Shanah Tovah. I feel honored and excited to be up here on the Library Minyan bimah for Rosh HashaNAH. It’s like a personal milestone. You see, when I was growing up, we didn’t have Rosh HashaNAH. My family celebrated a different holiday called Russia Shunah. I think it’s a St. Louis thing. And while I didn’t know a lot about Russia Shunah as a very young child, I knew that it was the Jewish new year. After all, Russia Shunah was named after the Jewish homeland, the land of my great grandparents and of Fiddler on the Roof, the country where all Jews originally came from –Russia.
I’ve learned a bit since then. I’ve trained myself not to say Russia Shunah but instead, Rosh HaSHAWNah, which drives my wife Dafna crazy, so now I struggle to switch to Rosh HashaNAH. But no sooner do I master that, but I have to grapple with the fact that nowhere in the TORah (I mean, nowhere the TorAH) is this holiday ever referred to as Rosh HashaNAH. Instead it is identified as Yom Zikaron Truah, from which the Rabbis derived Yom HaZikaron , the Day of Remembrance, the name for the holiday in many of our brachot.
These two names, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Hazikaron, reflect two different themes of the High Holy Days. Rosh Hashanah, which means “head” or “beginning” of the year, emphasizes beginnings, renewal and change. In fact, “shanah,” the Hebrew word for “year,” comes from the same root (shin, nun, hey) as the Hebrew words for “change” – shinui, shoneh, lehishtanot. In contrast to that forward-looking theme, the name Yom Hazikaron indicates remembrance, God’s recollection and scrutiny of things past, the bygone deeds of humankind which we are now powerless to change. I would like to explore these two themes of Rosh Hashanah, change and remembrance.
I’ll start with a fundamental question that Rosh Hashanah poses: Can a person change? Do we human beings truly have the power to change ourselves? If so, to what extent can we change? Are there some things within us, which, like it or not, we cannot possibly change? The idea of change seems to be at the core of the season of Tshuva. We reflect on our lives, particularly our moral failings and wrong turns, and seek to steer a new course. We daven slichot and ask forgiveness of those we have wronged, with the idea that henceforth things will be different and we will change. In Unetaneh Tokef, we envision G-d inscribing our fates for the coming year indelibly in the Book of Life, but are told that by Tshuva, Tfillah, and Tzedakah we can change the severity of the decree. Thus, the Days of Awe are a struggle between fatalism, and the belief in the possibility of change.
Yet every year on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, here we are again in shul, many of us sitting in more or less the same seats, and we recite the same prayers in the machzor and confess the same enumerated list of sins. I confess to you all that even my silent, private prayers and meditations of repentance and tshuvah tend to sound the same, year after year. So can we really change?
That question itself begs another question – change what? What are we? I’d like to think we are more than our physical bodies. Are we then our minds, the sum total of our knowledge, thoughts, ideas, and memories? Perhaps we are our our actions and our words, the total of our interactions with and impact on our fellow human beings and the world. Or perhaps we are our emotions, attitudes, and tendencies? Or is there something deeper than all of that, a soul, our individual ruach or neshama which animates and drives us? Which of these things define who “we” are and hence what must be able to change if “we” can be said to change?
I’ve posed these questions to family members, friends, rabbis, coworkers, Jewish and non-Jewish. I’ve even Googled the question, “Can a person change?” The popular answer, is, “Yes – of course. We have all changed. That is the very meaning of Tshuva. It is never too late or impossible to change our lives – or else what are we doing here on Rosh Hashanah?” But I’d like to offer a different answer. If the real question is, not "can we change our lives" but "can we change ourselves, our very character or fundamental essence," then I propose the answer is, well, NO. Perhaps there is a part of us which we are powerless to change.
We can certainly change our actions, our words, our behavior. That is the very essence of Tshuva. Even life-long habits can be changed. But we are more than our behavior. It is much harder to change our attitudes, our opinions, and beliefs, our outlook on life, but we can change those too. We can and do grow and mature, and learn. But there is more to us than even that. Deep within each of us, below the surface of our behavior and speech, even below our thoughts, below the environment which shaped us, is an animating spark which drives each individual and makes each of us who we are. According to our tradition, this innermost self – call it neshama, ruach, or soul, was created by G-d. Although I’m not into Kabala at all, there is a kabalistic notion of a storehouse of souls fashioned by G-d, waiting to be born.
This inner self is unique to each of us. We were not all given the same qualities or traits. Some of the unique characteristics which make up who we are may be things we view negatively, as faults, shortcomings, or evil inclinations, things we wish we could alter or get rid of. Yet no trait of our neshama is inherently negative. Each trait can actually be a force for good. For example, what we view as impatience can be a desire for action, a driving force for repairing the world. Stubbornness can also be seen as commitment, determination, devotion. Vanity can inspire us to great works of philanthropy and to self-improvement. Envy may push us toward learning or toward performing mitzvot, acquiring knowledge and merit.
There is a midrash about a king who was an enemy of the Israelites during the time of our wandering in the desert. This king sought to learn more about Moses, the better to defeat him. He hired an artist who had the magical ability to draw a portrait of a person’s soul, and sent that artist into the Israelite camp to draw a portrait of Moses. The resulting portrait showed a soul containing vanity, avarice, and gluttony. The king was incredulous and confronted Moses with the portrait, asking how this could be, given all that the king had heard about Moses. But Moses admitted to the king that these truly were characteristics of Moses’s soul which Moses had harnessed toward a life of righteousness.
As I’ve said, we can change some things. It may be difficult to distinguish between habits and attitudes which can be corrected, and characteristics which truly belong to that innate, G-d given soul within us. But I nevertheless believe that we each do possess a certain core combination of immutable characteristics which uniquely define who we are. We neither can nor should change those, for to do so would amount to annihilation of ourselves.
I don’t mean to contradict the fundamental Jewish principles of Tshuva that it is never too late to change our ways, throw out our destructive or callous behaviors toward others, and act like the better human beings and better Jews we were meant to be. We can examine the direction we are travelling and steer a better course. But while we can, thank G-d, change the direction of our lives, we cannot completely transform ourselves into something we are not.
Too often, instead of looking constructively at how to improve our conduct – true Tshuva – we spend this time of reflection beating ourselves up, telling ourselves, “I am a ________ person,” filling in the blank with whatever negative adjective, “and I wish I were instead a _______ person.” That struggle can be futile and self-defeating. If we cannot completely change ourselves or the stuff we’re made of, we can instead examine and change if necessary what we do with that stuff, and focus in this time of Tshuva on bringing out the good potential of each of our traits.
I’m going to shift gears here, because this notion of our unique inner essence also ties into the other theme I mentioned at the outset, Yom Hazikaron, G-d’s remembrance on the Day of Judgment of all G-d’s creatures and all deeds. The Musaf Amidah for Rosh Hashanah, which we will soon daven, contains a series of Zichronot verses regarding G-d’s remembrances. The Zichronot section opens with a passage of prayer which I have found to be awe-inspiring, intimidating, and yet also comforting at the same time. I’ll read the first few lines to you now.
“You [G-d] remember the deeds done in the universe, and You recall all creatures fashioned since the earliest times. Before You all hidden things are revealed, and the multitude of mysteries since the beginning of Creation. There is no forgetfulness before the throne of Your glory and nothing is hidden from before Your eyes. You remember everything ever done, and no creature is hidden from You. Everything is revealed and known before You, Hashem Elokeynu, who keeps watch and sees until the end of generations, for You bring about a decreed time of remembrance for every spirit and soul to be recalled, and for abundant deeds and a multitude of creatures without limit to be remembered.”
Interestingly, in other parts of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, G-d is portrayed as a remote and distant figure, more so than at other times of the year. He is the King of the Universe mounting His throne to judge the entire cosmos as even the angels in heaven quake in fear. But in the Zichronot passage, G-d is not distant, but instead extremely, intimately, perhaps even uncomfortably close. This is G-d who can peer into every nook of our souls, and remembers perfectly our every deed, our every word, and our every thought, and there are no “hidden things” before God’s eyes.
As a brief aside, imagine for a moment that another human being knew you this well – that your spouse, or friend, or a special someone in your life knew every detail in your life, shared all your memories, moments of joy and heartache, your innermost, most secret or hidden thoughts. Do you long for a relationship like that? Or does the idea make you recoil – crave your “space”? Perhaps some of us would recoil, at least initially, to the notion of being so exposed. But on further reflection, what a relief and a release it would be to be like an open book to a fellow human being, to have no secrets, no excuses, no need for explanations, to be so utterly known.
The Zichronot passage reminds us of how utterly exposed we are to G-d. Our emotional reactions to the Zichronot likely depend upon how comfortable we are with ourselves. How well do you know yourself? At this time of year, we Jews are obligated to engage in Cheshbon Hanefesh, an accounting of our souls. Are there “hidden things” inside you, revealed only to G-d, which you cannot, or choose not, to see yourself?
I’d like to point out something in the text of the Zichranot passage, particularly regarding the word “remember.” What does it mean for a G-d who Is timeless and not bound by human concepts of past, present, and future, to “remember?” The Zichronot text actually uses two different Hebrew verbs which are commonly translated in machzorim as “remember” or “recall” – zocher and poked. Rabbi Harvey Belovski who writes a blog from London, has noted that in this prayer, “zocher” tends to be used for G-d’s remembering actions, and “poked” tends to be used for G-d’s remembrance of creatures, people. The opening verse in Hebrew reads “Atah zocher et maasei olam ufoked kol yetzurei kedem.” But “poked” doesn’t exactly mean “remember” in Hebrew. The meaning of “poked” is more like to attend to, to visit, to check upon. So while G-d remembers our every deed and action, G-d visits and attends to each of G-d’s creatures, checking in with our souls. This perhaps ties in with what I said earlier about changing our conduct but not our innermost beings.
Today, this “decreed time of remembrance,” is of course, a Day of Judgment. G-d visits and attends our souls and remembers and inspects our deeds for the purpose of judgment. Have our actions, our words, and behavior measured up to our neshama, our souls? Have we utilized our innate gifts toward righteous ends, allowed our G-d-given traits to materialize as moral strengths rather than weaknesses? Just as G-d remembers and scrutinizes us, so should we remember and scrutinize ourselves. Look at your neshama. Try to uncover the hidden things –those unchanging God-given traits within you, see the good you are capable of, the sort of mensch you are meant to be. Now look at your actions. Do your conduct and your speech measure up?
The image of G-d in Zichronot can be frightening and certainly awe-inspiring, but I also find something quite comforting in its message. Ribono Shel Olam, the Master of the Universe in all G-d’s vastness, remembers us, knows us through and through. There is a yearning in the human soul which this prayer speaks to, a yearning in us to be known, to open the “hidden things” within us, and to be remembered.
There is another holiday called Yom Hazikaron. As most of you know, that is also the name for the modern Israeli Memorial Day which falls in Spring, a day for the sounding of sirens instead of shofarot. This past year, I was fortunate to be in Israel on that other Yom Hazikaron and attended the memorial program at the Givat Shaul military cemetery. On the hundreds of graves, some attended by family members and some not, were brief, biographical summaries -- places and dates of birth and death, the unit served in. Staring at these graves I wondered what larger stories were forever buried within. What were this soldier’s happiest childhood moments, his disappointments and heartaches, his life-changing moments? What were her dreams, her worries, her favorite foods or best kept secrets? What did he think about when he was bored? What made her laugh?
We Jews are ambivalent about life after death, regardless of what our rabbinic sources and traditions might say on the subject. But no matter what our views, one thing we Jews tend to say to mourners is that our loved ones “live on” in our memories. Yet this is limited consolation at best, because human memories are imperfect. Sadly, our memories fade with time, and may never have been completely accurate in the first place. There are many things about our loved ones which we never knew about and therefore couldn’t possibly remember. And what will happen to those memories we do have after we, ourselves, die? We could ask the same question about our own fates. Who will remember us, our words and deeds and unspoken thoughts? Will everything we ever were be lost to the oblivion of passing years, millenia, eons?
To this, the Zichronot prayer answers, “No.” For G-d remembers all deeds and all creatures since the beginning of time until the end of generations, and G-d decrees a time of remembrance for every spirit and soul to be recalled. We and those we love will exist forever in G-d’s memory. Perhaps G-d’s very act of remembrance gives us life. Each characteristic of our neshamot, with their potential force for good, will remain alive in the present time in God’s Zikaron and that will never change.
Zachreynu lechayim, Melech Chafetz bachayim! Remember us for life, King who cherishes life. Remember us for a good life, and this year may we recognize the hidden gifts within us, and achieve in our words and actions the better potential of the good souls G-d has created in each of us. Shanah Tovah!