Shanah ra'ah, part 2

My second Day of Awe seems to have been cursed - by my failure to even set a virtual foot in a synagogue on Rosh HaShanah, perhaps? 

On a morning when I was supposed to be at work preparing to give my students an exam, my wife being laid-up-in-bed sick, I had to take three of my four kids (one of whom really should have made it to his bus) to school – and the fourth, who did catch his bus, forgot his ADD meds so I am now sitting in the school nurse's office waiting to deliver those. In between, I set up the coffee machine wrong and the filter actually exploded...all over my only clean pair of slacks. After cleaning up the kitchen and starting an emergency wash load, I am heading to school to slam together an exam in record time, wearing jeans dotted with food spots that hopefully won't "read from the audience." 

Cursed, I tell you...

---

Okay, so any curse here might actually just be in my head, but I am left with a couple of mildly serious questions. How do I say that I have started this "first Jewish year" when I pretty much entirely missed Day 1? I had planned to go to the evening services and get a report on the morning services from my wife and kids - but I never made it to evening services and with Elie having gotten sick during the morning service, her report was understandably less than coherent! So, where does my new year start?

More theologically/liturgically, how do I proceed to Yom Kippur if I haven't gone through Rosh HaShanah? 

Not sure what I mean by that?

One of the things I like most about Judaism is how the Jewish mind seems to thrive on contradictions. God is neither male nor female, so they use both kinds of imagery to describe God. The oral traditions that informed the Torah disagreed on things? Those who finally wrote them down said "let's keep both!" The Rabbis who write the Talmud couldn't agree either, and once again we just kept both (or more than both) opinions. 

So when it comes to a conflict between God's commitment to justice and God's compassion for God's people? Make a holiday out of each one! Thus, the Jewish New Year doubles as a reminder that as we seek a new slate for a new year, we still have judgments waiting from our deeds – both good and bad – from the last year. On Rosh HaShanah, it is said, God opens the books of judgment and scribes us down for a good or a bad year to come, based on what God saw us doing in the year we just competed. 

But then, God is also merciful in God's compassion and love for us. So, we admit our failings on Rosh HaShanah, cast them away symbolically in the ritual of Tashlich, and then spend the next 8 days trying to make amends for those failings in whatever real or substitutional ways we can. On the tenth Day of Awe, Yom Kippur, we fast and pray that God commute our sentence, pardon our failings, and seal us in the Book of Life for the next year whether we deserve it or not. And, so it is said, God listens and God does as we earnestly ask. 

The question is: can you pull off a successful Yom Kippur without having done Rosh HaShanah? Isn't that a bit like throwing yourself on the mercy of a court whose judge is kinda ticked off at you for having missed your court date in the first place? Or is there a Defensive Driving option here?

Thoughts from the wise (and the peanut gallery as well, I suppose) are welcome...

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 15, 2015 at 4:07 PM

    Well, you did ask the peanut gallery for thoughts. I know it's not really part of your canon, but I turn to the Prayer of Manasseh when I feel I've mucked up. This is the guy who did a hit and run on the court-appointed defensive driving instructor, but he still threw himself on God's mercy, 'immeasurable and unsearchable'. God did not appoint 'repentance for ... Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who did not sin against you', but he has 'appointed repentance for me'. So in some ways not having spent Rosh HaShanah as you had felt you should perhaps qualifies you even more to throw yourself on God's mercy. Maybe you could use a prayer or reading you would have had at services as the starting point for your own prayer or meditation with Elie to get you in the mood (stop sniggering)? But I will let the wise add their tuppence, especially since this'll not my tradition. I suspect you are not the first Jew to have this happen, and I am sure such a pragmatic faith will have many ways of dealing with this. God bless you, Elie and the boys.

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