By Staff
Laast week marked the beginning of Judaism's High Holy days.
As a child, this time of year had a significance that was somewhat elusive. When the leaves would begin to change, the air slipping out of comfortable and into chilly, children have just so many things to consider. Like fuzzy warm sweaters and hot chocolate, candy corn and piles of leaves.
Every year, right around this time, the entire elementary student body would file into the gymnasium/cafeteria and wait patiently for the Rabbi to take his place at the front. We would hush our voices and make sure to stare straight ahead as he sounded the 'shofar,' the ram's horn ceremoniously used during Rosh Hashana – the Jewish New Year.
As a child, the shofar sounded shrill. The Rabbi would sound the shofar first with a long note, then a broken note, a shattered note and a final long note.
It has been years since I've sat in front of a Rabbi to hear the sounding of the shofar for Rosh Hashana. But I can still hear it. Powerful and affecting and anything but shrill. The shofar sounds like a cry. A longing.
At Rosh Hashana, there is a pause. A moment when we transition from one year to the next. We long for things in the coming year. To be good people. Better people. To be wise enough to learn from our mistakes and our falters in the previous year. We long for a way to show how grateful we are to be given another year in which to live as best we can.
To signify our hopes for a sweet New Year, it's traditional to eat apples dipped in honey at Rosh Hashana. As a child – I hated that tradition. Never did like the taste or the stickiness of honey. I always used a ton of napkins.
With such a powerful sound echoing in my mind – the adult me realizes that there is a sweetness in wanting. So often, so many of us refuse to let ourselves want anything at all. We squander ourselves away in a corner and refuse to believe we deserve anything we want. And then there are those who want too much, all the time, without a regard for anyone but themselves.
The beauty in wanting – the balance between the sweetness and the sorrowful – is in finding the balance.
As we sound the shofar at Rosh Hashana, going to sleep with sweet dreams of a fruitful, healthy and happy year to come… As we become one people sharing in a common longing… We are given time to consider our wants for the New Year and then we are forced to balance those wants with the following holiday, just a week or so later, of Yom Kippur.
Where we delighted in the sugary, deliciousness of apples and honey – at Yom Kippur – we fast completely for 24 hours. Fasting is seen as a way to practice self-control. To show we can rise above even the most natural of instincts -even those morning indulgences of coffee and eggs or bagels. It's a stark reminder that as it is so beautiful for us to really practice a wanting for whatever we can get out of life – controlling ourselves … balancing ourselves is what keeps us from having to carry shame and sorrow throughout the year. It prevents mess.
I'm all about preventing mess.
I find comfort in the fact that the true poignancy of this time of year has come to me in my adulthood. Because what I want out of the New Year is that balance. To want and want some more. But to know when wanting takes a backseat to character. To know when wanting moves from sweet and delicious to the kind that amounts only to anguish.
But with that said – we're still basking in the glow of Rosh Hashana. So I take delight in the lighter side of wanting.
Wanting more of those moments that circulate around good wine and good conversation and friendships that feel as warm and secure as that favorite sweater. Wanting more favorite sweaters. Wanting more moments worth capturing on film. Wanting the dream … and the confidence to survive the bumps and bruises that come along the way. I want the sweet, the sticky.
In the cry of the shofar – we're reminded of what it means to want to be happy – but more importantly – to be good.
The following days will force us through that transition of letting go of what we have mistaken in the previous year and committing ourselves to doing what's necessary to be better in the coming year. And while I wish for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year – I want for the goodness.