkot fit in? At first glance, there are no clues in the Torah to the relationship of Sukkot to the ten days at the beginning of the seventh month. Indeed, the details provided in the festival calendar in the parashah, Emor at Leviticus 23 seem to reinforce the agricultural character of the festival. We read:^[3]

Mark, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the yield of your land, you shall observe the festival of the Eternal seven days, a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day. / On the first day you shall take the product of hadar citrus-trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook^[4], and you shall rejoice before the Eternal your God seven days.

But then the passage concludes:^[5]

You shall dwell in sukkot seven days; every citizen in Israel shall dwell in sukkot, / in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelites dwell in sukkot, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I the Eternal, your God.

In the wilderness, our ancestors dwelt in tents – ohalim – not sukkot. Sukkot were the booths our ancestors set up in the fields for the ingathering of the last harvest. So, what does it mean to say that in the wilderness the Eternal One made the Israelites dwell in sukkot?

At the festival of Sukkot, we remember the time when our ancestors wandering in the barren wilderness were completely dependent for their survival on the sheltering presence of the Eternal One. This sheltering presence is evoked at the end of the Book of Exodus as a cloud that rested over the oheil mo’eid, ‘tent of meeting’ – a cloud that only moved forward when the people moved on.^[6] This notion of the sheltering presence of the Eternal was later expressed in the liturgy as a sukkah. In the prayer recited in the evening at the end of the section known as the Sh’ma and its blessings, as we prepare to lie down for the night, we address God as the One ‘who spreads a sukkah of peace over us’ – ha-poreis sukkat shalom aleinu.^[7]

The onset of the night is a time when our anxieties and fears come to the fore. When I was a child, sharing a bedroom with my younger sister, we insisted that our bedroom door was kept open with a light left burning on the landing. And not only this, after saying our prayers with our Mother – the Sh’ma and a prayer asking God to bless our family – we insisted that as she left our room each night, she stopped at the doorway and said: ‘Goodnight, God bless you, see you in the morning – and I hope I do!’ Those last five words were particularly important to us; Mum had to say them for us to feel secure about closing our eyes and going to sleep.

Sukkot is not simply a time for celebrating abundance, it is also a time for acknowledging our vulnerability and our longing for a sheltering presence over us as we face in the darkness the eternal mysteries of existence.

This awareness is reflected in the rituals associated with Sukkot. And so, the instructions for building a sukkah outlined in rabbinic literature^[8] make it clear that the covering of greenery that forms the roof must have spaces, so that we can look up and see the sky above us – and at night, the stars. The word sukkah is based on the Hebrew letters Sameich Kaf Kaf meaning to weave together, and the covering of greenery we lay over the sukkah is known as s’chach – from the same root. The s’chach must not be complete. Ultimately, there is nothing that we build in this world that can protect us from the vicissitudes of life …

As we can see, Sukkot is complex, embracing contradictions. In this way, Sukkot also provides a fitting conclusion to the Days of Awe. As the trees shed their withering leaves, everything is laid bare and we, too, are called to shed our old ways. We cannot begin again until we have stripped everything back.

Sukkot is ‘the season of our rejoicing’; it is about abundance and plenty. And it is also about fragility and vulnerability as we endure the elements, the wind and the lashing rain and face the winter ahead. And so, the sukkah is a shelter, but it is open to the sky. And Sukkot, has still another dimension: the festival confronts us with eternity. Being open to the sky above is not only about exposure to the weather; it is also a reminder of eternity beyond the material elements of life. It is for this reason that when we wave the lulav and etrog, we wave them in all the directions of the compass, east, south, west and north, acknowledging the world around us – and also, upwards towards the sky and downwards towards the earth. Sukkot beckons us to inhabit eternity as we dwell in the sukkah. And so, the different dimensions of Sukkot become one: We can only really appreciate the blessings of material abundance if we acknowledge that our lives are finite and that, ultimately, we will have to let go of our lives and the gifts life brings us. And so, the early rabbis selected the biblical book of wisdom, Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, for reading at Sukkot^[9]; a book containing wisdom so profound, one passage has become very well-known. We read:^[10] ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted.’ Staying with this thought, I would like to conclude by sharing with you a Sukkot poem I wrote a few years ago:

The season turns

Shedding

Summer’s seemingly seamless mask

Leaf by leaf

Laying bare

The bark of Life

Branch-braiding-branch

Stark and raddled

Textured with

Complexities

Uncertainties

Certainties

We camouflage but cannot escape

So, we celebrate our blessings

While they last

Build fragile temporary shelters

Of light and shadows

And take refuge in

Eternity.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue

15^th Tishri 5781 – 3^rd October 2020

1. The rabbinic sages referred to Yom Kippur using the Aramaic word, Yoma, meaning ‘The Day.’ Yoma is also the name given to the new tractate dealing with the laws for Yom Kippur in the Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law edited c. 200 CE, and in the Babylonian Talmud, edited around the year 500. ↑

2. Mishpatim, Exodus 23:14-1. See also: R’eih, Deuteronomy 16:13-17. ↑

3. Emor, Leviticus 23:39. ↑

4. In the Halachah, Jewish law, the instruction was interpreted as referring to an etrog (a citrus fruit), accompanied by a lulav (date-palm branch), three branches of hadass (myrtle) and two of aravah (willow). ↑

5. Lev. 23:42-43. ↑

6. See P’kudei, Exodus 40:34-38 – where the oheil mo’eid, ‘tent of meeting’ is also described as a mishkan, ‘dwelling place’ or ‘tabernacle’. ↑

7. From the concluding words of the blessing that begins Hashkiveinu Adonai Eloheinu l’shalom, ‘Cause us to lie down in peace Eternal One our God.’ ↑

8. These rules are found in the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Joseph Caro, who was born in Toledo in 1488 and died in Safed in 1575, in the section Orach Chayyim. Moses ben Isserles, who was born and lived in Krakow, Poland (1520-72), the leader of Ashkenazi Jewry, provided the glosses to the Shulchan Aruch, making it acceptable to the Ashkenazi Jewish world. His glosses are known as the mappah, meaning, ‘table cloth’. ↑

9. Kohelet is the fourth of five books known as Chameish M’gillot, ‘Five Scrolls’, because they are produced as individual scrolls, each one wound around a single wooden roller, for reading at five sacred moments in the year, beginning in the springtime: Shir Ha-Shirim (the Soul of Songs) at Pesach, Rut (Ruth) at Shavuot, Eichah (Lamentations) at Tishah B’Av, Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) at Sukkot, and Esteir (Esther), at Purim ↑

10. Kohelet, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. ↑

Tens of thousands of words are uttered on Yom Kippur; words expressing Jewish teaching; mostly words of prayer. Words are powerful. The impact of the TaNaKH^[1], the Hebrew Bible on the world testifies to this. The Torah reflects the understanding of ancient times that words were, literally, a force for life – or for death – reflected in the blessings and curses recorded in the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.^[2]

So, as we utter words today in the tens of thousands, we are engaging in a powerful act – a collective act, despite the fact that this Yom Kippur we are not gathered together.

The assumption of Jewish teaching is that words should translate into actions. That is the whole point of the codes of law in the Torah and in later rabbinic texts; the Mishnah, the Talmud and subsequent codes of halachah. That is the whole point of aseret y’mei t’shuvah, the ten days of return that conclude on Yom Kippur.

So, observance of Yom Kippur depends on us making that translation – or to put it in Jewish terms, it depends on us turning ourselves around, re-orientating ourselves, changing course and returning to the path of our lives, so that our words do translate into actions on the day after Yom Kippur and on the days that follow.

When I was a young person, right up until I embarked on my rabbinic studies in 1984 at the age of 29, I changed course many times. After my O-levels, my family moved briefly to Sheffield and I started my A-levels, but after two terms we returned to London, and I went out to work for a few months, before embarking on a one year’s A-level programme at a technical college, studying English and Sociology. I wanted to pursue English at university, but having gone to a comprehensive school I didn’t have the Latin O-level required at the time, so I decided on Sociology. Anyway, as a result of my exam nerves, I did badly in my English A-level. I got in to Essex University on clearing to study Sociology. But I didn’t like being marooned on a bleak campus in the middle of nowhere, so I left after two terms. I then got accepted at the London School of Economics the following September – again, to study Sociology.

Thankfully, I completed the course and got my degree. I thought I’d like to be an English teacher and was accepted at the Institute of Education, London University to do a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education. But then, exams facing me, I left three weeks before the end of the course. I had an inspirational tutor at the Institute and she got me involved in writing and editing, which included being assistant editor of the international women’s studies journal she created^[3], editing a book^[4] and co-editing two others^[5]. But between leaving the Institute and getting involved in writing and editing, I went to Israel and lived on the kibbutz for a few months, thinking that maybe that’s where I wanted to spend the rest of my life. Followed my return, I combined writing and editing with embarking on a PhD at LSE, researching the journals of the early feminist movement. But after three years, I changed the course of my life once again, and applied to the Leo Baeck College to become a rabbi – well, it wasn’t quite that direct because, first, I visited Israel again and reconsidered going to live on a kibbutz.

Why am I telling you all this? Partly because I’m going to be retiring in seven months, by which time it will be 37 years since I entered the Leo Baeck College. It’s easy to look at a rabbi and imagine that somehow, they were born to be one or were focused on that vocation all their lives. But the main reason for sharing my tale of the twists and turns of my journey – and I’ve not included my personal journey, which has been just as eventful, or the reasons for each twist and turn – is to demonstrate that changing course, even if it might involve quite a bit of anguish and uncertainty and a few dead ends, can be very fruitful. In fact, even the dead ends can be fruitful. After all, I did end up being a teacher; at its core that’s what being a rabbi is all about.

When I was doing my PhD research, I made a special study of Christabel Pankhurst, the radical leader of the suffragette movement.^[6] One of Christabel Pankhurst’s famous slogans was ‘deeds not words.’ Jewish teaching emphasises words and deeds, and most important that words are inextricably linked to deeds. I began by mentioning the tens of thousands of words uttered on Yom Kippur. These words are texts on the page – or, this year, on the screen – but we say them and sing them and make them our own. As we do this, as we imbibe these words, our nourishment for the day in place of food, they feed our neglected souls, bringing us back to ourselves. We call these words prayer, t’fillah, in Hebrew. But prayers only come to life, when they are prayed, and in Hebrew, to pray, l’hitpalleil, is to interrogate oneself.^[7]

It is in the process of interrogating ourselves that t’shuvah, re-orientating ourselves and returning to ourselves and others becomes possible. In the Musaf, the ‘additional’ service that follows the morning service, in the special k’dushah, the blessing proclaiming God’s Holiness, we recite the words: U’t’shuvah, u’t’fillah, u’tz’dakah ma’avirin et ro’a ha-g’zeirah – ‘But return, and prayer, and acts of justice cancel the calamitous decree^[8].’ These ancient words reflect an understanding that on Yom Kippur the destiny of each individual is sealed by Divine decree. The prospect of our destiny being sealed is terrifying – which is why the ‘but’ is so important. Ultimately, our destiny is in our hands. If we allow the prayers that we utter to reawaken ourselves so that we are able to acknowledge that we need to return to the path of our lives, we can change the course of our lives. But the transformation of t’shuvah isn’t just for our own personal benefit. The threefold process of t’shuvah, t’fillah and tz’dakah makes it clear that we are called to act justly.

So, although the journey of Yom Kippur will end this evening, the purpose of the day won’t be realised unless we set out tomorrow ready to engage in acts of justice. The world is in need of repair. The coronavirus crisis has revealed the persistence of class inequality in our society^[9]. Following the murder of African-American George Floyd by police in Minneapolis on May 25, the re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement has forced a re-examination of the persistence of racism here in the UK^[10]. And still, the global refugee crisis continues, as traumatised people continue to make their desperate bids to escape war, persecution and destitution^[11]. And if all that wasn’t enough, after a brief respite during the height of the pandemic, the climate change emergency continues^[12]. Meanwhile, one particular conflict close to our hearts, between Israel and the Palestinians grinds on. The Israeli government can make as many peace deals as it likes with its Arab neighbours^[13], but until a just peace is secured with the Palestinians, there will be no peace.

Of course, we could say that we are not personally responsible for injustice and the brokenness of the world and that our personal actions can have very little impact. Jewish teaching suggests otherwise. What each one of us does or does not do can make a difference. One of the powerful images associated with aseret y’mei t’shuvah is that of the scales of judgement in which our deeds are weighed in the balance^[14]. A passage in the Babylonian Talmud gets to the heart of the matter^[15]: ‘A person who performs one mitzvah, ‘commandment’, is praiseworthy because they tilt the balance of themselves and the entire world to the scale of merit.’ Needless to say, as the passage goes on to teach, the same is true in the opposite direction for one who performs a single transgression. The important point is that each and every person has the power to tip the scales.

May this day set apart from the challenges of the world nourish us and replenish each one of us for the tasks of repair that lie ahead. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Yom Kippur Shacharit 5781 –28^th September 2020

1. See 5^th Tishri, note 30. ↑

2. B’chukkotai, Leviticus 26:3-46 and Ki Tavo, Deuteronomy 27:11-28:69. ↑

3. Women’s Studies International Quarterly (later: Forum) edited by Dale Spender ↑

4. Reassessments of First Wave Feminism (Pergamon Press, 1982). ↑

5. Learning to Lose. Sexism in Education edited with Dale Spender (The Women’s Press, 1980), On the Problem of Men: Two Feminist Conferences edited with Scarlet Friedman (The Women’s Press, 1982). ↑

6. See ‘Christobel Pankhurst: Reclaiming Her Power’ in Feminist Theorists. Three centuries of women’s intellectual traditions edited by Dale Spender (The Women’s Press, 1983, pp. 256-284). ↑

7. See my reflection for the 7^th day of Tishri. ↑

8. Literally, ‘the evil decree’. ↑

9. Coronavirus: Higher death rate in poorer areas, ONS figures suggest, The Guardian, 01.05.20. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52506979 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases ↑

10. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52861726 On August 23, a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot Jacob Blake, another unarmed black man, paralysing him. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/25/wisconsin-police-fire-teargas-during-second-night-of-protest-over-shooting-of-black-man For the UK: Black Lives Matter: We need action on racism not more reports, says David Lammy. The Guardian, 15.06.20. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53049586 ↑

11. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/10/qa-whats-the-real-story-behind-recent-uk-refugee-arrivals ↑

12. https://climateemergencyeu.org/ ↑

13. Israel made peace with Egypt on 26 March 1979, returning the Sinai Peninsula captured in the Six Day War’ (5-11 June 1967). Israel made peace with Jordan on 26 October 1994. Most recently, Israel signed a deal with the United Arab Emirates, the ‘Abraham Accord’ on 13 August 2020. ↑

14. Maimonides, Hilchot T’shuvah, Laws of Repentance, 3:4, Mishneh Torah. ↑

15. Kiddushin 40b. ↑

What an extraordinary Yom Kippur we are experiencing this year. When I was a child, and right up until I began my rabbinic studies at Leo Baeck College in the autumn of 1984, aged 29, I used to spend Yom Kippur with my Mum. We would sit together in the family home, talking about the past – including her experiences of life in her family. When she was a child – the youngest of nine – she and the other younger children, would also stay at home on Yom Kippur, and then at the end of the day they would go to the synagogue – Poets Road in Stoke Newington, North London – bearing sweet fruits to greet their parents, who, dressed in their white kittels^[1], used to spend the whole day in shul.

Since 1984, I have also spent Yom Kippur day in shul – until this year. Going to the synagogue on Yom Kippur or staying at home, used to be a marker of one’s level of Jewish observance. But this year, along with the thousands of Jews who never go to synagogue on Yom Kippur, many thousands more are staying at home and attending the services at the same time. How does that work? In my experience, a fundamental aspect of the unique nature of Yom Kippur is the simple fact that it is spent in the synagogue, in a place defined by its purpose as the locus of congregational life, and clearly differentiated from the private world of our home lives. For several months now, as the coronavirus crisis has continued, the division between home and community has been bridged by online congregational activities, including services, that we attend from our studies and living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms. But these have been very specific and time-limited. How does one spend a whole day, engaged in a congregational activity, while being at home?

In planning for Yom Kippur online, aware of the issue of screen fatigue, we – that is, Avodat Ha-Lev^[2], the committee that organises the religious life of the synagogue – decided that no service should be longer than 90 minutes, and that on Yom Kippur day, there should be substantial breaks between services. In collaboration with my rabbinic colleagues, this involved shortening both the Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur services. Arranging Yom Kippur online has been demanding and time-consuming, but the heart of the matter does not concern the practicalities involved, but rather the nature of the experience. I know what it’s like to spend Yom Kippur quietly at home and I know what it’s like to spend Yom Kippur in the congregational domain of the synagogue, but is it possible to combine the two?

Well, we are about to find out. But maybe, I’m addressing this issue from the wrong premise. Yom Kippur is not about space or place; it is about time. Engaging with Yom Kippur involves entering sacred time. Wherever we are – whether we usually stay at home or usually go to the synagogue on Yom Kippur – if we consciously inhabit the day, allow the day to envelop us and leave the constraints of daily life behind, in which time is measured and used or wasted, then we may enter a dimension in which time is eternal.

The rabbinic sages referred to Yom Kippur using the Aramaic word, Yoma, meaning ‘The Day.’^[3] ‘The Day’ is not like any other day. It’s not just that we spend Yom Kippur differently than any other day, and engage in special activities that are unique to the day. Yom Kippur exists in a unique boundary-less dimension of time. On the surface, of course, this can’t be true. After all, the day is divided into six services – from sunset through sunset again – three of which are specifically designated by the time of day: Erev, ‘Evening’, Shacharit, ‘Morning’, and Minchah, ‘Afternoon’.^[4] But while the day is divided into discrete sections, these are less to do with specific units of time and more to do with the flow of time, which like the ebb and flow of the sea moves endlessly and just as it does so, flows over a great stillness in its depths. To engage with Yom Kippur with all our heart and soul involves plunging into the depths – into our depths, into the depths we are taken to in the flow of the day.

During the coronavirus crisis, while the seasons have changed, our usual expectations about time have been subverted. In particular, for those who are not essential workers, and have been spending most of their time at home, as one day merges with another day, the notion of past and present collapses. Meanwhile, the future is unfathomable. Of course, we can never know what the future holds. But before the pandemic engulfed our lives, many of us would spend substantial amounts of times looking forward – to holidays, to birthdays and weddings and other milestones, to the next academic year with its new challenges. And so, we have been forced to live our lives in the present, day by day. And more than this, without recourse to our planning ahead reflex, and in the awareness of the devastating impact of Covid-19, many of us have been living each day more mindfully and more deeply; appreciating the gifts of the day that we have often taken for granted, like a hot drink in the morning, sparrows chirping and flowers opening.

In a profound sense, our experience of life during the pandemic has provided unexpected preparation for experiencing Yom Kippur. One of the unique features of this unique day is the final service, N’ilah, which means ‘closing’. Paradoxically, this eternal moment will come to an end. It must come to an end, so that we can be guided by what we have learned from immersing ourselves in it, tomorrow and the day after. The Day is eternity, but it is not static; it is Yoma, The Day that encapsulates all the days of our lives, all the myriad moments of being alive: despair and hopefulness, anxiety and expectation, disappointment and gratitude, sorrow and joy, fear and confidence, rage and tranquillity, bewilderment and wonder, self-accusation and self-acceptance. Each one of us is on a journey today, a journey towards atonement – at-one-ment – and if we delve deeply into the day, we will touch all these feelings. But of course, the day has a deeper purpose still. We can only emerge after N’ilah feeling renewed, if we have done the work of facing ourselves, and recognising the impact of our actions on others as well as on ourselves. It’s not enough just to feel our feelings. If we just do this, the chances are, we will end up feeling sorry for ourselves, rather than feeling sorry for what we have done to others. And so, we have work to do. Yoma, The Day is a gift, giving us the opportunity to search our souls, acknowledge our mistakes and the hurts we have inflicted, and commit ourselves to renewing our lives.

Kein y’hi ratzon – May this be our will. And let us say Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Erev Yom Kippur 5781 –27^th September 2020

1. A kittel is a white cotton or linen garment in which the deceased is clothed for burial. Traditionally, it is also worn on Yom Kippur – and may also be worn at other sacred times, including, when leading the Pesach (Passover) Seder. In some communities, the bridegroom, wears a kittel on their wedding day. ↑

2. Avodat Ha-Lev is ‘Service of the Heart’. It is the name given to the 1967 Prayer Book of Liberal Judaism. It is inspired by a comment in the Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 2a, quoting the second paragraph of the Sh’ma: “… to love the Eternal your God, and to serve God with all your heart with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 11:13). What is the service of the heart? [avodah shehi b’leiv] You must say: It is prayer. Service of the heart replaced the service of sacrifice after the last Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. ↑

3. Yoma is the name given to the new tractate dealing with the laws for Yom Kippur in theMishnah, the first rabbinic code of law edited c. 200 CE, and in the Babylonian Talmud, edited around the year 500. ↑

4. The Erev Yom Kippur service is also known by the name of the text with which it opens: Kol Nidrei (Aramaic for ‘all vows’). The other services are: Musaf (Additional – after Shacharit), N’ilah (Closing) and Yizkor (Memorial), which does not have a fixed place during the day. ↑

2^nd Tishri – T’ki’ah, T’ru’ah, Sh’varim

On Rosh Ha-Shanah, we are commanded ‘to listen to the voice of the shofar‘ – lishmo’a kol shofar.^[1] In traditional communities, 2^nd Tishri is the second day of Rosh Ha-Shanah, and when the first day falls on Shabbat, the shofar (ram’s horn) is only sounded on the second day. The reason for this is not because the shofar should not be sounded, but because the shofar-blower might inadvertently carry the shofar, and so break the Shabbat prohibition against carrying.^[2]

The blessing speaks of ‘the voice of the shofar‘, but the shofar has many voices: T’ki’ah, T’ruah, Sh’varim. T’ki’ah – a loud blast (T’ki’ah G’dolah: a ‘great’ loud blast). T’ruah – nine rapidly discharged short blasts. Sh’varim – three blasts delivered in a broken, undulating way. The meaning of these words partially explains the actual sounds they represent: T’ki’ah – from the root, Tav-Kuf-Ayin, to thrust, clap, give a blow, blast; T’ruah – from the root, Reish-Vav-Ayin, to raise a shout, give a blast; Sh’varim – from the root, Shin-Beit-Reish, to break.

In the Torah, the first day of the seventh month, which came to be known as Tishri, is recorded not as a new year, but as Yom T’ru’ah, the ‘Day of Blasting’.^[3] The first day of the seventh month was the time of calling the community together in readiness for the tenth day of the month: The Day of Atonement; Yom Ha-Kippurim, as it is called in the Torah.^[4] Rabbinic Judaism transformed the first day of Tishri into the ‘new year for years’^[5], and the ‘Day of Blasting’ became an occasion for an entire ceremony of blasting the shofar during the Musaf (‘Additional’) service, chiefly as a call to t’shuvah, ‘return’. And so, the ten days from the 1^st through the 10^th of Tishri became aseret y’mei t’shuvah, the ‘ten days of return’.^[6]

The journey of t’shuvah is essentially a personal journey for each one of us. As we consider the different voices of the shofar, the ten days are an opportunity to reflect on our own voices – not in a metaphorical sense, rather in the actual sense of the different sounds we make when speaking: when we speak loudly or softly, rapidly or hesitantly; when we speak to be heard and when we speak to ourselves, when we speak at moments of joy and celebration and when we speak at times of sorrow and despair; and when we feel unable to speak.

Jewish teaching is very much focused on words – first spoken and then written. The first creation story in the Book of Genesis presents God calling the world into existence.^[7] As we make our t’shuvah journeys, we may wish to reflect on how important words are to us – both spoken and written – and how important silence is to us. Words can be inspiring and uplifting, consoling and healing. Words can also be used like weapons. If we find the courage, we might think about when we use words constructively and when we use them destructively. Our challenge for the 2^nd day of Tishri.

3^rd Tishri – Malchuyyot: From Judgement to Acknowledgement

The first series of shofar blasts on Rosh Ha-Shanah is called Malchuyyot, ‘Kingdoms’. The Aleinu, the prayer that concludes all Jewish liturgical services, was introduced by the Babylonian sages for use on Rosh Ha-Shanah,^[8] when the Eternal One is perceived primarily as melech malchei ha-m’lachim, ‘the King above the King of Kings’; ‘the King of Kings’ being the designation used by Assyrian and Babylonian rulers in the Ancient Near East.

The most important dimension of Rosh Ha-Shanah as conceived by the early rabbis is expressed by one its names: Yom Ha-Din, the Day of Judgement. On Yom Ha-Din, the Eternal Judge of human affairs, sits on His throne – and yes, the Judge is a King – and pronounces judgement on human beings. Those considered thoroughly wicked are written in the Book of Death, those considered thoroughly righteous are written in the Book of Life, and the lives of those who are neither thoroughly wicked nor thoroughly righteous hang in the balance. Only those who mend their ways and repent in the days between Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, will be written in the Book of Life^[9].

It is a truly awe-evoking image. For some, it is the image of the Judge sitting on His throne that compels them to attend the Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur services. For others, many of whom would not step inside a synagogue, it is a repellent image that keeps them away from connecting with Jewish communal life. As progressive Jews, who, perhaps, feel less commanded and demanded upon by an Eternal Commander, the image of God as a mighty Sovereign and Judge can be reimagined in terms that makes sense for our own lives. The voices of the shofar call us to reflect on our lives, to interrogate, and, yes, judge, our deeds and misdeeds. Yom ha-Din challenges us to examine ourselves and take steps to change.

One of the traditions associated with aseret y’mei t’shuvah, the ‘ten days of return’, is to conduct cheshbon ha-nefesh, an accounting of ourselves in much the same way as one would go about an accounting of one’s economic affairs.

So, for those who haven’t done this already, on this 3^rd day of Tishri, in the spirit of Malchuyyot, why not take a piece of paper, and like a profit and loss account, make a list of the good you have done in one column and the harm you have caused in another, and then reflect on ways in which you can increase the good and acknowledge the harm, and take steps to make amends.

If the either/or nature of drawing up an account doesn’t speak to you, then try thinking of your actions in a threefold way in terms of what you have done that has been helpful, what has hindered, and what has harmed. The process of hindering can go either way. What we do may hinder the help we can offer someone and we can also hinder the harm we may cause someone.

Alternatively, you might simply choose to begin the process of reflecting on your actions of the past year by tackling three areas for improvement. Cheshbon ha-nefesh: Our challenge for the 3^rd day of Tishri.

4^th Tishri – Zichronot: Remembering and Re-Membering

The second series of shofar blasts on Rosh Ha-Shanah is called Zichronot, ‘Remembrances’. One of the rabbinic names for Rosh Ha-Shanah is Yom Ha-Zikaron, ‘The Day of Remembrance’. According to the Torah, God remembered our ancestors in their plight again and again,^[10] and as the blessing for the shofar blasts of Zichronot puts it, the Eternal One ‘remembers the covenant’ – zocheir ha-b’rit^[11] – present tense.

The present demands our presence. We, too, are called during these yamim nora’im, literally, ‘awed days’, to remember. The Torah exhorts us again and again: ‘You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt’^[12]. Every evening and morning, the blessing of g’ulah, ‘redemption’, after the Sh’ma, reminds us of our ancestors’ liberation from slavery. Each Shabbat is, both, a ‘memorial of the work of creation’ – zikaron l’ma’aseih v’reishit – and a ‘memorial of the Exodus from Egypt’ – zeicher y’tzi’at mitzrayim.^[13]

So, we remember our liberation – and we also remember the persecution we have suffered: ‘Zachor Amalek …. Remember what Amalek did to you by the way as your coming out of Egypt. / How he met you by the way and attacked the weakest in your rear.’^[14]

Remembering is a Jewish reflex transmuted into a liturgical refrain. But during the ten days of return, we are challenged to do another kind of remembering: to remember our own lives; to remember our deeds of the past year. It’s natural to want to block out this kind of remembrance. After all, remembering can be very painful. And while we may readily access the memories of the hurt done to us, we do not so readily remember the hurts we have inflicted.

But in order to repair ourselves and our relationships and begin the New Year, we must remember the hurt and damage we have caused ourselves and others. How can we commit to acting differently in the future, if we haven’t acknowledged how we have acted in the past?

Ultimately, remembering can engender re-membering; a bringing together of the disparate parts of ourselves, and the possibility of healing our broken relationships. But for this to happen, we have to be prepared to look back; to rake through the tangled undergrowth of the path trailing behind us. Our challenge for the 4^th day of Tishri.

5^th Tishri – Shofarot: The Call to Act

The third and final series of shofar blasts on Rosh Ha-Shanah is called Shofarot, ‘Horns.’ The voices of the shofar thunder through the Torah and more broadly, the TaNaKh^[15], the Hebrew Bible. Quite apart from the specific sounds of the shofar we are compelled to hear on Rosh Ha-Shanah, each time the shofar is mentioned in the TaNaKh, the context is one of loud proclamation. At Sinai, ‘the voice of the shofar grew louder and louder’^[16]. Chapter 58 of the Book of Isaiah, opens with the words: ‘Cry aloud, do not hold back, let your voice resound like a shofar; declare to My people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob, their sins’^[17]. Significantly, we read this passage during the Yom Kippur morning service^[18]. In the Torah’s account of the Jubilee year, the fiftieth year following seven cycles of seven, the shofar was to be sounded on Yom Kippur to ‘proclaim d’ror, ‘freedom’, throughout the land to all its inhabitants’^[19]. There is no evidence that the Jubilee year was ever put into practice, but elsewhere in the TaNaKh, the shofar also heralds the future time of restoration: ‘And it shall come to pass on that day that a great shofar shall be blown; and they shall come that were lost in the land of Syria, and they that were dispersed in the land of Egypt; and they shall worship the Eternal on the holy Mountain Jerusalem’^[20].

Above all the reasons for sounding the shofar on Rosh Ha-Shanah is its role in summoning us to sit up and take notice. As Maimonides put it in his ‘Laws of Repentance’, the shofar is an alarm call, proclaiming:^[21] ‘Awake you sleepers from your sleep! Rouse yourselves, you slumberers out of your slumber! Examine your deeds, and return to God in repentance’.

So, the shofar blasts are a call to action. A call to act in the context of our own personal lives. A call to act in the wider context of the society we inhabit and the world around us. The call is not subtle. It is urgent. Another year has passed in which poverty and inequality has continued unchecked. Another year has passed in which the voices of the persecuted and the oppressed, the vulnerable and the marginal have not been heard. Another year has passed in which the ecological crisis has deepened – albeit the early days of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown brought some respite.

The shofar calls each one of us to take responsibility and to play our part in whatever way we can in tackling injustice and engaging in tikkun olam, repair of the world. At the midpoint of the ten days of returning, let’s pause and think about what we can do, what practical steps we can take to generate change and make a difference. Our challenge for the 5^th day of Tishri.

6^th Tishri – T’shuvah: Returning to Ourselves and Others

T’shuvah is the goal of aseret y’mei t’shuvah, the ‘ten days of return’ that begin on Rosh Ha-Shanah and conclude at the end of Yom Kippur. The word is usually translated as ‘repentance’, but the root Shin-Vav-Beit means to turn, or return.

Repentance is the purpose of t’shuvah, but the notion of turning and returning is more dynamic. It reminds us that the process of acknowledging our misdeeds and taking steps to make amends involves a journey.

The word ‘journey’ has been overused in recent years, but it really does apply to t’shuvah. We all know that Life is a journey from birth to death. T’shuvah involves recognising that we have strayed off the path of our lives, or taken a route that has led to a cul-de-sac, and that we need to turn back and return to our path. Turning back does not mean going back; we can’t go back. The past is the past. We can only move forwards. When we turn and move towards the path and then find it again, we discover that we are further along. We have learnt from our experiences. In making the effort to turn and return we have become more self-aware and admitted our errors and mistakes and how and why we came to lose our way.

T’shuvah doesn’t just involve returning to the path of our lives, it also entails returning to ourselves and to others and rebuilding our relationships.

But none of this is easy. T’shuvah is elusive. If we approach it in a mechanical fashion, ticking off items on the list, we will not experience the sense of renewal it offers. T’shuvah requires our commitment, but not our drive. We cannot speed our way back to the path of our lives; in the awareness of our frailties, all we can do is put one foot in front of another, tentatively, and feel our way along. T’shuvah requires our humility.

Nevertheless, there is sense of urgency attached to t’shuvah. The purpose of our return is our repentance. We will not automatically be absolved on Yom Kippur. On the contrary, as we read in the Mishnah, tractate Yoma:^[22]

One who says: I shall sin and repent, sin and repent, they do not afford that person the opportunity to repent. [If one says]: I shall sin and Yom Ha-Kippurim^[23] will atone for me, Yom Ha-Kippurim, does not effect atonement. For transgressions between a person and God Yom Ha-Kippurim effects atonement, but for transgressions between one person and another, Yom HaKippurim does not effect atonement, until they have appeased their friend.

As the aseret y’mei t’shuvah turn towards Yom Kippur, the need to make amends and repair our relationships becomes more pressing. Acknowledging this is our challenge on the 6^th day of Tishri.

7^th Tishri – T’fillah: Addressing God and Ourselves

What is prayer? Some people never pray. Others only pray in desperate situations; their prayer a plea for help: Please God, please help me! Jewish prayer takes the form of liturgy, set prayers, mostly written hundreds of years ago.^[24] The majority of these prayers are not actually prayers in the commonly accepted understanding of the word. Most are peons of praise to God in the form of blessing. There are blessings connected with thanksgiving, and acknowledgement of God for the gifts we enjoy that nourish us and enrich our lives, and blessings concerning actions that we are commanded to perform, like lighting candles.

Petitionary prayer is largely confined to thirteen blessings recited on weekdays in the middle of the Amidah, which consists of nineteen blessings all together.^[25] Apart from the option of adding a personal prayer to the blessing for healing, the themes of the petitionary blessings are fixed, and include requests for understanding, repentance, forgiveness, justice.

On Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, the liturgy is even more extensive and includes special prayers, like Avinu Malkeinu, which addresses God as ’our Parent and ‘our Sovereign’. The tone of these prayers is utterly supplicatory. For example, the concluding verse of Avinu Malkeinu:

Our Parent, our Sovereign, be gracious to us and answer us, for there is little goodness in us; treat us with justice [tz’dakah] and lovingkindness [chesed], and save us.

As Yom Kippur approaches, the question arises, what role does prayer play in our efforts to experience atonement? Answers to this question emerge when we look at the Hebrew word for prayer, t’fillah. The root Pei-Lamed-Lamed means to intervene, interpose, arbitrate, judge, intercede. Interestingly, ‘to pray’, l’hitpalleil, is a reflexive form. Reflective forms express an action in relation to ourselves. In the context of praying, this is very significant. We assume that to pray is to address God, but l’hitpalleil suggests that when we pray, we also address ourselves.

If we think of prayer in terms of the root meanings of t’fillah, then what we are doing when we pray is interrogating ourselves. And so, to pray, l’hitpalleil, is to open our hearts and to acknowledge our frailties and our needs – for love, compassion, support, affirmation, forgiveness. To pray is to give thanks for our lives and all the ways in which our needs are met. To pray is to acknowledge that we have the power to shape and transform our lives. To pray is to acknowledge that in order to transform our lives, we must also be prepared to let go and move on and trust that we can renew ourselves and our relationships.

Our t’shuvah journeys began seven days ago. To allow ourselves to pray is to open up the possibility that we will be able to reach our destination and begin again. Our challenge for the 7^th day of Tishri.

8^th Tishri – Tz’dakah: Acting Justly

Where is the ten-day t’shuvah journey taking us? The obvious answer is: repentance – and so, at the end of Yom Kippur: forgiveness and atonement. But what is the point of our repentance? Repentance isn’t an end in itself. If it were, the journey would only be from the past to the present. But Jewish teaching is concerned with the work of renewal and repair for the sake of the future. So, the goal of the journey of t’shuvah reaches beyond repentance, forgiveness and atonement to tz’dakah; to the task of practising righteousness and justice after the yamim nora’im, the ‘awed days’, are over.

Tz’dakah is usually translated as ‘charity’. But the root meaning of charity, the Latin concept of caritas, is very different from the root meaning of tz’dakah. Caritas centres on the feelings of love that move us to feel compassion for others and to take action to support them, both materially and emotionally. Tz’dakah, based on the root Tzadi-Dalet-Kuf and related to the word tzedek, ‘justice’, focuses on the imperative of just action.^[26] Emotions cannot be compelled, so righteous acts that are dependent on our feelings are useless. We may feel moved to help others, but we may not. Tz’dakah, by contrast, is a commandment. It is our obligation to put right what is wrong in relation to the poor, including the homeless, those who are oppressed and persecuted, and, specifically, the most vulnerable groups in society, identified in the Torah as the stranger, the orphan and the widow.^[27]

In the haftarah^[28] on Yom Kippur morning from the Book of Isaiah, chapter 58, the prophet decries observance of the rituals of Yom Kippur that are not accompanied by acts of righteousness:^[29]

Is this the fast I look for? A day of self-affliction? Bowing your head like a reed, and covering yourself with sackcloth and ashes? Is this what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Eternal One? / Is not this the fast I choose: to release the shackles of wickedness and untie the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free and to break off every yoke? / Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to clothe them, and never to hide yourself from your own kin?

The unknown prophet who speaks in the later chapters of the Book of Isaiah was addressing the exiles in Babylon in the 6^th century BCE.^[30] The prophet’s words also address us and are just as relevant to the society we inhabit. So, how will we respond? We know that we live in a world in which injustice is rife. What will we do about it? Our ten-day t’shuvah journey will conclude at the end of Yom Kippur, and then it will be our task to harvest the fruits of our repentance with acts of tz’dakah. The moment has come to begin to focus our attention to how we will conduct our lives after Yom Kippur. Our challenge for the 8^th day of Tishri.

9^th Tishri – S’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kappeir lanu

‘Forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement’: Preparing for Yom Kippur

S’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kappeir lanu. There are several poignant melodies for this phrase that concludes the recitation of the Al Cheit, the confession of our ‘sins’ on Yom Kippur^[31]; each tune designed to move us and open our hearts. I’ve put the word ‘sins’ in inverted comas because strictly speaking, cheit, expresses the kind of error we commit when we miss our way. There are many words for ‘sin’ in the vocabulary of Yom Kippur^[32]. We may find it difficult to identify with the word, ‘sin’, because it may feel far removed from the errors and misdeeds that most of us perpetrate. The text of the Al Cheit makes it clear that, even the ordinary errors we make that we so often excuse ourselves for, are serious and require our repentance.

S’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kappeir lanu. On Yom Kippur, following our work of t’shuvah, our efforts are dedicated to confessing our misdeeds and seeking forgiveness, pardon and atonement. Although each one of us is on our own personal journey, confession is recited in the first-person plural, expressing our shared predicament as frail human beings who go astray.

Human beings need forgiveness. We need to feel forgiven so that we can let go of the past and move on. But Jewish teaching makes it clear that we can only be forgiven if we repent and do what we can to make amends. We also need to forgive others. In fact, if we fail to forgive someone who has sought our forgiveness three times, we are the ones in the wrong^[33].

But forgiveness on Yom Kippur takes on a deeper resonance. Having engaged in the process of t’shuvah, and having done what we can to repent and seek forgiveness from those we have harmed, we are seeking forgiveness from the Eternal One. More than forgiveness, we are seeking pardon. The Hebrew, m’chal lanu, ‘pardon us’, expresses a blotting out or wiping out, an annulment^[34]. But how can we be seeking an annulment, in other words, a cancellation of our misconduct? Because, ultimately, Yom Kippur represents the drawing of a line under all that has gone before, so that we can start the New Year afresh. The Hebrew, kappeir lanu, ‘grant us atonement’, literally, means ‘cover us’. We read in the Torah that the Ark was covered with a kapporet, a ‘covering’.^[35] The goal of Yom Kippur is a covering over of our misdeeds of the past year. They do not disappear or evaporate; they are not conjured away by the rituals of Yom Kippur; they are covered over. So, what we do with the covered over wrongs we have committed during the past year? Do we store them away? Do we bury them? We do neither. We recognise that they are covered over – and move on. But we are running ahead of ourselves. As Yom Kippur approaches, is there anything we can do to lighten the burden of our regret? We can acknowledge that we have left much undone on our t’shuvah journey and prepare for Yom Kippur. Our challenge for the 9^th day of Tishri.

1. The concluding words of the blessing recited before the shofar is sounded. For reference, see note 15. ↑

2. Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Ha-Shanah 29b. ↑

3. Numbers 29:1 and Leviticus 23:24. ↑

4. Lev. 23:27. ↑

5. Mishnah Rosh Ha-Shanah 1:1. ↑

6. This designation became common in post-Talmudic times. Maimonides, Moshe ben Maimon, also known as the RaMBaM (1135-1204) referred to ‘the ten days’ in Hilchot T’shuvah (Laws of Repentance) 2:6, in his code the Mishneh Torah. ↑

7. Genesis 1: 3 ff. ↑

8. Jacobson, B.S., The Weekday Siddur: An Exposition and Analysis of its Structure, Contents, Language and Ideas (2nd ed, Sinai Pub., Tel Aviv, 1973, p.307). ↑

9. Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Ha-Shanah 32b. ↑

10. See, e.g., Sh’mot, Exodus 2:24, Jeremiah 2:2, Psalm 98:3. ↑

11. Machzor Ru’ach Chadashah, Liberal Judaism, 2003, p. 150 ↑

12. R’eih, Deuteronomy 16:12. ↑

13. These phrases are included in birkat ha-yom, ‘the blessing of the day’, recited as part of kiddush on Erev Shabbat. The word zikaron evokes a tangible memorial; every living thing is a memorial of creation. The word zeicher denotes a conceptual memory; we remember the Exodus because the memory has been passed on from generation to generation. ↑

14. Ki Teitzei, Deuteronomy 25:17-19. ↑

15. TaNaKh: An acronym for the Hebrew Bible – which falls into three parts: Torah (Five Books coming now of Moses), N’vi’im (Prophets) and K’tuvim (Writings). ↑

16. Yitro, Exodus 19:19. ↑

17. Isaiah 58:1. ↑

18. Isaiah 58 is read as the haftarah, the ‘conclusion’ of the scriptural readings on Yom Kippur morning. See Machzor Ruach Chadashah, pp.271-273. ↑

19. B’har, Leviticus 25:9-10. ↑

20. Isaiah 27:13. ↑

21. Hilchot T’shuvah, Laws of Repentance, 3:4, Mishneh Torah. ↑

22. Mishnah Yoma 8:9. The Mishnah is the first code of rabbinic law edited around the year 200. Yoma is Aramaic for ‘The Day’. ↑

23. The name for Yom Kippur in the Torah. See: Emor, Leviticus 23:27. ↑

24. The rabbinic sages devised the first post-biblical prayers, but it wasn’t until the 9^th century that the first complete prayer book was written: Seder Rav Amram, the work of the head of the Babylonian Talmudic Academy of Sura at that time, Amram bar Sheshna. For an in-depth exposition of the development of Jewish prayer, see: Jewish Liturgy. A Comprehensive History by Ismar Elbogen. JPSA, 1993. ↑

25. The Amidah (meaning, ‘standing’) is the central prayer of Jewish worship, traditionally recited while standing. The thirteen petitionary blessings are not recited on Shabbat because it would be inappropriate to petition God while enjoying God’s gift of rest. In place of the thirteen petitions, a blessing for Shabbat is recited. The thirteen petitions consist of six that are personal, six that are communal, and a final one, asking God to listen to our prayers. ↑

26. The most famous phrase about justice in the Torah is in Shof’tim, Deuteronomy 16:20: Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof, ‘Justice, justice, shall you pursue’. ↑

27. Significantly, the word tz’dakah is used in relation to restoring the garment of a poor person given in pledge (Ki Teitzei, Deuteronomy 24:10-13). The code in Ki Teitzei also mentions all three of these categories of vulnerable people (Deut. 24:17 to 22). See also: K’doshim, Leviticus 19:9-10 and 33–34. ↑

28. Haftarah means ‘conclusion’. The haftarah is the concluding Scriptural passage taken from the biblical books of the N’vi’im, Prophets, and read on Shabbat and festival mornings. ↑

29. Isaiah 58:5-7. ↑

30. Isaiah 1:1 speaks of ‘Isaiah, son of Amoz, who prophesied concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezikiah, kings of Judah’. Isaiah 6:1 mentions Isaiah’s call to prophecy in the year that King Uzziah died (742 BCE). While chapters 1-39 belong to the period when Isaiah prophesied. Chapters 40 to 66 are later in origin, the work of a Second (Deutero) Isaiah. Sometimes chapters 55-66 are seen as the work of a Third (Trito) Isaiah. ↑

31. See Machzor Ruach Chadashah, pp. 198-200 and pp.259-261. ↑

32. See the Machzor, p. 164, for ‘A Vocabulary of Sin’ based on A Guide to Yom Kippur by Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs (Jewish Chronicle Publications, London, 1957, pp.75f.) ↑

33. Hilchot T’shuvah, Laws of Repentance, 2:9, Mishneh Torah by Maimonides, Moshe ben Mamon, the ‘RaMBaM’ ↑

34. The Biblical Hebrew root is Mem Chet Hei. In Rabbinic Hebrew: Mem Chet Lamed. ↑

35. The kapporet that covered the Ark was a slab of gold, 2.5 cubits by 1.5 cubits. See: T’rumah, Exodus 25:17-22. ↑

Preparations for the High Holy Days this year began very early at the shul. I usually start working on my sermons for Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur in August, but this year, the continuing coronavirus crisis led to the decision that we could not gather in the synagogue for the autumn festivals, which meant that I began thinking about them in July. And then, along with my rabbinic colleagues, I started to consider how we could adapt the services for an online experience.

Having decided to create a booklet of my sermons and reflections for the days between Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur to help those who don’t have access to technology to feel included, the newly elected chair of the shul, Louise Mordecai, had the lovely idea of putting together Rosh Ha-shanah packages for those not online. So, we had a special meeting of the Pastoral Care Group and agreed that the packages would include honey-cake, apples and honey, my booklet – and also a loan copy of the machzor, the High Holy Day prayer book if needed. The next step was to contact those who had responded to the call for volunteers at the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown. Several people baked cakes. One member made New Year cards. As a result of the efforts of a number of people, in the past week deliveries were made to congregants in the Worthing area, Brighton and Hove, Lewes, Saltdean, Telscombe Cliffs, Peacehaven, East Dean and Eastbourne.

The coronavirus crisis has been marked by illness and death, suffering and loss – and also by an abundance of g’milut chasadim, deeds of loving kindness, as people reached out to their neighbours, in particular, to the isolated and the elderly. It is usual at this sacred high-point of the Jewish year to remind ourselves of our core values and the need to repair ourselves and our relationships. The coronavirus crisis has been a living lesson in how to go about this.

The coronavirus crisis has also been and continues to be a testing time. Our resilience is being tested. Our resourcefulness, endurance, self-discipline, empathy, generosity, optimism. Our capacity to remain hopeful in the face of uncertainty about what the future will bring is being tested. I’m using the first-person plural in the spirit of the liturgy. We are going through this together. And at the same time, each one of us, has our own particular circumstances and experiences, and is confronted with our own personal trials and tribulations and challenges. Each one of us is being tested.

In one of the Torah portions set aside for Rosh Ha-Shanah, Genesis chapter 22, known as the Akeidah, we read that our ancestor Abraham was tested:^[1]

And it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham

Va-y’hi achar ha-d’varim ha-eilleh v’ha-Elohim nissah et-Avraham. 

‘After these things’ – a reference to the banishment of Abraham’s firstborn son Ishmael with his mother Hagar in the previous chapter.^[2] Abraham had been tested enough one might think. But then he was confronted with the ultimate test. The text continues:

And God said to him, ‘Abraham’, and he said: ‘Here I am’ [hinneini]. Then God said: ‘Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go for yourself to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you.’

‘Go for yourself’ – Lech l’cha – the use of this expression reminds us of Abraham’s first momentous journey, when together with Sarah and his household, he left his land, his kindred, his parental home to go on a journey to a land that God promised to show him.^[3] Abraham went of his own volition back then. And he’s called to do the same now. But in place of the promise of a future for his descendants, on this occasion, he was challenged to take a journey that would involve obliterating his future. The enormity of the moment and all that Abraham ha already sacrificed is brought out in a 4^th century midrash, commenting on the staggered way in which this second call to ‘go for yourself’ is delivered:^[4]

God said: ‘Take your son.’

Abraham replied: ‘I have two sons.’

God said: ‘Your only one.’

Abraham replied: ‘This one is the only son of his mother, and that one is the only son of his mother.’

God said: ‘Whom you love’

Abraham replied: ‘I love them both.’

God said: ‘Isaac.’

Of course, Abraham loved both his sons – which made the test he was confronted with even more agonising. On the surface, Abraham’s test was a test of faith; his faith in God; that God would not, ultimately, demand the sacrifice of Isaac. But the story makes it clear that Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son. And so it was, when Isaac was lying bound on the altar and Abraham had raised his knife to slaughter him, that It took an urgent call to get Abraham to stop:^[5]

Then the messenger of the Eternal called to him from heaven and said: ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he answered: ‘Here I am.’ And the messenger said: ‘Do not raise your hand against the lad, or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only one, from Me.’

It’s a terrifying story. And as we follow it, we should ask ourselves about the mother of Isaac: Sarah. The mother who waited so long to have a child.^[6] What was it like for her to see her husband and son go off that day? Her death is recorded at the beginning of the next parashah.^[7] Did Sarah die of anxiety as she waited? The story is known as the Akeidah, the ‘Binding’ because Isaac was bound but not slaughtered. But the name confronts us just as powerfully as if Isaac had been killed by his father. We can read the story as a moral tale against the sacrifice of children. But the binding, evoking as it does the image of Isaac bound on the altar, also confronts us with questions about the way in which we are bound metaphorically, and bind others, not least, children, metaphorically, with the chords, restraints and constraints of our anxieties and fears. 

This coronavirus crisis has stimulated our anxieties and fears to an excruciating extent. It is testing our ability to resist the ways in which we tie ourselves and others into knots of anguish. And more challenging even than this, the pandemic is confronting us – at a time when our daily lives have been completely disrupted, leaving us in disarray – with the need to bind ourselves in ways that are helpful, like the routines and rhythms we create to structure our daily lives, which have become so essential as our lives have been turned upside down. Like the straps of t’fillin^[8], reminding us of our responsibility to direct ourselves to righteous action, binding can be liberating if it is enabling and life-affirming; or, to put it more bluntly, if it helps us to get out of bed each day and keep ourselves going.

This ancient story has still more to teach us for this coronavirus time. After the sacrifice of Isaac has been interrupted, we read:^[9] 

Abraham raised his eyes and saw, behold there was a ram behind him caught in the thicket by its horns. So, he went and took the ram, and offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

Among other things, the shofar, the ram’s horn blown at Rosh Ha-Shanah is a reminder of that moment, of that replacement of a ram for a son. For centuries, animals were sacrificed on the altar in successive Temples in Jerusalem. An agricultural people, our ancestors expressed their service of God by offering the fruits of their labours. A Temple has not stood for almost 2000 years, and since that time, as we read in the Babylonian Talmud, Jews have been required to offer in place of the service of the altar, the service of our hearts, that is, prayer.^[10] And more than this. We find this story in a 2^nd century collection of rabbinic wisdom:^[11]

Once, as Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was walking out of Jerusalem, Rabbi Joshua followed him. Seeing the Temple in ruins, he cried, ‘Woe to us this place is in ruins, the place where atonement was made for Israel’s sins.’ Rabbi Yochanan said to him: ’My son, do not grieve, for we have another means of atonement which is no less effective.’ What is it? It is deeds of loving kindness [g’milut chasadim], about which Scripture says: “I desire loving kindness [chesed] and not sacrifice.”’^[12]

Deeds of loving kindness: g’milut chasadim. Yes, we are being tested during this coronavirus crisis; tested, above all, concerning how we treat others and the planet in which we live. At Rosh Ha-Shanah, we are commanded ‘to listen to the voice of [the] shofar’ – lishmo’a kol shofar.^[13] The voice of the shofar confronts us with urgent questions: How are we living? How are we relating to others: Within our families? Within our community? In the wider society? How are we relating to the world – to other nations and to the Earth? What are we going do to make t’shuvah, to turn ourselves around and make amends for all that we have done – and all that we have failed to do?

We are commanded ‘to listen to the voice of the shofar’. But there is also another voice we must hear. The shofar’s call to action to repair the world out there is also a call to repair the microworld that each of us inhabits in our individual lives, right down to the inner sanctum of our beating hearts.

Let us listen to the beating of our hearts this Rosh Ha-Shanah and face the uncertainties of the year ahead with courage and fortitude, determined to do what we can to renew our lives and the life of the Earth.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

18^th September 2020 – 1^st Tishri 5781

1. Va-yeira, Genesis 22:1. ↑

2. Va-yeira, Gen. 21:14-21. ↑

3. Lech l’cha, Genesis 12: 1ff. ↑

4. B’reishit (Genesis) Rabbah 39:9 and 55:7. Also: Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 89b. ↑

5. Va-yeira, Gen. 22:11-12. ↑

6. See Va-yeira, Gen. 18: 9-15 and 21: 1-2. ↑

7. Chayyei Sarah, Gen. 23:1. ↑

8. T’fillin. The black leather bands and boxes (known as ‘phylacteries’). Derived from the words of the first and second paragraphs of the Sh’ma: ‘You shall bind them as a sign upon your arm and as bands between your eyes’ (Deuteronomy 6:8, 11:18). ↑

9. Va-yeira, Genesis 22:13. ↑

10. Babylonian Talmud Ta’anit 2a. ↑

11. Avot d’Rabbi Natan 4:5. Quoting: Hosea 6:6. This is a parallel collection to the more well-known Pirkei Avot, Chapters of the Sages, appended to Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law, edited c.200. ↑

12. See also Rabbi Elazar said: Doing righteous deeds of charity is greater than offering all of the sacrifices, as it is written: ‘Doing charity and justice is more desirable to the Lord than sacrifice’ (Proverbs 21:3) (Babylonian Talmud Sukkah 49b). ↑

13. The concluding words of the blessing recited before the shofar is sounded. See Machzor Ruach Chadashah. Liberal Judaism, London, 2003, p. 140. ↑