September starts on SUNDAY! Already our calendar programs and Daytimers are
filling up. School calendars, after
school calendars, and doctors’ appointments hang juxtaposed to Pilates and Zumba
schedules, adhering magnetically to the fridge.
Perhaps even MORE alarming is the arrival of EREV
ROSH HASHANAH on Wednesday September 4! Yes,
the holidays are “early” this year as the Jewish lunar calendar plays “catch up,”
and so the first Day of the month of Tishrei, the Birthday of the World, arrives
Wednesday evening! Don’t fret. This won’t happen again until 2089. It DOES
mean, however, that you’ll be celebrating CHANUKAH on THANKSGIVING DAY this
year!
As you recover from the shock, ask yourself the
question: “Are we ever REALLY ready for Rosh Hashanah?” After all, who has the time to sit in Shul
and reflect on their life… we’re too busy living it! God knows we never have enough time. We rush constantly to get things
done “on time” yet we always run out of it, squander it,
put things off until another time. Try
though we may, we don’t even find time for the important things… saying optimistically,
“oh well, the time will come,” even though our voices are already tinged with
hurt or regret.
Our inability to stop and smell the roses comes as no
surprise to God. God knew, even back in the days of Moses, that we might get so
busy that we would forget to “take time.” And so God makes annual, structured demands on our time. It isn’t until we age and mellow that we
realize what a “gift” these demands are!
Our
calendar is filled with holidays and festivals unique to the Jewish
People. These marked occasions, with a
few exceptions, come directly from the Torah.
The Torah refers to the festivals of the
Jewish calendar as moadim, "appointed times," and as mikraei
kodesh, "callings of holiness." "These are God's appointed times," reads the introductory
verse to the Torah's listing of the festivals in the book of Leviticus, "callings of holiness, which you
shall call in their appointed times."
These
“appointed times” form a map of the physical as well as the spiritual journey
of our people. Whether we are born Jews, or become Jews, we each lay claim to
the journey of discovery from Canaan to Egypt, to the wilderness, to the foot
of Mt. Sinai, and the giving of the Law.
When
we mark Passover, Sukkot, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Simchat Torah,
Chanukah,Tu B’shvat, Purim, as well as the more recent holidays of Holocaust
Remembrance and Israel Independence, we are scheduling an appointment with our
past, with our roots, with our God, with our souls, with hopes and dreams that
reach into the future. During some
festivals we say a bracha “Al Ha Nisim” “For the Miracles”. The English translation thanks God for the
Miracles that were done “in the days that were, at THIS season.” Time becomes interchangeable. That which was THEN becomes NOW.
Just
as Shabbat arrives at sunset every week, regardless of whether or not we set
time aside for it… it just comes. I am
frequently surprised when my computer alarm goes off late Friday afternoon to
alert me to impending Candle Lighting time in Syria, Virginia. How is it possible? How has another week
slipped by? Where did the time go? But then, once again, there is the
anticipation of Shabbat. Time and time
again.
Soon
we will welcome the year 5774 as a community. And though we are here together
in time, like science-fiction time travelers we simultaneously visit the past,
as the sights and sounds of the shofar, the melodies, words and movement of
davening, and the white kippot and Torah mantel all evoke memories of holidays
past, of loved ones, of special places and tastes and smells. We rise as one
for the Shema, feel the fringes of the tallis, and we are transported to the
place of our ancestors.
God
has set these appointed times as an appointment with the past, an encounter
with an event and phenomenon in our history. This Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,
I urge you to make the time and take the opportunity to call forth the
particular holiness of these days and to tap the spiritual resources, which
they hold.
Shana
Tova, Happy New Year.
May
you and all you care for be blessed and written and sealed in The Book of
Life.
Rabbi
Rose
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