When is Rosh Hashanah! 5767 Agent of change for the better.

WHEN IS ROSH HASHANAH
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An old story, a Midrash, told by Rabbi Pinchas and Rabbi Chilkiah in the name of Rabbi Simon: Once upon a time all the malachei hasharet – the ministering angels – were gathered together for a meeting. One raised the question, when is Rosh Hashanah this year? Turns out none of them knew the answer for sure so they turned to the highest authority, the Kadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy One, Blessed Be He. “Ribono Shel Olam,” they asked, “Master of the World , when is Rosh Hashanah?” אימתי ראש השנה A bemused expression came over His countenance: “You’re asking Me? Let’s you and I go ask the earthly court.”
What a great story. The most significant date in the calendar, the day that leads to all other holidays, Yom Hadin itself, with the blowing of shofars – and neither the ministering angels nor even God knows when it is. They have to go down and see what’s doing on earth. Have you heard of any other religion in which God asks us? Here’s confirmation in our prayers: Un’taneh Tokef, “ Let us ascribe power to this day... when fate is determined” Rosh Hashanah is powerful because we make it that way. Let us pick a day when we want to change our lives.
Back to the story and some history. The אימתי ראש השנה problem was and is, that the solar year is out of synch with lunar months. We Jews have always favored a lunar calendar for our holidays but we want Sukot to be in the fall and Pesach in springtime, so that the lunar months of a little over 29 ½ days can align with a solar year of a trifle more than 365¼ days. We do this by adding an extra month of Adar, seven years out of 19. Simple enough, for a Talmudist. Of course we’ve come a long way since rabbis Pinchas, Chilkiah, and Simon. We have wall calendars provided by our friendly funeral directors. We have computers now and even my PDA is programed to tell me not only what day but precisely what time the year begins. It’s all a matter of astronomy and mathematics, and seems to be the one thing that all Jews, everywhere, agree on. And, we must assume, God and the angels go along with our calendars. In Talmudic days they also used astronomy and mathematics, but neither science was sufficiently developed to be considered reliable. So they had a special court whose business it was to hear the latest observations of the moon and the position of the sun relative to the stars. They also studied leap year records. Based on the best evidence, that court of experts would decree that this day or that be Rosh Hashanah. Then the court would send out word by bonfires on hilltops all the way to Babylonia. Possibilities of missed messages lead diaspora authorities to decree two days of holidays, just to be on the safe side.
And now a personal story. I first heard Ematai Rosh Hashanah from one of my professors almost fifty years ago, and this is the first time the midrash has made its way into my Rosh Hashanah talks. Two years ago I retired from the full time pulpit, moving from Louisiana to Boston so that my wife and I could be active grandparents to our then new granddaughter, Ela. Best move we could have made. Last year I traveled to Juneau, Alaska, to conduct High Holiday services in a small, enthusiastic congregation there. They invited me to return this year but this past February, our daughter announced our second grandchild, this one due on September 23, the first of Tishri, Rosh Hashanah. We were not about to miss such an event, so no Alaska for us. And the denouement: our second granddaughter arrived early. Gila Kline Solmsen was born to Aliza and Bradley early on the morning of September 11! Her parents named her Gila, “joy” partly for the “G” in Gershon, Bradley’s deceased father, and partly as antidote to the bitterness of the date in American history. For this rabbi, for this year, Rosh Hashanah fell on September 11.
September 11, 2001, the day said to change everything. Who here does not remember just how, when, and where you heard the news? And the images, repeated over and over, of the planes crashing into the towers, the fires, the implosion, the smoke and dust, the dazed survivors in the rubble, the fire fighters, the police. After the horror of the images and the loss, I remember two feelings, first the gloomy awareness of vulnerability – our shores have not been struck like that since 1812, and now, any enemy, not just nations, can do us serious damage. We are as vulnerable as countries that lack our vast military capability. Second the sickening sense that we were back at war, with premonitions of worse to come. For eleven years the Vietnam war embarrassed, depressed and angered me into protest. I hate the futility of opposing a war that our president favors.
That Tuesday evening, all over the country, folks gathered for prayer. Our congregation joined with Baptists and Catholics, the clergy taking turns. Never before had the song “God Bless America” been sung with more meaning and fervor. And then began a year and a half of national solidarity that brought back memories of childhood during World War II. We Americans knew that, working together, we could prevail and flourish in the face of any threat. Sympathy and help for the victim families and survivors, concern for safety throughout our infrastructure, willingness to give and sacrifice. Flying “Old Glory” symbolized mutual commitment and support. B’nei Israel of Monroe, about as distant from New York City as you could get, resolved to “adopt” a victim family. We made contact, the wife and four children of a computer technician who had worked on the top floor of one of the towers. Our bulletin carried pictures and stories. We phoned, wrote letters, and sent money. Barbara and I visited them when we were in New York.
The world seemed to be on our side against Al Kaida and the Taliban who supported them. When, American and British forces invaded Afghanistan in October, that year, they were supported by Canada, Australia, most of Europe, and, think of it, Jordan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan,
and even Iran. Osama Bin Ladin escaped capture but the Taliban was uprooted and the forces of violent Islamicism were dealt a knockout blow. With this kind of unity, international police cooperation would have protected us from, if not eliminated terrorism. For a while, one might have thought that the world had changed for the better in response to the attack on America.
Untaneh Tokef is the defining prayer of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We recite it in the Musaf section on both days. Here’s the image: the blast of the great shofar, along with the sound of silence, קול דממה דקה, and even the angels tremble to say: “הנה יום הדין It’s judgement day.” This is the moment when each of us must pass in judgement, the way sheep file past the shepherd who determines which will graze, produce, and reproduce for another year, and which will slaughtered for market. Our fate is in our hands and we have ten days to improve our chances.
We do a lot of introspection sitting here in synagogue on these Days of Awe. On Yom Kippur we shall repeatedly confess long lists of sins by way of reminding ourselves. Of course we can justifiably deny most of those bad deeds compiled by prayer book editors, but we could also call to mind a few new ones. T’shuvah, the repentance process is simple to explain: 1) acknowledge guilt, 2) repair damage done to the other, 3) when the opportunity arises to repeat the offense, don’t do it. That’s all there is to it. That’s how to achieve virtue. No need to wait till Rosh Hashanah to begin the process but, just as Thanksgiving Day comes annually to remind us of our dependence, so Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipur come to remind us of our part in good and evil in the world.
Number 1 is the easy step. Any one of us can go for days without thinking of the meanness of our actions, of the hurt we have caused our wives, our children, our parents, our friends, and who knows who else. But when we come to think of it, we have no trouble recognizing ourselves as perpetrators. We may be loathe to admit anything – who wants to be liable for criticism, let alone lawsuit or indictment? But we know, and if we make but the least effort, we can confess to our injured party. Haven’t we all been brought up to “say you’re sorry?” Number 2, reparation, is much tougher, because it involves listening to the other. But number 3, don’t do it again, is the acid test of t’shuvah, the sign of success.
Over the many years since my Bar Mitsvah I can’t claim a whole lot of successes in t’shuvah. I keep trying. A congregation working together in this sort of effort supports one another. Your resolve strengthens mine.
So, when is Rosh Hashanah for you? Think about it. Judgement day? Life changing day? Turn around day? Which day is will launch a sweet and healthy year?
Alas, September 11, 2001, turned us only temporarily. Five years later we are back to where we were before, if not worse off. To be sure, Al Kaida had no intention of benefitting America. They sought to harm and eventually to destroy us. Perhaps it is fallacious reasoning to expect anything good to come out of such evil, but good did happen, at least for a time. Let’s not think for a moment that only disaster can effect change or that only a greater disaster would bring about peace in the world. Thank you, Gila for making the point. Thank you God for a world of lively, children. Ela, and her sister, demand our attention and motivate us to take good care of ourselves, our home, our country. I’ll do my praying this year, as in others, on the first of Tishri, but September 11is the real Rosh Hashanah for me, this year.