Rosh Hashanah 5771 Facing the Concealed Within Rabbi Hillel Athias-Robles 29 September 2010

If yesterday night you ventured beyond your doorstep, you might have noticed that night was a bit darker than usual, the outside a bit more uninviting, for Rosh Hashanah is crowned by a new moon, at a time when our comforting orb is concealed behind a drape of shadow. This is unusual for a Jewish holiday. We Jews are part werewolves. We feast on our best meals to a Full Moon – Pesach, Sukkot. Even Shavuot, which falls during the early days of the month of Sivan, comes to us when the rays of the moon begin to peek from beyond their encasement, during a time of waxing luminousness.

We find a reference to this peculiar aspect of Rosh Hashanah in Psalm 81. In a verse which the rabbis interpreted to refer to Rosh Hashanah, we read: “Tiku bachodesh shofar”, blow the shofar on the new moon, “bakeseh leyom chagenu”, in the concealment of the day of our festival. The concealment of the day of our festival? What could this possibly mean? If you’ve been to a Rosh Hashanah dinner, you would have noticed that there is not much concealment going on. It’s the time of year to empty the whole freezer and fridge to the last morsel and jam it all onto the table, with extra gravy, pudding, and alka-seltzer on the side.  But Rosh Hashanah is indeed intrinsically connected to the concept of concealment. You see, the aim of Rosh Hashanah is to address that which is normally concealed, our innermost nature, the hidden chambers of our being, often concealed even to our own selves.

Rosh Hashanah demands introspection of the most penetrating kind. It is a new year, a time of crossing thresholds. We therefore traverse from the realms of our personality which we are familiar with, with which we have a working relationship, to the vast expanse of the unknown, which lies remote from our zone of comfort. Today we face the version of ourselves that is to us a stranger, the version of ourselves that skulks beneath layers of propriety and sociability, beneath the masks that we wear when living out our lives. For this “I” that is a stranger tends to pay uncalled visits at the most unexpected of times- sudden bursts of rage, impassioned jealousy and envy, erratic behaviour, deserts of melancholy and depression. In Rosh Hashanah we meet the recondite part of our personality and seek to tame it, or at least acknowledge it. For those Freud fans amongst you, and there must be a few, today our ego confronts our id.        

We will shortly be listening to the sound of the shofar. The mitzvah of shofar is quite different from all others. Whilst commandments generally require of us an outwardly action, like shaking the lulav, shofar does not. The mitzvah, as we say in the blessing, is “lishmoa kol shofar”, to listen to the voice of the shofar. We sit and we don’t have to do much, except of course for Neville and Carole who will be huffing and puffing away. This divine entreaty is therefore not targeted at our outer selves, but rather it seeks to pierce us at our innards, to reach every abstruse cavity, to be heard by our hidden being louder than a vuvuzela, which by the way is was inspired by an African kudu shofar. The sound of the shofar is primeval, it speaks in the language of the unconscious. According to tradition, the shofar was meant to confuse the Satan. As a Progressive Jew I of course am not referring to a fuddled Beelzebub. Rather, the shofar metaphorically rattles our inner demons, those we try to ignore but who haunt us when we least expect it. The blow of the shofar in ancient times was also a call for battle. Now, it is a call for battle against the darkness within. Today we contend against those aspects of our selves which stand as barriers between us and the ideal of who we want to be, the “I” that stubbornly grasps us to hinder us from fulfilling what we must on Earth.  As we do so, we will unveil our truest essence, which also lies enshrouded in the depths of our selves. That essence is the divine spark glowing inside each and every one of us, our infinite potential for good and our ability to connect to the sublime, a spark that is bedimmed by the inner darkness we cloak ourselves with. Once our flame is released, it will shine refulgent on all aspects of our lives.

Therefore, this Rosh Hashanah, let us face that which we conceal inside.  Let us cleanse ourselves from within, let us remove the bitterness, remorse, apathy, hate, sadness, low self-esteem, and all the other demons that gnaw from deep. Then our inner spark shall burst forth and cast an infinite light upon our paths on this world, this year that germinates and all the others to come. As you listen to the shofar today, may you be awakened to the possibility of a new you.