Rosh Hashanah 2021 is a time to reflect

The Jewish holy days, known as the Days of Awe, begin Monday evening as we celebrate the New Year. Rosh Hashanah, literally the “head of the year,” gives us the chance to return to the Almighty and strengthen our relationships to family and the community.

During these 10 days of awe, we reflect on our lives, repair our connection to the divine and put aside the masks of self-deception. These 10 days of repentance enable us to examine the details of our lives, for every action bespeaks consequences, and during this time we create a heightened sense of spiritual balance.

During the New Year’s observance, we consider our ideas about trust. What does the Torah mean when it says, “Let us make man?” God answers Adam, “Let us make man, you and I.” (from Rabbi Avraham Mordecai of Ger). One of the essential themes of this holiday is trust: that we can rely on the Almighty. The Holy One expects us to do better, to mend our ways. Rosh Hashanah, according to the Sages, is the anniversary of the creation of the world. Like all creation, it is an act of trust.

To be certain, Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of the fashioning of the first human being in the divine image, when God placed divine trust in us as partners in the creation story. We depend on that divine covenant, but we recognize that trust in our fellow humans is frayed by the political exigencies of the day.

Our understanding of the meaning of these days is reinforced by our tradition of sounding the shofar on Rosh Hashanah morning and reading from the Torah scroll. These rituals echoed through the Jerusalem community during the time of the prophets, Ezra and Nehemiah. Citizens traveled from across the land of Israel to hear the words chanted by the priest and the prophets.

In 2021, rabbis throughout America reinforce this sense of trust by chanting from the book of Genesis and sounding the ram’s horn. Some years ago, I served a congregation in Galveston, Texas, and the New Year was announced on the media with the warning of hurricane winds and severe damage to the Gulf Coast. As the storm approached, members of our board called for a contingency plan. Some had already moved their families to Austin and Dallas. I was thinking about our synagogue and my house, which stood two blocks from the Gulf.

In the storm’s fury, I might lose the roof and forfeit a library of 2,000 volumes. More important, I thought of the holy ark and our Torah scrolls, some more than two centuries old. I called someone at the bank to ask if it could accommodate our scrolls in its vault. Gently I covered each scroll in blankets and placed them in the back seat of my car. I entered the downtown bank and walked up the granite steps with the Torah scrolls, and after many steps, the seven Torah scrolls were safeguarded. Everyone who entered the bank nodded and acknowledged the “holiness” of my task. To me, it was a matter of trust.

The five books of Moses have been our lifeline and tree of wisdom for more than three millennia. A damaged scroll would be unthinkable. My faith in God’s providence reminded me that I was entrusted with this duty, to protect our scrolls. I returned to our sanctuary, and the space seemed barren with the Torahs. Despite all the storm preparations, I felt a keen sense of prayer and coming back to the Almighty. Even a hurricane could not overshadow these Holy Days.

So too, in 2021, we turn to our prayers and sanctuaries, seeking comfort, elevation, repentance and wholeness. We stand anew, examining the details of the past year, promising to do better with guidance and trust from the Almighty.