Are you ready for these High Holy Days?
Narrowing down all the ideas and topics to focus on during these High Holy Days was tough. Tonight’s Erev Rosh Hashanah sermon was almost about the shofar’s call – Saadia Gaon from 10th century Babylon had a minyan of reasons and symbolisms for it, and the list has grown since... But, no (though we will touch on shofar tonight, before hearing it tomorrow).
And it was almost about food – since shmittah, the sabbatical year, starts today, and it still affects Israeli agriculture -- plus maybe a response to The Omnivore’s Dilemma or a reminder that the seemingly arcane Farm Bill now before Congress deals with things we care deeply about, from nutrition for poor children, to environmental protection, to massive public health issues. But, no (though the Farm Bill is big; do please take that one seriously!).
Instead, tonight’s topic – a ‘simple’ question, Are You Ready? – came from a sense of hectic-ness and busy-ness and frazzled-ness, in these final weeks and days of the year that ended at sunset.
Some of it may be the calendar – the proximity of Labor Day and the start of the school year to Slichot and the holidays. Some of it may be any one of us -- or is it just me?! -- and our particular workload, family situation, random fires to put out, or any number of circumstances which lay waste to the best-laid plans.
This past Saturday, at our great five-shul consortium Slichot program and service, one local rabbinic colleague asked out of the blue the very question I’d been thinking: “does the rush to the Hi-Ho’s seem crazier this year than usual?”
And this wasn’t even the colleague (speaking of random occurrences which spoil our plans) who recently, trying to carry too many bags, fell down stairs, breaking many bones, prompting a great drash about how we all “carry too much” – for him, too, this year’s rush to Tishrei was pronounced.
Whether we’ve felt rushed getting here – whether we feel ‘ready’ for these Yamim Noraim, Awesome Days, or not – surely we could’ve done more to prepare ourselves. Surely we’d each benefit from more time for introspection, for soul-searching, for study, for end-of-year tzedakah and acts of gemilut chasadim, of reaching out -- for reaching out to friends and relatives with whom we haven’t spoken in a while to say “shanah tovah,” and maybe initiate a clearing-of-the-air tshuvah talk (especially if the relevant ‘sin’ or shortcoming has been infrequent communication!).
So two remedies for reduced readiness: first, commit now to a more intentional Elul, 11 months hence (actually it’s 12 months; this is one of 7 out of every 19 years with a double Adar, for 13 lunar months rather than 12). After all, the gates of repentance never completely close, and anyway, tshuvah is a 365-day-a-year endeavor.
And second, commit now to using the remaining 9.95 days of these Aseret Yemai HaTshvuah, these Ten Days of Repentance, to make up for lost time. We should all be less un-ready for Yom Kippur, than we are this Rosh Hashanah. That, in fact, is the point of these Ten Days.
Now, readiness is a loaded concept. It’s partly synonymous with “prepared,” ala the Boy Scouts – be ‘ready for anything’ by knowing how to change a flat, swim, survive a week in the woods, whatever. But ‘prepared’ usually connotes the physical realm, while Jewishly at least, “ready” includes a spiritual component.
Many kavannot, or pre-prayer intentions, include the line “Hineni Muchan uM’zuman / Here I am, ready, and invited.” Hineni, from Friday’s Torah reading about the binding of Isaac and elsewhere, implying a deep presence – not here just in body, but in soul, ready to give it my all. Muchan, ready, because I’m fully present, and because I’m invited to do great things. M’zuman, invited – not waiting for an engraved invitation, because sealed already in our hearts is an invitation to do the mitzvot, and to cleave to the One.
I opened by asking “are you ready for the High Holy Days” – and before we defined ‘ready’, I’d bet a lot more of us might’ve thought, ‘yes,’ or ‘reasonably’ -- but this full-immersion readiness, that connotes presence and mission both?! – well, ‘not so much’.
Let’s celebrate those steps toward readiness that we have taken. Not to ‘preach to the converted’, but if you’re hearing this, you’re here, which means you developed a plan, paid dues or dealt with tickets; did something for RH dinner (if rushed); figured out what to wear and how to appear, how to get here, and with whom; and so on.
More to the point, we’ve made a decision to be here. For some it’s by default – “I never don’t go, or my partner/parent/someone said I must,” etc – and that’s not a bad thing! Welcome, to you who were dragged here by others, or by compulsion, or by expectation and tradition and force of habit. And a special welcome to you who thought about it, struggled with the choice, who don’t always come to Erev Rosh Hashanah, or the High Holy Days at all – this is a big deal! You’re ahead of the rest of us, therefore, in the ‘fully conscious readiness’ department.
So: props for the readiness we’ve shown thus far; now the challenge is to leverage that into more. Much more. At some level, the amount of readiness we need is literally unattainable. Rabbi Alan Lew wrote what I understand to be a fabulous book about the High Holy Days – I haven’t read it, since I wasn’t that ready myself! – but the title alone speaks volumes: “This is Real, And You Are Totally Unprepared.” This is real, and you are totally unprepared.
R U Ready? We, here tonight, were at least ready enough to show up. But despite Woody Allen’s dictum that it’s nine-tenths of success in life, simply ‘showing up’ is *not* enough! So to help us get that much readier, three notes on how to approach these days of awe which stretch ahead on our calendars, and in our souls:
1. Kavannah, intention – the quality of the time you spend on High Holy Day themes is at least as important, probably more so, than the quantity (though quantity helps too – try to remember that come 5pm on Yom Kippur!). A beautiful Mishanah (Rosh Hashanah 3:7) spells this out:
"…if one was passing by a synagogue, or if his house was close to the synagogue and he heard the sound of the shofar… - if he concentrated his mind on it, he has fulfilled his obligation. If not, he has not carried out his duty. Even though they both heard the sound, this one focused his mind, whereas the other person did not".
This text is all about intention. The shofar blast travels the speed of sound to reach your eardrum, go through the auditory process, and register in your brain as a loud sound -- but that doesn’t do bubkis! It’s the kavanah you bring to the act of listening, that means you’ve fulfilled the commandment.
Even more, this Mishnah suggests that you can have a front row seat in shul (OK, a high school auditorium), and still not fulfill the mitzvah, because you’re not really listening. But you can be passing by outside, or late, or just feeling on the outs – and if you wanted to hear it, and did, and responded internally to the call of the Shofar, you’re golden [last idea inspired by Rabbi Alan Londy in UJC’s Mekor Chayim, 9/10/07].
Remember the liturgical kavanah, “Hineni Muchan uM’zuman -- Here I am, ready and invited?” Consider making that your own kavanah, too – say something enough times, you start to believe it, and live it. Try to be ever readier, in the full sense of presence and mission, for and in this New Year.
2. Ma’aseh: Action, Deeds. I needn’t belabor the point, since it’s behind all we say and do, every High Holy Days: but the single most important thing we can do to get ready is to introspect. To look back, and take a deep profound “soul accounting,” heshbon hanefesh. And then, based on what we find, to do the hard work of tshuvah – change – beginning with apologies and restitution wherever possible.
The key text for this, from Mishnah Yoma (8:9), is in our siddurim on p. ___ -- and it bears examination, again and again. “For sins between a person and God – bein adam l’Makom -- Yom Kippur atones. But for sins between one person and another – bein adam l’havero – Yom Kippur does not atone, until the one has appeased the other.” Got that? 9.9 days to go, and the clock is ticking – go appease, and make restitution!
The other core text, which we’ll encounter in each morning Amidah, is the Unetaneh Tokef (as long as our siddurim are open, see page 346) – the shocking reminder of our own mortality and vulnerability, “who shall live and who shall die,” which concludes with those central words, utshuvah utfillah utzedakah ma’avirin et roa hagzerah – “But tshuvah (repentance/change), tefillah (prayer), and tzedakah (charity/righteousness) alter the severity of the decree.”
So: get ready by doing tshuvah, as we just discussed; and by doing tefillah, which is the showing up to shul part, and the doing it with kavannah – but the last of these actions is tzedakah. Tradition says tzedakah tatzil m’mavet, “Tzedakah saves one from death” – not literally, of course, but our righteousness and even our charity make a difference long after we’re gone.
To summarize these three: get ready with datebook, with prayerbook, and with checkbook!
3. Community – we’re all in it together. We maximize our readiness by joining with others just as un-prepared, and approaching the awesome themes of these Days of Awe together, in community. That means maxxing out on the time we have together – taking as much advantage of these communal celebrations as we possibly can – which barring pressing family or unavoidable professional obligations, means:
These aren’t “have-to’s,” they’re “get-to’s”; try hard o be here. But community means not just being here, but being here together -- knowing that we have a spiritual home to return to again and again, during these ten days and far far beyond.
I want to share a lovely piece by my only Reconstructionist counterpart in Arizona, Rabbi Bonnie Kopell. Where she challenges her listeners, hear it as a challenge to us. She writes:
One of the great joys of the High Holydays, apart from their profound religious meaning, is the opportunity to re-connect with so many people we truly care about, have shared so many experiences with, and just don't get to see enough of during the year.
I'd like you to take a moment right now and look around the room and appreciate all the people who care about you and bring blessing to your life. The shul is, ideally, the place "where everybody knows your name." It is a safe haven for us in a troubled world.
I'd like to challenge you in the year ahead to make that effort to stay in touch. Schedule regular times to get together [with your 'shul friends'], communicate via e-mail, pick up the phone when you need to talk. I hope that we won't meet again a year from now asking ourselves the question, "where has the time gone and why have I not made time for the people I care about?"
"A person without a friend," one sage taught, "is like a left hand without a right." May we all be blessed in the coming year to extend the hand of friendship to others and to find comfort and sustenance in the hands of our friends.
The final piece of ‘readiness,’ then, is developing the infrastructure and the capacity to do the important work of the High Holy Days. And that means plugging into, and supporting, and knowing that you’ll be supported by, community.
Hineni Muchan uM’zuman: tonight at least we’re all hinei, here -- we’re all m’zumanim, invited, all the time – but are we muchanim, are we ready? How ready we are, is for each of us to decide. May the melodies, words, insights, self-reflections, sin-tossings, healing services, learning opportunities, conversations, and silences of these coming days help us to answer, by that final shofar blast of YK, “yes.” I’m ready. Hineni Muchan.
Shanah Tovah.