Think:
Rosh Hashanah begins tonight at sundown.
It’s a serious day, a day of solemn prayers and tradition. We look at our past, inspect our deeds and repent.
Then, ten days later we gather once more for Yom Kippur. That too is a serious, a day of solemn prayer. We look at our past, inspect our deeds and repent.
At least, that’s how Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are thought to be in popular imagination.
Two serious, solemn days, with little between them besides some apples and honey on one and no apples or honey on the other.
Whats really going on over here?
In chasidic thought, Rosh Hashanah isn’t just the new year - it’s the head of the year - it’s the point from which the energy and blessings for the entire year stem. It’s the moment where we crown G-d king of the universe. The shofar blast is the cry of the heart, the wordless primordial scream of the essence.
It’s deep calling out unto deep.
Yes we repent - but in the Jewish sense, we return. We peel back the layers of our soul to find that internal wholeness within. We look in and connect to the very essence of our being, where it is one with the essence of the Divine.
That’s what true return is: the understanding that what we thought we lost was never really gone. We may have been estranged - estranged from ourselves, from our inner depth, but it was always there. And it’s perfect . . . and that is Rosh Hashanah:
When we touch the core of our being and cry out - not in pain, but in *being.*
We are perfect Jews - we need only look inward and get in touch with that perfection.
Shana Tova! May this year be a year of blessings.
Do
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