No doubt, each year is special and unique and each Rosh Hashanah has a quality or dimension (and divine revelation) all its own, as Alter Rebbe emphasizes in his Tanya-Iggeret HaKodesh. But this Rosh Hashanah 5785, just under a year since Shemini-Atzeret 5785/October 7th 2024 and all that unfolded in its aftermath, surely this is a more unique and different type of Rosh Hashanah.
Below are some new thoughts and musings, lessons for this particular Rosh Hashanah 5785/2024. Some thoughts from past years are at “Rosh Hashanah Collection”.
FOLIAGE CHANGE
OK, first something lighter before we get into the heavier deeper stuff. This year Rosh Hashanah comes late, it falls in early October. As we approach Rosh Hashanah this 2024, the foliage is just just starting to turn in our region. It appears much of the foliage changing will be in the “Ten Days of Repentance” (which start at Rosh Hashanah and conclude with Yom Kippur). Not only is personal change and transformation is a big high holiday theme, but foliage demonstrates how this process of change can be breathtakingly beautiful.
FAMILY WEEKEND JUST BEFORE ROSH HASHANAH
This aspect is more local to us at UAlbany, but we did recognize a Rosh-Hashanah-esque message and lesson in the fact that this year in 2024 the Family/Parents Weekend was scheduled just a few days before Rosh Hashanah. It sees family as Shofar and academic life as the Machzor prayers. See link for more of what we mean by that.
THE SHOFAR IN OUR SHED
Long story and journey, but that’s not our Shofar. See why you need to be where the Shofar is at this post about the Clinton/Hamilton Shofar in our Shed.
STAY IN THE GAME (THE METS IN OCTOBER)
This year the Mets play (at least one day) in October, in playoff baseball. They got there by the skin of their teeth, coming back up to win in the ninth inning in a make it or break it game. This year (2024) all the Jewish Fall holidays are in October, you might consider them the playoff season in some regard, these are really big games, each one counts a lot! The resilience of this Mets team and hanging in to make the playoffs season recalls something really meaningful US Senator John Fetterman (known for his steadfast courageous support of Israel against terror) said to an interviewer about his own challenges with mental health (which Mr. Fetterman was hospitalized for). This is what Senator Fetterman said and repeated emphatically: “Stay in the Game!” No matter how you feel, no matter how things seem, just stay in the game – do whatever it takes to stay in the game.
Jewishly, it’s also critical that we stay in the game. We need Jewish resilience! In a way, that’s a Teshuva message, how to bounce back when you are down, how not to be discouraged, not to lose hope for a better self and a better tomorrow. John says: Stay in the Game! The Mets and their fans hope to do the same. As do we!
THE THREE-DAY YOMTOV
This calendar scheduling of Rosh Hashanah (and the subsequent Tishrei holidays, too) beginning Wednesday night, Thursday and Friday, going straight into Shabbat, is known as a “Three-Day-YomTov”. For those who keep it, it’s a long stretch of holiday + Shabbat observance. Even Israelis will experience a 3-day extended Rosh Hashanah holiday this year. For many people this conjures up memes of Berenstain Bears and “Too Much YomTov” and we realize it can be extra challenging for some. But here’s a story on how we learned to see another side to it.
HIGH HOLIDAYS ON A HIGHER LEVEL
From a Chassidic lens the “heights” of the high holidays have to do with revealing/discovering the depths of our core Jewish identity. These are days when we bare our souls, when external layers peel away and the inner soul-core is revealed. That’s why Chabad likes to call Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement as the Day of At-One-Ment, when the oneness of our souls is in active play. This is true every High Holiday, but especially so this year, a time when Jews all over have felt their Jewish identity impacted, attacked, or stirred. In a sense, many of us have been living on a High-Holidays level consciousness all year! If so, this High Holiday season has the potential to go even Higher!
REBBE ON THE GREAT SHOFAR
On Rosh Hashanah of 1968 the Rebbe said a Maamar (a Chassidic discourse) on the verse (referenced in our daily weekday Amidah) “A great Shofar will be sounded on that day!” Why the great Shofar? Why not a regular Shofar? Rebbe says the answer is in the latter part of that Isaiah 27 verse: “…those who are lost in the land of Ashur, and those banished in land of Egypt shall come bow to G-d on the holy mountain in Jerusalem…” To reach those Jews in Ashur (literally Assyria) and Mitzrayim (Egypt) one needs a great Shofar. A regular Shofar reaches Jews not as distant, a regular Shofar reaches those attuned to or ready to hear it. But the great Shofar reaches much further, to Jews who weren’t prepared or attuned to (a regular) Shofar, but a great Shofar they can hear and be impacted by!
That Rosh Hashanah 1968 followed the tremendous inspiration and awakening of world Jewry in the wake of the totally unexpected and miraculous victory of the Six Day War. It was a tremendous reversal of the conventional wisdom and fears of that time leading up to the war. The rhetoric was that Israel will be pushed into the sea by 5 Arab armies. The Rebbe considered that Spring 1967 widespread awakening of Jewish identity, involvement and observance to be a glimpse or taste of the Great Shofar that Isaiah speaks of, that brings back and reconnects Jews in Ashur/Assyria (parallels to the affluence and abundance and comfort of American Jewry) and Mitzrayim/Egypt (comparable to the confines and constrictions of Jews in Soviet Russia) – both startled awake by the call of the Great Shofar, the miraculous, stunningly unexpected turnaround of the Six Day War.
For much of this past year there has been tremendous Jewish awakening! And especially this last week or two before Rosh Hashanah has also seen such strikingly successful military successes. The success of reaching Hamas arch-terrorist Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, and the mind-blowing pager-attack may be one of the most successful stealth targeted intelligence operations in modern military/intelligence history, followed up by major successes in diminishing Hezbollah’s threatening hostility and attacks, decades-long buildup and capability, even pinpointing and taking down the arch-enemy of Israel’s north for decades: Hassan Nasrallah. All in just a few weeks!
Military and intelligence strategy aside, spiritually this may be another blast of The Great Shofar! And for us to rise to the occasion and respond in kind! (Also, how can we be a “Great Shofar” to others as we go forth in this year ahead?)
COMING FROM YEAR OF MAJOR DISRUPTION
Aside for the horrors of October 7th itself, so much has been disrupted this year, both in Israel and around the world. Tens of thousands of families from the north and south are still refugees in their own country who can’t yet go home. So many reservists were called up for IDF duty affecting and disrupting their families, jobs and communities. Many of us have felt disruption in campus life. Friendships and norms have been disrupted. The way we view or expect “normal” decent people or those with advanced degrees to be has changed in many cases. Even the vaunted image of higher-ed and the storied ivys has been shaken. This was not a normal year, it was not a normal time. Some of this disruption will last for years to come.
In this generation we’ve come to hear the word “disrupter” as an exciting economic positive of sorts, but context matters. Often disruption is accompanied by hurt and pain, transition and uncertainty, stress and anxiety. It can set people back. It can be very hard to see positives in destructive disruption.
As much as we seek peace, calm and serenity, for ourselves, for the families so deeply affected by this war, for all the peoples shaken up and disturbed by it, maybe there’s also something to learn from (how we handle) disruption and what adaptions, growth and change can come from it. Shofar is a jarring sound, Rambam/Maimonides calls it a wake-up call, an alarm clock for those who may be figuratively sleeping or slumbering through life or their religious experience. Don’t be satisfied with where we are or where we’ve been, our status-quo, let the Shofar’s call awaken, invigorate and energize us to do more, do it better and do it more fully!
LESSONS FROM THE PAGER/BEEPER STORY
Baal Shem Tov taught to find personal lessons in everything. Since there was so much buzz about the exploding pagers in the weeks leading to Rosh Hashanah, surely there are life lessons we can learn from this. Here are four life lesson ideas to be learned from the pager story, perhaps you have lessons of your own!
FOLLOW THE SHOFAR’S SHAPE
Some of us, or many of us, have felt a narrowing this year. A tightness. Maybe our social circles have grown tighter, maybe the world feels less welcoming. Maybe there’s a feel of claustrophobia. The Shofar’s shape, and a classic verse recited before the blowing of the Shofar has a message for us. A Shofar starts off narrow, tighter at the mouthpiece. But it flares out, it opens wider as it goes forth. “I call out to you from the narrow straights, G-d answer me broadly!” Don’t get stuck in the narrow tightness.
There’s a very popular song called “Kol HaOlam Kulo” with the concept of “the whole wide world is a very narrow bridge”. This popular widely known Jewish song is based on a Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaching. But as much as we love to sing this song with students at Chabad, I wonder if Chabad doesn’t see the world as a very narrow bridge. That might not be Chabad-esque thinking at all. On the contrary, Chabad teaching sees bridges and connections everywhere! And they are broad bridges of spiritual-physical connectivity, and a great many of them – all throughout our world, wherever we go, and in almost everything we do!
Don’t get stuck in the narrow end of the Shofar. Don’t feel constricted in your Jewish identity. The goal is for the sound to come out the other side, where its broader! This is a time to be proud of our heritage and our people! This is a time to embrace our mission and purpose – not to shirk from it!
When the Rebbe came to America in the 1940’s, he found a Judaism on the defensive, retreating inward. Rebbe rebuilt Jewish pride, taught Jews to believe in themselves and their Judaism, instituted Lag B’Omer parades, a bold public Judaism that went out into the street, and other philosophies and activities that made “I am a Jew and I’m Proud” a hallmark of Chabad outreach and of Jewish life. And this part of the Kol HaOlam Kulo song is very much Chabad: “Don’t be afraid!”
THE JEWISH WORLD IS A SMALLER PLACE
There was a Jewish student on this campus that didn’t get involved Jewishly in her first two years here. She had friends who did, but she never came here herself, despite her coming from a warm Jewish upbringing and educational background. But she came on the first Shabbat after October 7th and has been pretty regular since. That Shabbat she told Raizy: “I was talking with sorority friends about what happened in Israel and (while not anti-Semitic or offensive) I realized they simply did not get me. It was time for me to be with my people.”
We may be thousands of miles away, we may speak different languages, we may not observe or celebrate exactly the same, but there’s a deep bond that connects us as a people that transcends all that, it runs a lot deeper than the differences. It might not surface all the time, we might not notice it, but we often feel it most when something drastic or dramatic happens, and suddenly that inner hidden deep soulful connection tugs at us.
The Jewish World became a smaller place this year, in terms of that feeling of connection and closeness. Almost every Israeli who came to speak to us here this year, from Matan Boltax the Nova survivor who spoke to us last year to the 3 Israeli college students who spent Shabbat with us this year spoke to us about how much they value and cherish and seek that unity (within Israel itself and as a collective Jewish people around the world) and hope it doesn’t dissipate after times of crisis.
What are things we can each continue to do to foster and bolster Jewish sense of extended family, our Ahavas Yisrael, that Am Yisrael Chai energy?
LET HERE BE LIGHT!
Of course, the biblical verse in Genesis reads “Let there be light!” but anyone involved in Jewish UAlbany or any of the 40+ college campuses Chabad on Campus sent the “Let HERE Be Light” Tour – they’ve heard and seen this adapted motto/slogan repeatedly almost all month leading up to Rosh Hashanah. We flyered it all over campus, all over our social-media, printed on t-shirts and spoke of it almost every Shabbat, especially since the Northeast LHBL team came back to celebrate a Shabbat with us, too.
What’s the Rosh Hashanah message? Chassidus has a lot on this! For various reasons (light’s physics properties included) Chassidus uses light as a metaphor and analogy for Divine Revelation, for the G-dliness (both revealed, concealed and filtered) in our world (and in all the spiritual worlds above). Alter Rebbe speaks of the new Ohr, the new light, a spiritual light that has never yet been revealed in our world that is released each Rosh Hashanah. Thus, despite the same old traditional foods, the same words in the Machzor prayerbook, each Rosh Hashanah is indeed different, there’s a new angle of spiritual illumination, a new opportunity and access point to spirituality and G-dliness in our world.
RECOGNIZING AND APPRECIATING THE MIRACLES
The latest barrage of Iranian missiles attacking Israel was literally on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, even closer since they are 7 hours ahead. These were no ordinary rockets, they were ballistic missiles, very large in size (these are huge) and with a deadly payload. They were shot indiscriminately over Israel’s cities from north to south. 181 (!!!) such ballistic missiles in a short time frame, and it seems only one casualty from falling heavy shrapnel. Yes, they have 3 high-tech air-defense systems: The Iron Dome, David’s Slingshot and The Arrow. Still miraculous. Miraculous!
Hillel Fulz is a tech guru and promoter I follow on Twitter. He loves all things tech and all things Israel and is passionate about them both. His post this morning was that even with all the tech, and the latest knowledge and expertise, this is nothing short of miraculous, and same goes for Israel’s recent mind-blowing strategic military and intelligence successes. All the tech in the world (and Israel uses it to the max!) isn’t enough alone. So much can go wrong. One has to feel the miracle here.
The Rebbe spoke this way – often. In 1967 after the Six Day War the Rebbes spoke of the need to acknowledge and appreciate the miracles. Same with the Gulf War. And in many other instances. In general, the Rebbe sought the good, the silver lining, the positive dimension. See “Rebbe’s Positivity Bias” a book with all its chapters online at Chabad.org. But more so, Rebbe learned the need and importance of recognizing and appreciating divine kindness and miracles from biblical King Hezekiah, a good righteous man, who took miracles for granted.
True, we’re often seeking and yearning and hoping for the miracle. The same night of the missiles miracle, there was a terrorist shooting spree in Tel-Aviv. There is much sadness and grief and distress over this whole situation. There’s a lot of trauma to deal with in a year like this. But at the same time, we also need to recognize and appreciate the miracles.
Same goes for us on the micro level. We might think we’re in control, its all our own talent and ability or connections. Torah warns us from becoming too smug or self-absorbed. Don’t think it’s all achieved and accomplished on your own power and might. Life often teaches us otherwise. Rosh Hashanah, the high holidays, is an opportunity to allow more G-dliness into our lives, to connect more, to raise our selfless to self-centered ratio, to become more attuned to the G-dliness in our world, the miracles in our lives.
AND THE SACRIFICES
Too many are paying the ultimate price in this conflict – with news of more casualties just before the onset of Rosh Hashanah.
As Tanya 30 might ask: what are we here in Albany doing in our lives that would measure up in some way to the degree of commitment, dedication and sacrifice? How do we respond in kind? How to up our ante? This is a worthy Rosh Hashanah reflection, and time to devote ourselves to deepening our efforts.
AN EREV ROSH HASHANAH POST OFFICE STORY
We’ve been working on a special mailing to Shabbos House donors in the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah, and had this mailing experience at the main Albany Regional Post Office on Karner Road – see our Post Office story and what we’re learning from it, especially as it happened hours before Rosh Hashanah!