Shana Tova.
Many of us heard the wonderful sermon given yesterday by Rabbi Shoshana Gelfand on the subject of hope. In many ways, my sermon today is a footnote to that sermon, or perhaps an addendum.
When you look at the liturgy for Rosh Hashanah, you can discern two different themes that run through the text. These themes are not only different, but in many ways, contradict each other. The reason is that Rosh Hashanah has a split-personality, it is actually two different days. On one hand, it is a celebration of the creation of the world. Hayom Harat Olam, Today the world was born. On the other hand, it is the beginning of the ten days of repentance that lead up to Yom Kippur. Hayom Yaamid Bamishpat – today we are judged. You celebrate a birthday by throwing a party, but you mark a period of repentance as a time of serious reflection. Both of these things coexist in Rosh Hashanah.
The truth is that the ten days of repentance don’t really belong to Rosh Hashanah. They’re part of Yom Kippur. That day, the most solemn and holy in the Jewish calendar, casts its shadow over a large portion of the calendar. Its starts more than a month in advance with Selichot, and the ten days of repentance is an intensification of this period. Rosh Hashanah has the misfortune of living in the calendar next to a big neighbour; it’s always in the shadow of Yom Kippur. And Yom Kippur is an overbearing neighbour, the kind of neighbour who drives a big car and parks over your drive, who throws big parties and is always making demands. Somehow Rosh Hashanah needs to cope with this.
The spirit of Rosh Hashanah is positive and optimistic. I think of the story of creation, and how God, at the end of creation, looks at everything that He has done and says, “God looked at everything that He had done, and behold it was very good.” Yom Kippur is serious and downbeat, like the end of Parashat Breishit, when God looks at the world and sees that man thinks about evil the whole day long, and regrets having created the world. And when these two emotions come together, optimism and pessimism, it’s always the negative that overpowers. So we’re left with Rosh Hashanah as a sombre day.
It’s not only here that pessimism overpowers optimism. We see this in many facets of our everyday life. If you were to ask people about the age we’re living in, many would say that we’re living in a period of war and existential threats. This is despite the fact that there has never been a time in history when a greater proportion of human beings have been living in peace. Most of us fret at a fall in our standards of living and increased poverty. This is in spite of the fact that we live in a time of great prosperity in the world such of which is unparalleled in human history. Surveys show that when you ask people by how much poverty has decreased in the last century, the majority will say by about 50%, in spite of the fact that the real figure is closer to 90%.
We complain about the difficulty in seeing a doctor in the NHS, despite the fact that primary healthcare has never been more accessible to so many people, and the NHS is providing more appointments than ever. But negative messages are always stronger than positive messages. And our obsession with social media only emphasises this perception.
There are real-world consequences to this pessimistic bias. When we think things are going bad, we make bad policy decisions. We become obsessed with things like immigration when it’s not really the problem. There is a real toll in the mental health of the nation, especially amongst the most vulnerable. Many of us have succumbed to this despair.
Rosh Hashanah comes from a different place. Rosh Hashanah is about emphasizing the positive. If we look at the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah, if we ignore the bits that are influenced by Yom Kippur and stick just to the pure Rosh Hashanah liturgy, this becomes very clear. Let’s look, for example, at the three main components of Musaf, which we have just recited together. The first of these is the ‘Malkhuyot’. Its message is that God is the supreme monarch, rules over the world, and has control over everything. I don’t know about you, but history has taught us that we should be afraid of such absolute power; it always goes wrong. But yet, in the vision put forward in our prayers, God’s absolute control will lead to a world in which all people come together in perfect unity and there will be universal harmony and peace.
The second theme is the Zichronot. It talks about God who can remember everything. Again, I don’t think that I would particularly want to be judged by someone who knows absolutely everything about me, even my innermost thoughts, and remembers absolutely everything I’ve done since the day of my birth. But yet, in the picture described in our liturgy, God will remember the moments of fondness and kindness and will show compassion and forgive our iniquities.
The third theme is Shofrot. The sounding of the shofar in the Torah is frequently an emergency call. It’s calling the troops up to battle and warning us of approaching danger. But yet, in the vision of our prayer, it talks about the coming of the Messiah and a time in which our national aspirations will be realized.
Rosh Hashanah is about focusing on the positive. I would say that first and foremost, the message of Rosh Hashanah is that you need to count your blessings. It’s an attitude to life which gives us more resilience. It’s an attitude to life that keeps us positive and healthy. And it’s one that we should adopt and emulate.
I hear you looking at me incredulously and saying, “Chaim, it’s all very well to say that you will feel better if you ignore the problems facing the world and only concentrate on the good, but the problems are still there and ignoring them won’t make them go away! That’s true, and I’m not advocating that we forget our problems and challenges. Rosh Hashanah is not the only part of the Jewish tradition. Yom Kippur exists, and Yom Kippur is important. That’s the time that we look at everything happening around us, at ourselves, at our society, and concentrate on what’s going wrong. The Jewish tradition doesn’t tell us to live in a bubble and ignore the world. But it does tell us about how to find a better balance. It tells that you have to have Rosh HaShana before Yom Kippur.
There’s a difference between a person who only looks at problems and a person who first counts their blessings and then looks at problems. If you just see the negative, if you just focus on the problems, you will live in despair. If you count your blessings first, you come to problems with a different mindset. If you count your blessings first, if you are aware of how much you have and how much you have achieved, you don’t look at problems as being insurmountable. Rather than leading to despair, you can now face our problems with determination, and, if I dare say it, with hope!
That’s the primary message of Rosh Hashanah. It’s a time to celebrate the positive, to ponder God’s blessings. And with this attitude, to face the world with renewed determination. Counting your blessings makes a difference.
It remains only for me to welcome the year 5786. May the coming year be a time of prosperity, of peace, of blessing, and a time when our hostages will come home to their families and will be able to live in freedom.
Shana Tova.
