The fall holiday of Rosh HaShanah begins at sundown this Monday evening - and we can feel it. On one hand, College Hill is bustling with new life and we’re filled with thrilling anticipation of all that’s to come. And also…. From floods, to fires to violence and virus variants, the world we’re living in feels apocalyptic. The good news is that the Jewish holidays headed our way are designed to help us hold the seeming contradiction between celebration and desolation and to live into the space between excitement and anxiety. So, however you’re feeling about the semester’s imminent start or the state of our world, Rosh HaShanah has some tools for you. But just as arrival on College Hill necessitates an immersion into a plethora of acronyms and other Brunonian jargon, the Jewish season demands some decoding.
Here are seven helpful tips for making sense of Rosh HaShanah, however you spend it, and navigating your spiritual orientation, amidst your academic:
1. Being a “bad Jew” isn’t a thing; choosing vitality is. Let’s get this settled way up front: whether you come to services or not, you’re not a “bad Jew” (in fact, per #4, you’re already amazing - whether you’re Jewish or not!). Judaism, like Brown, is an open curriculum of sorts. Every moment presents a choice point and the essential thing is that you’re making choices that are self-actualizing, life-affirming, good for your body and for your soul. We hope that you’ll find Hillel’s offerings over the coming holy days (which include meals, services, prayerful song-sessions, yoga, meditation, contemplative walks and more) nourishing and that you know you can dip in and out as you’d like. SHOP. IT. UP. Please make whatever choices are best for your mental and spiritual health. Your professors are aware of the holiday and you won’t be penalized for missing class as long as you’re in touch with them in advance; Chaplains, Hillel staff and CAPS are here to support you in figuring out the rest. We know that “choosing aliveness” is not always straightforward.
2. We’re not in control, but we are powerful. The Days of Awe are about facing our mortality and the precariousness of life more generally; as a result, some of the liturgy is downright scary; we chant “On Rosh HaShanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who shall live and who shall die.” This central prayer isn’t meant to render us paralyzed by fear, but rather inspired to take nothing for granted and live each day with awareness that we know not what tomorrow holds. “Who shall die by earthquake? Who by fire? Who by water? Who by war.” These questions are all too real. We’re thinking, this year, of those in Haiti, California, Louisiana, Afghanistan and more. And “Who by plague?” Covid has made this one painfully unnecessary to explain. And yet, the liturgy is clear that while we don’t have ultimate control of our destiny, we do have tremendous agency and not only through “thoughts and prayers.” Many many choices -- toward life on earth that is more just, sustainable and joyful for all -- are in our hands.
3. Rosh HaShanah is the original Earth Day. According to Jewish teaching, our planet came into being on Rosh HaShanah. Legend has it that God walked the first humans around the place, warning them that if they destroy God’s handiwork, there will be no one to fix it. Apples and honey likely became a thing because of Adam and Eve’s incident with a forbidden fruit; the point for me is that trees are central to our existence and the sweetness of our lives depends on them. If you’re looking for a totally universalist way to celebrate the upcoming holiday, consider eating something sweet from a fruit-bearing tree, giving thanks, and committing to being a better steward of our planet’s health.
4. This season is about finding our way back to ourselves. “Sin” and “repentance” are inadequate translations of Hebrew words that are worlds deeper and, at core, not about damnation, but direction - orientation. Het, the Hebrew word generally translated as sin, really means to veer, or drift off in an unintentional direction – a het (sin) really amounts to a lack of kivun or kavanah – direction, intentionality, mindfulness. (This is why the alternative service I’m leading with students on Wednesday is called Kivun.) Choosing to take the direction that leads us back to our truest self, that is the definition of the Hebrew word, teshuva, most often translated as repentance. The root of teshuva means “return,” because Judaism holds that we are, at essence, already amazing; we’re born with a soul perfect and pure, longing to return to itself.
5. The shofar is meant to WAKE US UP. The shofar is a ram’s horn; like the ram caught in the thicket in the story of Abraham and Isaac, all of us tend to get a little stuck and unclear about our purpose. Rosh HaShanah is biblically known as Yom Teruah, literally, “day of shouting or blasting;” it’s meant to wake us up to how we should be living out our passions and gifts. The holiday is also known as the Day of Remembrance, Yom HaZikaron. This is because, throughout the year, we tend to get a little lost; we forget our priorities, even forget who we are. We’re not in need of salvation (in a top-down metaphysical sense), but rather, retrieval and reorientation -- a total recall of who we are, what we’re about and how interconnected we are to every other living creature on the planet.
6. God is a spectrum. There’s a name for God, which appears frequently in daily prayer, that it turns out I’d been mistranslating (in my head) until my adult life. That name is Adonai Tzevaot, which literally means “God of Hosts/Armies;” in my head, though--because neither spelling nor grammar are fortes of mine--I always understood it to mean “God Of Many Colors” (which would be Adonai Tzevaim). Anyway, I was close -- and I’m still convinced my childhood translation is closer to the truth. The point is, God is an English word used to translate infinite names for the Divine found throughout the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature, let alone other faith traditions. The names include everything from (the Hebrew words for) parent, ruler, lover, shepherd, creator, designer and feminine presence, to rock, place, breath of life, wind, master of souls, endless and “I will be what I will be.” So…. If your vision of God is something very specific, singular or concrete you might be unnecessarily constraining yourself. If traditional God language doesn’t work for you, try imagining, in its place, every positive, intangible thing you’ve experienced (love, goodness, beauty, joy, the sensation of the sun on your skin) - and lean in.
7. Shanah Tovah = a blessing for “good change.” Contrary to common translations, the words used to greet and bless one another at this time of year, Shanah Tovah, don’t mean “happy new year.” Shanah means to change and tovah means good. What we’re praying for--all around and inside ourselves--are positive changes - developments, growth. As the old adage says, when we’re not growing, we’re dying - and thus we return to #1. The Days of Awe (a more literal translation than “High Holy Days”) are about making life-affirming choices that change us and our world, for the better.
As daunting as this season--the start to the Jewish and/or academic year--may feel, our ultimate message and promise (mine and the liturgy’s) is that you’ve got this, someone’s got you, and we’ve got each other. I hope to get to say more about this in person at our Rosh HaShanah dinner this Monday evening on Simmons Quad and/or 1:1 over coffee or a walk soon. In the meantime, I hope you’ll take my word for it. May it, indeed, be a shanah tovah - for us all, and for our planet.
Rabbi Michelle Dardashti is heading into her 9th year as Associate University Chaplain for the Jewish Community at Brown University and Rabbi at Brown RISD Hillel. You can reach her at rabbi@brown.edu in her office on the 4th floor of Paige Robinson or at Hillel. (Best to catch her at one of these events, or email her after the holidays!)
