The mother cries in labor, in pain, in joy, in anticipation. Tekiah.
The newborn takes the first breath, crying, gasping, trembling. Shevarim.
Their cries are intertwined. A cord is cut. A dream unfolds. Teruah.
All eyes with tears. The potential for renewal. The yearning for a better world. A Messiah? Our answers to difficult questions? A patch for a broken world. Our hearts are joined in hope and in the joy of starting anew. Tekiah Gedolah.
Rosh Hashana is the celebration of the birth of the Universe, and the sounds of the Shofar, the birthing cries.
“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star,” wrote Nietzsche. Within our brokenness, a world filled with depression, illness, loneliness, suffering, death- out of that chaos, we celebrate the overcoming, the creation of life, of music, of art and medicinal cures, of technology and theology, of love and of birth. Out of darkness comes light. Out of blood arises life.
Nothing is born once. Nothing is complete in a single birth. For human beings to become complete, we are born, broken, and reborn. Life obligates us to continue to give birth to ourselves over and over again. As a baby has a gestational period inside the womb, so does the future marinate inside our minds before its birth. Spring flowers arise out of Winter's icy gestation.
In moments of solitude, off the grounds of discomfort, we give birth to the new self. Though we get older with time, we are reborn the opposite: more beautiful, more colorful, more intense, more rejuvenated, with greater potential yet.
Pain gives birth to hope. A gasp gives birth to life. Tears give birth to love.
Love gives birth to love. And still, after all these years, the cry of a newborn is for more love.
