5783 Offers a Test Like No Other

One of the ironies of Rosh Hashanah is that we’re supposed to look inward during a holiday when we’re looking outward at the biggest synagogue crowds of the year. For many communities, Rosh Hashanah is a kind of coming out where the great majority of Jews find their way to a temple. The challenge has always been to find moments of quiet contemplation during an especially noisy time of year.

The last two years have turned this upside down. Isolated by the pandemic, we’ve stayed away from crowds and were forced to look inward. In many ways, we overdosed on contemplation. So, if there’s anything we need this year, it’s those big Rosh Hashanah crowds to help us break out of our isolation, reconnect with our communities and encounter other voices. 

If there’s anything we need this year, it’s those big Rosh Hashanah crowds to help us break out of our isolation, reconnect with our communities and encounter other voices.

That’s why we chose to feature Shai Agnon’s “Days of Awe” for our cover story, written by Agnon expert Rabbi Daniel Bouskila. The book is an encounter with a multitude of voices; it infuses our Rosh Hashanah experience with the wisdom of crowds — in this case, a deeply spiritual and thoughtful crowd.

The book, in essence, is a tribute to the liveliness of Jewish diversity.

“The first time I opened ‘Days of Awe,’” Bouskila writes, “I felt as if I entered a room where a fascinating array of classical Jewish sources were having a lively conversation about Rosh Hashanah.

“Talmudic rabbis, medieval Kabbalists, Sephardic philosophers, Hasidic rebbes and Halakhic scholars all seemed to be sitting around the same table. They came from different places and lived at different times, but the creative manner in which Agnon arranged them brought them to life in an interactive dialogue that transcended time and geography.”

In the book, more than three hundred texts, selected from the vast storehouse of Jewish literature from ancient to modern times, are arranged to follow the order of the synagogue service for the High Holy Days.

“Words that were originally spoken hundreds of years apart poetically flowed into one another,” Bouskila writes. “They shared ideas about Rosh Hashanah’s unique customs, its prayers, the power of repentance, the sounds of the shofar and the symbolism of the Book of Life. When reading their words, I was transported into their world. I could hear their voices. It was as if Agnon invited me into a timeless and ongoing Beit Midrash about the High Holidays.”

I love the phrase “transported into their world” because it’s so relevant to our times. As many of us still reel from the pandemic, we’re being challenged to transport ourselves into other worlds — the worlds of people we haven’t seen in a long time, the worlds of communities we’ve seen mostly on Zoom.

Because our social, in-person contacts have been so limited the past two years, another irony of pandemic-era Rosh Hashanah is that we haven’t had as many reasons to ask for forgiveness, a core purpose of the holiday.

That just means we need to think harder about the people we may have hurt or the mistakes we may have made. Perhaps the very act of reconnecting with people and communities, face to face, will help us do that.

The call of the shofar will also help.

As Bouskila writes, “‘Days of Awe’ also taught me that the shofar is endowed with a deeper meaning and message. For Maimonides, the shofar blasts awaken our souls and stir us toward improving our actions.”

Awakening our souls is one of those esoteric phrases that can mean different things to different people. For me, it means waking up to the presence of others and connecting with their souls, in a spirit of  humility rather than judgment.

Of course, it’s hard to do all that soulful work on Zoom. 

This is why 5783 offers us a test like no other. Are we ready to fully reengage with those we haven’t seen in so long? Are we ready to hear other voices? Are we ready for the noise of community?

By transporting us to a place of holiness and diversity, Agnon’s “Days of Awe” prepares us to reengage. His book is a communal table of awe, a space where different voices and stories come together to move our souls, help us look outward and inward, and usher in a better version of ourselves.

Shana Tova.