Happy is the nation who knows the Trua: A Rosh HaShana message

After the initial thirty Shofar blasts are blown, the chazan recites three verses from Psalm 89, the first of which is the most familiar to us.  Ashrei ha’am yod’ei terua, it begins. “Happy is the nation that knows the terua-sound”.

 This year, those four words take on an exceptional relevance.

The terua, as we know, is a broken note – either evoking a sigh (which we call shevarim) or a wail.  (We are unsure which of the two is the authentic terua so we sound both, together and then separately.) Each terua must be preceded and followed by a tekia, a strong, unbroken note.

This sandwiching of the shaking terua between two confident tekiot symbolises that though we are apprehensive of G-D’s judgement on Rosh HaShana – hence the fact that the day is known as yom terua – our apprehension is mitigated by our confidence that G-D will show compassion and will judge us favourably (especially if we do the same to our fellow). Yes, the trembling terua unsettles us – but it is embraced by a confident, assertive terua on either side.

Our annus horribilis, the year 5784 that we are just ending, was a year-8 in the 19-year Jewish calendrical cycle. In Years-8, every festival falls unusually late in the solar year. And in years-8 unusually momentous things tend to happen in the Jewish world and in Israel in particular. After all, the number eight in Judaism represents ma’ala min ha-teva, that which is beyond the purely natural.

5708 (1948), the year of the creation of the State of Israel, was a year-8. Can we conceive now that a body like the UN, dominated by nations who have no love for our people, actually voted to admit Israel as a member!

5727 (1967), also a year-8, was the year of Israel’s stunning victory in the Six-Day war, a victory that according to all natural predictions could never have occurred!

But so was 5765 (2005) a year 8.  In that fateful year, in a monumental error of judgement, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon went against his basic nature in withdrawing Israel unilaterally from Gaza, putting an end to beautiful, Edenesque Israeli communities in Gush Katif and its environs, and precipitating their replacement by an evil Hamas regime. And  now, 19 years later in 5784 (October 2023) the fatal fruits of his folly were bitterly tasted as we experienced from Gaza the evillest unnatural atrocities against our nation since the Holocaust.

The terua, a wavering, quavering, quivering note, sometimes up, sometimes down, represents these momentous years. Laden with happiness sometimes, tragic tears at other times.

But wait!  A tekia always follows.  And then another!  No terua fails to get cocooned in the kisses of the tekia. No calamity befalling us fails to be bandaged by the balm of G-D’s healing.

We are entering a new Jewish year, 5785. We pray that this will be for us a tekia year, an annus mirabilis. Indeed we know it!  Ashrei ha-am yod’ei terua! Happy are those who know that the unsettling teruot will always be encased by twice the amount of strong, positive tekiot.

And above all, happy are those who know that kol d’avdin in Shemaya le-tuv, that although we cannot grasp it now, everything G-D does is ultimately for our good.   Because G-D cares deeply for us. And His chastisements are always enveloped by His loving embraces.

May 5785 indeed be a year when we shall all feel those warm, comforting embraces. A year of peace and tranquillity for Jews and Israel. A year when the axis of evil will be eradicated and the remaining hostages will at last be freed, alive and well, as signposted by the year’s initial letters, taph, shin, peh, heh.  Tehei Shnat Pidyon HaShivuyim!

Our millennia of suffering will very soon be swallowed up in the actualisation of our glorious destiny. In the words of the old Beatles classic:  It won’t be long!

Shana Tova UMetuka!