The High Holy Days Were Made for this Moment

This year, as the High Holy Days approach, there’s more on my mind than holiday food, preparing services, or even my own spiritual life. After a summer like no other, the High Holy Days have me thinking about the biggest question we all face.

For many decades, most Jews struggled to make sense of the High Holy Days’ ancient imagery of judgment, atonement, and divine decrees. For many, it seemed hopelessly superstitious; after all, we all know that those who died in the last year were just as moral as those who made it to another Rosh Hashanah. Others came to see it as a metaphor, with spiritual but not material consequences for our actions. 

But our world has changed. Much of what appeared implausible is now all too real.

Let me set the scene:

It is a season of great consequence. A sense that life and death hang in the balance begins to emerge. The awareness that our actions can have consequences much bigger and more terrifying than we ever imagined dawns on us.

And yet, despite this growing awareness, we are largely asleep, mostly continuing to move forward on autopilot. Something else is needed to break through ingrained habit.

To rouse ourselves from this sleep — to fully awaken to the consequences of our actions — we need a very powerful alarm.

Meanwhile, very soon, a window — or gate — of opportunity will be closing. 

A very fateful closing. 

But it’s not too late! Not quite yet. The awakening and the change in direction must occur now.

End scene. Am I talking about our moment in the Jewish calendar, right before the High Holy Days? Or am I describing our moment in the climate crisis? 

Yes and yes. Point by point.

Each element of the classical High Holy Days imagery finds its counterpart in our present reality: The fateful books in which we have written our destiny with our own hands – the climate change we have wrought ourselves. The litany of fates that may await us in the year to come (“Who by fire” and so on) – the relentless stream of disasters: Lahaina and other wildfires, heatwaves, floods, intensifying hurricanes. The fear and trembling as the heavenly gates swing shut – the ticking clock and the windows of opportunity to avert worse outcomes that we keep missing. The confrontation with our own mortality – the mounting fatalities. On a collective scale, our actions really do have consequences. As recently as a decade ago, the story the High Holy Days tell could have been easily dismissed as pre-modern superstition. Now it’s a poetic description of scientific fact. 

And the spiritual tools that tradition gives us to navigate the High Holy Days are the same ones we need to make our way forward in this parallel moment of climate crisis: Cheshbon hanefesh – a thorough examination of our past behavior, a reckoning and acknowledgment of where we went wrong. Shofar – an alarm, a wake-up call that demands, in the words of the Book of Jonah that we read on Yom Kippur, “why have you been sleeping?” And the three prescribed practices that are said to avert the harshest fate: Teshuvah – returning to the path we know we should have been on all along; Tefilah – prayer and reflection; and Tzedakah – giving generously and acting in accordance with justice.

All of this leaves us with a simple but challenging task – to translate the guideposts of the High Holy Days into resolve and action. To sound that alarm. To awaken ourselves to the consequences of our collective actions, to the consequences of continuing on the path we are on. To change course and head towards a future filled with life before it is too late.

It’s real, it’s challenging, and it’s daunting. Fortunately, we have all the tools we need. They were here with us all along. The High Holy Days were made for this moment.

The High Holy Days are far from being exclusively focused on dire consequences. From the promise of Rosh Hashanah’s new year to the fresh start we are given at the end of Yom Kippur, these days, for all their serious themes, are ultimately about joy, hope, and new beginnings.

But the High Holy Days are far from being exclusively focused on dire consequences. From the promise of Rosh Hashanah’s new year to the fresh start we are given at the end of Yom Kippur, these days, for all their serious themes, are ultimately about joy, hope, and new beginnings. Our confrontation with the climate crisis can be the same. After all, what could be more joyful than waking up, joining hands, and returning to a hopeful path towards a better future, writing a new page in the Book of Life?

We know the path we need to take – collectively demanding sustainable policies, new sources of energy, and new models for our economy; adopting an attitude of humility towards a planet we did not create but are currently damaging beyond recognition. Before the gates close at the end of Yom Kippur – before the earth’s gates close on a livable future – let’s take this path. The time is now.

Rabbi Josh Weisman is the rabbi of the Temple Beth Sholom Village in Alameda County and a co-founder of the Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest. He writes, speaks, and teaches on climate and Judaism.