Rosh Hashanah isn’t just about being new, it’s about making needed changes. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, of Central Synagogue in New York, wrote in a recent Rosh Hashanah sermon:
"If you have come here tonight on Rosh Hashanah and feel that there is nothing to examine, no wound in your life to heal, no relationship to repair - then I hope you will listen especially closely to the shofar. The purpose of the Shofar blast is to shake us up, and to disturb our status quo. The shofar call, "shevarim,” literally means "broken." And if you do not feel any cracks emerge from that sonic signal, you might ask yourself if you've truly fulfilled your obligation to hear it. For the shofar blast should be a wake up call that reminds us to dig a little deeper, to bear into what is hard, to stop living life on the surface of it all. To return to our fractured relationships. To lean into the grief that you're feeling for someone you lost. To examine the imperfections that we constantly criticize and then, to get curious. Perhaps this pain, this flaw, this broken heart - has a purpose.”
Too often, we are quick to call out the changes other people need to make and shy away from the changes we need to make ourselves. We can all benefit from reflection on the changes and repairs we need to make as individuals. We can also all benefit by affording others a little more grace to learn and to grow and to change.
Given the host of ills in the world, it’s more important than ever that we stand together to confront the challenges we face as a community, as a nation, as a people, as human beings.
May you have a year of health and happiness; but may you also have a year of taking account, of looking inward before casting outward, of working to build up instead of tear down, of uniting instead of dividing.
L’Shanah Tova,
