Preparing for the Days of Awe
I wanted to write something in advance of Rosh Hashana this year. You’ll all get the standard materials later. The goal here was to set you thinking about the prayers and the holidays.
In 2018, I said the following in my Rosh Hashana speech:
When listening to these shofar blasts, I want you to allow all those fears that you have – of destruction at the hands of our enemies – to overrun you. You must allow them to overrun you. Drop your defenses and allow the horror of what our neighbors want to come upon you full force. Image your homes destroyed, your children slaughtered, our women raped. And everything you’ve built, gone. Imagine losing our land, yet again. With a hundred thousand rockets or an EMP or a nuclear weapon, this is a plausible reality. Allow the possibility of it to fill your soul. And then cry out for salvation.
It wasn’t appreciated, at the time. But now, this year, it is exactly what we must be prepared to do. This is the first Rosh Hashana in which the vast majority of us do not need to work to picture a ‘plausible reality’ that includes our destruction. Instead, the feeling of needing rescue is something we can feel deep within us. It isn’t simply a construct we have to struggle to embrace.
I’m not speaking in shul this year, speeches like the one above didn’t exactly earn me points. But this year’s prayers – and this year’s shofar blowing – is the most important of our lives. This is why, weeks before Rosh Hashana, I wanted to share something about the prayers with you. I have in-depth write-ups of the structure of the davening, Torah readings and Shofar blowing. They have their place. But as I explained the core of the material to a friend of mine last Shabbat, I realized those materials don’t necessarily touch the heart. And so, I wrote the below. I hope some part of it helps you prepare for the Days of Awe.
The Angel
I know how you see me. You see broken. I scare you. I scare everybody. You put me in the desert, in the מדבר (midbar), in the wastelands. The wolves were supposed to eat me. But they didn’t. They saved me.
The Wolf Shall Live with the Lamb.(Isaiah 11:6)
I am a simple, תם (tam), perfect, child.
I remember the voices of the wolves as they bundled me away from the cold of the night and shielded me from the heat of the day:
‘Pakad. Pakad. Pakad. You shall receive all that you deserve.’
I scare you. You drive me from your villages. I am ill-fortune. I have rounded eyes. Rounded form. Rounded speech. They frighten your sharpness. They frighten you because you cannot see their kindness.
I live in the desert, in the מדבר (midbar), in the wastelands. I am waste.
I live.
כִּי לֹא עַל-הַלֶּחֶם לְבַדּוֹ יִחְיֶה הָאָדָם
But man does not live by bread alone. (Dev 8:3)
I hide my face. I am broken.
I am a curse. I am receiving all that I deserve.
I want no more.
Then I see it. I stand outside of one of your villages, looking in. I see rocks thrown at broken children. I see women tormented. I see the strong lack the strength to protect those who need them.
I cry. I cry for the broken ones. The abandoned ones.
My kin.
Then I hear the voice:
‘Pakad, Pakad, Pakad. You shall get what you deserve.’
I walk into the village. I come to a broken child and the words come to me: ‘Pakad. G-d sees you and will reward you in the face of your suffering.’
I see the face of joy. Of belonging.
I see laughter. I see confusion.
But I know. Pakad. Pakad. Pakad.
I travel from place to place. From village to village. I soon need no food. No drink. I live by the utterances of the L-rd כִּי עַל-כָּל-מוֹצָא פִי-ייקוק, יִחְיֶה הָאָדָם (Dev 8:3).
As I sleep, the stories of the hated ones, of the abandoned ones, fill my mind.
And in the mornings: Pakad. Pakad. Pakad.
I see her story. Abandoned. Out of fear. Kidnapped. Out of desire. Protected by the L-rd. But embarrassed. Jealous. Jealous of those tormentors who have had what she can never have: children.
We come to a new place. There are three of us now. The man. The abandoner. He sees us.
He is not scared. He bows before us.
He sees the presence of G-d in us, and I see it in him.
The Strong lack the Strength to Protect Those Who Need Them.
He runs to prepare a meal for us. One young bullock for those who do not eat. A commitment of life to building a bond to what is beyond creation and beyond destruction.
And then I sense her… Sarah.
Her pain. Her shame. Her suffering. Her resentment.
The wives and maidservants of Avimelech were blessed, but she was not.
Pakad.
Despite the impossibility. Pakad.
I pronounce my blessing.
I hear her laugh in disbelief.
But nothing is beyond the power of the L-rd.
וַיקוָק פָּקַד אֶת-שָׂרָה, כַּאֲשֶׁר אָמָר; וַיַּעַשׂ ייקוק לְשָׂרָה, כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֵּר
And the Timeless G-d ‘Pakad’ Sarah as He had said, and the Timeless G-d did unto Sarah as He had spoken.
The Soldier
The earth has been twisted and churned by the tracks of our tanks, the blades of our bulldozers and the crash of our bombs. And now, under an overcast sky, the rain has come. The waters turn the desert into mud. The splat of heavy drops strikes the ground around me. I stand there and then there is a crack. A moment later, I fall. Something has smashed into my leg. I fall to the wet dirt, suddenly overcome by pain. I can feel blood pumping from me.
I have seen the world’s hatred of me. I fight through this hellhole, trying my hardest to serve with honor and faith and what can pass for kindness in war. But the world sees me in only one light. I comfort a child, and they accuse me of rape. I share food with a woman, and they accuse me of being a poisoner. All the while, I see rapists raised up into heroes. I see those who would starve babies celebrated as great men.
I know my future. I will need to hide my identity should I venture from my homeland. I will stay forever on the outskirts of your cities, watching your failings from afar.
All because you cannot see the beauty, the necessity, in my sharp edges. You will not let the strong protect those who need them.
The world around me explodes into gunfire. Through the fog and the pain, I see a window, where the sniper must have been. It blows outwards with the impact of a missile. The medic rushes towards me, field torniquet in hand. He looks worried. They’re calling for an evacuation.
I lift my eyes up to the heavens. I see the raindrops falling towards me, smashing into my glasses.
The words fill me then:
Shema Yisrael. Hear o’Israel.
Adonoi Elokainu. Your master, your supporter, is the supreme power of the world.
Adonoi Echad. Your master, your supporter, is All.
I breath in, raggedly. I feel something. Not nitrogen and oxygen. No, something beyond the dirt and the rain.
I feel the spirit of the L-rd within me.
I breath out, my own voice seemingly erased by the Fear of the moment. And then I hear it. Not the wheezing of my breath. No, there is something else filling in between the sounds of the storm and the gunfire. It is the long blast of the shofar. It is the Tekiah Gedolah. A thin, still, voice.
It is my own breath. I am being gathered to the L-rd.
I smile, in that muddy wasteland.
I have heard the voice of Hashem and I know it has been an honor to serve my King.
Three men come to lift me. They rush me to the chopper. They lift me towards the heavens.
And then I hear it: Pakad. Pakad. Pakad.
וּבַחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִי בְּאֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ, מִקְרָא-קֹדֶשׁ יִהְיֶה לָכֶם–כָּל-מְלֶאכֶת עֲבֹדָה, לֹא תַעֲשׂוּ: יוֹם תְּרוּעָה, יִהְיֶה לָכֶם. וַעֲשִׂיתֶם עֹלָה לְרֵיחַ נִיחֹחַ, לַיקוָק–פַּר בֶּן-בָּקָר אֶחָד
And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have a holy convocation: ye shall do no manner of servile work; it is a day of blowing the horn unto you. And ye shall prepare a burnt-offering for a sweet savor unto the LORD: one young bullock…
The Rescuer
I have seen the evils of men. I have seen those whose only contract is that of the knife. They take all that they please. They seek fame and fortune and glory. But all they acquire must come at the price of other’s lives. Others’ possessions. Others’ hope.
I’ve seen it. The breakdown. The loss. The chaos overwhelming the world.
In the struggle for the knife, in the struggle for supremacy, there is no good but glory. There is no greatness but theft. Men cast aside thoughts of justice in a world without it. They cannot afford to think of justice. They can think only of evil. Only of theft. Only of acquisition. Only of power. Only of murder. The strong lack the strength to protect those who need them.
I’ve seen that world. My father was 500 years old when I was born into that world.
כִּי רַבָּה רָעַת הָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ, וְכָל-יֵצֶר מַחְשְׁבֹת לִבּוֹ, רַק רַע כָּל-הַיּוֹם
The wickedness of man was great in the earth and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart were only evil, all the day.
The L-rd mourned the corruption of man. And He understood that we could not be redeemed.
I have seen it.
But my father found grace in the eyes of the L-rd.
Not I. Only my father.
אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה, בְּדֹרֹתָיו
a man righteous and simple. A man righteous and whole-hearted
G-d established His covenant then. Bring the animals with the Ark – to live with you.
The floods came then. The great destruction. And G-d remembered not only my father – but the animals as well. G-d remembered His covenant. And I saw it then. Not the chaos of the knife. Not the wavering promises of men’s souls. I saw the lines – straight and true and unbending – the lines of the L-rd’s commitments. A world of everlasting promises. A form, a structure, a promise.
Hundreds of years passed and I saw the L-rd’s commitments.
וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ מַלְאַךְ ייקוק, הַרְבָּה אַרְבֶּה אֶת-זַרְעֵךְ, וְלֹא יִסָּפֵר, מֵרֹב
And the angel of the LORD said unto her: ‘I will greatly multiply thy seed, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.
וּלְיִשְׁמָעֵאל, שְׁמַעְתִּיךָ–הִנֵּה בֵּרַכְתִּי אֹתוֹ וְהִפְרֵיתִי אֹתוֹ וְהִרְבֵּיתִי אֹתוֹ, בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד: שְׁנֵים-עָשָׂר נְשִׂיאִם יוֹלִיד, וּנְתַתִּיו לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל
And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee; behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.
I have seen it. I have believed it. It has brought me hope.
But now Ishmael lays alone under the shrubs of the desert. There is no water. There is no hope. Ishmael is on the edge of death. I see his mother mourning, weeping, unable to watch the death of her child.
And I,Shem son of Noach, cry out to the L-rd.
I cry out not for the sake of the boy, but for the sake of G-d’s covenants. Our world is too easily twisted by the power of the knife. It is too easily twisted by the justice of men. But our world cannot be a world of only evil. Only theft. Only acquisition. Only power. Only murder.
I cannot live in that reality again.
It is the covenants of the L-rd that protect us. They are the foundations of justice and the foundations of hope.
And so, I cry out. I cry out to the L-rd.
Then the L-rd tells me that He has heard the voice of the lad and that the L-rd will make him a great nation. And then there is water.
I have lived in the times before the flood. I will live beyond the time of Avraham. And I will know that the ways of the L-rd are true.
וַיֵּלֶךְ אַבְרָהָם וַיִּקַּח אֶת-הָאַיִל, וַיַּעֲלֵהוּ לְעֹלָה תַּחַת בְּנוֹ
And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son.
…וַעֲשִׂיתֶם עֹלָה לְרֵיחַ נִיחֹחַ, לַיהוָה–פַּר בֶּן-בָּקָר אֶחָד, אַיִל אֶחָד
And ye shall prepare a burnt-offering for a sweet savor unto the LORD: one young bullock, one ram…
The Leader
It was meant to be a pro-forma sort of thing. I’d show up, reassure people that I was one of them. I’d wear a Kippah, maybe even a tallit. The religious would see me and perhaps suppose that not all is lost. And the secular would know that I did not truly believe.
They would see the game for what it is.
That is what it was meant to be.
But as I wrap the tallit around my head… as I close the world around me off… as the cameras can no longer see my face… I find myself suddenly overcome.
Those around me see power. They imagine control. They believe I can choose reality and make it real. But I cannot do that. In every discussion, in every deal, in every decision there is risk. Risk of our extermination.
There is nothing I can do to guarantee the safety of my people. All I can do it play the odds. They cannot be allowed to see it, but there is nothing more I can do.
I hide my face with the tallit. The people cannot see my reality. I wield great power. I can lay waste to the lands and the possessions and the families of our enemies. But I have so little power. There are billions of them, consumed by hatred of a mere 16 million of us. We can destroy, but we can only hope to hold back their destruction of us.
I can see it now. I can see it every day. When things go a little too wrong. When they turn just a bit too strongly against us. I can see our weakness and the violence that will inalterably follow that weakness. I can see our erasure. Billions of them. 16 million of us.
I stay far longer than I meant to. The shofar blows, but I hear only the triple blast of Shevarim. Of being smashed, broken apart. Of being reduced to my most basic reality. Shevarim.
I stand there, my tallit hiding my face, and I cry. A simple mistake, a bit of bad luck, and we are erased. Our people will be brought to their end. Shevarim.
I find myself broken apart before the gaze of the L-rd.
In every generation they rise up against us, but the Holy One Blessed Be He delivers us from their hands.
He delivers us, but at what cost? At what cost will we be saved? What price will we pay before the L-rd remembers His covenant with us?
I mutter, inaudible beneath my tallit, “We will not survive. We will not survive.”
I mutter and I pray, like I have never prayed before, for the L-rd to remember us and guard us from those who would afflict us.
As the notes of the Shevarim slam into me, I know that the ways of the L-rd are true.
Surely, we will be redeemed.
She then took Rachel’s little son Isaac, who was a delightful boy, and slaughtered him. The lad Aaron, upon seeing that his brother had been slaughtered, cried: “Mother, mother, do not slaughter me…” She drew him out by his feet from under the box where he had hidden, and slaughtered him before the Exalted and Lofty G-d… The errant ones captured the chamber and found her sitting and lamenting over them. They said to her: “Show us the money you have in your sleeves”; but when they saw the slaughtered children, they smote and killed her upon them.
Narrative of the Old Persecutions (Mainz Anonymous) – Probably first Crusade.
The King
They come when they are frightened. Frightened of war or of famine. They stream in by their hundreds, abandoning the hills and the shrubbery their animals graze on. Our city is one of beauty, planted firmly against the edges of the sea. Its walls rise high above us, rendering us impervious to passing marauders. Its storehouses and cisterns are kept full. Our people stretch across the seas, creating a resilience our neighbors rarely enjoy. We blunt the curses of both nature and man.
We are a just people, respecting the families of those who come to us. But we must take something for ourselves, in acknowledgment of our generosity.
And so, I stand in the tower above the gates of my city. I stand and I watch as the refugees come.
There is no famine though. There is no war. There has simply been a catastrophe. A city destroyed by its own fertilizers – drawn unnaturally from the salt sea. The men I see are not hungry or sallow. Instead, it is their souls which have been overcome by fear or by resignation. They imagine that G-d has punished S’dom.
I can see their eyes from my tower. I can see their uncertainty. We will take them in. We always do. But we must take something in acknowledgement of our generosity.
What we take is their daughters. Maidservants for the House of the King. Maidservants for my house. Mothers of children who will build up my family and my people in return for ensuring the future of their fathers’ households.
I select them. They are my fee. They become my slaves. I love my power, but my power has become almost routine.
I see her from a distance. A withered old woman. She must be close to a hundred years of age. There is no hope of children. No hope of a payoff in sons. But her eyes are unlike those of any woman I’ve seen. She has not been crushed under a lifetime of subjugation.
G-d commanded Noach to bring himself and his wife and then his sons and their wives. But Noach brought himself and his sons and then his wife and their sons. He lowered his own wife – somewhere above the animals but somewhere below his own children.
But not this woman. This woman glows with power.
I send my messengers, and they learn her name: Sarah. Ruler. She has power I have never seen in a woman before. I order her collected. I order her taken.
I will subjugate her and through her I will become greater than I have ever been.
Then the L-rd comes to me in a dream. She is another man’s wife. A prophet’s wife. I know I am condemned in the face of a prophet of G-d. My family is stopped up. My children are not delivered. And so, I return her. I pay for my sins. Another man owns her. I give her silver to cover her eyes. I give her silver so that all will know that she is possessed. And none will see her power.
I bow before the power of the L-rd, and then I send them on their way.
She is a woman of 90 years. And, yet, soon after she has departed, she has a child. I see it then. I see the G-dly in her and I see the G-dly in him. I see my sin. I see my error.
I come to the man of G-d and I beg that He grant me peace.
Peace for myself, for my son and for son’s son.
וַיַּצֵּב אַבְרָהָם, אֶת-שֶׁבַע כִּבְשֹׂת הַצֹּאן–לְבַדְּהֶן
And Abraham set seven ewe-lambs of the flock by themselves.
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲבִימֶלֶךְ, אֶל-אַבְרָהָם: מָה הֵנָּה, שֶׁבַע כְּבָשֹׂת הָאֵלֶּה, אֲשֶׁר הִצַּבְתָּ, לְבַדָּנָה
And Abimelech said unto Abraham: ‘What mean these seven ewe-lambs which thou hast set by themselves?’
וַיְהִי, כִּי אָרְכוּ-לוֹ שָׁם הַיָּמִים, וַיַּשְׁקֵף אֲבִימֶלֶךְ מֶלֶךְ פְּלִשְׁתִּים, בְּעַד הַחַלּוֹן; וַיַּרְא, וְהִנֵּה יִצְחָק מְצַחֵק, אֵת, רִבְקָה אִשְׁתּוֹ
And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲבִימֶלֶךְ, מַה-זֹּאת עָשִׂיתָ לָּנוּ; כִּמְעַט שָׁכַב אַחַד הָעָם, אֶת-אִשְׁתֶּךָ, וְהֵבֵאתָ עָלֵינוּ, אָשָׁם
And Abimelech said: ‘What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might easily have lain with thy wife, and thou wouldest have brought guiltiness upon us.’
The Poet
I sit on the edges of the park. I sit and I watch the children play. I hate watching children play.
While their mothers fawn over their imaginary perfection, I see anything but perfection. I birds chased and rocks thrown. I see exclusion and I see pain. Parents shout at each other as their children sin, one against the other.
And yet I sit on the edge of the park, watching.
I can have no children of my own.
Why am I not deserving?
It is Rosh Hashana. I am not religious, but the children playing in the park are. I watch them and I wonder: do we deserve the blessings of Hashem?
I cannot imagine that we do. I hear the fights at the supermarket, the honking of horns. I see people parking in the middle of the street. I see them fighting over the mundane and the meaningless. I see the insults cast for this reason and for that. I see impossible curses levied at those we do not begin to understand.
Do we deserve the blessings of Hashem?
I do not think we are deserving.
And so, I see not hope, but suffering. Not redemption, but pain. It is written in the playground itself. It hangs in the unseen web of fractured relationships. We are meant to be something, a nation of priests and a Holy people.
A nearby synagogue has an open window. I hear the voice of the Shofar burst from within it.
Tekiah – we are standing before G-d.
Shevarim – we beg for rescue.
Teruah – we march with the L-rd.
I was religious, many years ago. Before I learned I could not have children. Before I was a poet.
I close my eyes and listen. Remembering my own childhood. Remembering the voice of shofar as I held my mother’s hand.
Like a heartbeat, the quick trills of Teruah come, again and again. It is not the honking of horns or the sound of a people at war with themselves. No, it is the sound of a people gathering together. A people who fight, and then hug. Who shout, and then smile.
I close my eyes, and I hear the Teruah is calling me to march. It is calling me to step up. It is calling for me to use my words as soldiers in the service of Hashem.
Like the unseen web of relationships, my stories and my verses can open the eyes of my people.
I begin to chant, the words coming to me spontaneously and unbidden. I hear them flowing from me. I feel them forming before me and then flowing out from within me. And then I realize the playground has gone silent. The children have stopped playing and the mothers have ceased their chatter.
Even the Shofar is silent.
I open my eyes, and I see them. I see them all, looking at me, waiting. In that moment, I know they see the presence of Hashem within me. In that moment, I know that they are ready to follow in the footsteps of the L-rd.
And I know that each of them is a prophet, waiting to call out in the voice of the L-rd.
Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash