Thoughts on The High Holy Days 2024
On Wednesday, October 2 at sundown, Jews around the world will observe Rosh HaShannah, the Jewish New Year. This is not streamers and party hats, this is self reflection, prayer, and usually a delicious meal or two with family (given or chosen).
Our year is 5785 - and as the old joke goes - we will be writing 5784 at least until Cheshvan.
But this year, along with the savory brisket, the sweet round challah and the familiar sound of the shofar, many of us have broken hearts. We are coming to the one year anniversary of the deadly Hamas attack on in Israel on October 7, and nearly one year of constant fighting in Israel. We have also witnessed unprecedented antisemitism here at home. I know that I am not alone when I share with you that I have been entirely miserable, angry, scared and deeply sad.
I became a grandmother about a year and a half ago. This joy represents the complete opposite end of the emotional continuum - my jubilation when I learned I would be a grandmother, meeting my babies for the first time, holding them, now playing with them, watching them as they take their first tentative steps and start to say words - this joy is filling a place in my heart that is hard to describe. Love, brilliance, laughing at nothing, pure positivity.
Is it possible to feel both divine joy and utter sadness at the same time? If I do not compartmentalize this sadness, and, at the same time tamp down the need to call the kids and facetime with those babies, how is work to be done? How is a lesson to be written? A child to be taught? Laundry to get washed?
In a very timely book entitled "Not a Mahzor: High Holiday Reader 5785" Rabbi Jeremy Markiz wrote an essay that addresses exactly this. His conclusion (I urge you to buy the book, link below) is that our hearts are actually big enough to hold all these feelings. This really resonates with me.
When I first became a parent, I felt my love for my first child so intensely, so emotionally that I didn't think it was possible. We knew we wanted a bigger family, but as I was expecting my second baby, I worried - how could I love this next baby the way I loved the first? When she was born it was obvious. My capacity for love just increased. (And again with my third child. Just imagine it now with two grandchildren!)
We are stronger than we think and we can be simultaneously worried, hurt, angry, in love, joyful, proud and determined to overcome adversity. Will we ever be truly joyful with no restraints again on Simchat Torah (the Hebrew calendar's anniversary of 10/7) - I don't think this generation can. There are still 101 hostages in the caves tunnels of Gaza. In synagogues we set an empty chair for them. At home we still light an extra Shabbat candle for them. This nightmare may fade, but the scar will last for my lifetime. I can find fun in music, in family, in my students' ah hah moments, in a favorite movie. And at the same time I hold deep sorrow and anger.
I asked ChatGPT to create the image for this blog post. A fractured Shofar. We are fractured but we are still here. Rabbi Markiz also says in his essay that we don't need to go it alone (I'm paraphrasing). It's hard to find community but now's when we need it the most. I urge you to find your community, your Kehillah and connect or reconnect. I'll try to follow my own advice as well.
L'Shannah Tovah U'Metukah
Not A Mahzor: High Holiday Reader 5785
