Heads or Tails

One of the joys of the holidays is the opportunity to pass on traditions to the next generation.  I am proud that our children have adopted our custom of singing Barnes and Barnes’s classic “Fish Heads” as part of our Rosh HaShana meal.  We sing during the simanim, the special symbolic foods that we eat at this time of the year.

The simanim date back to the Gemara, where Abbaye has a list of recommended items.  Nowadays, we recite a sentence before tasting each siman to focus us on the themes of the high holidays.  When we eat the fish head (admittedly, some years at our house we get a lamb’s head, but there’s no song for that one), we recite the litany that asks that we be “like the head and not like the tail.”  Roly-poly fish heads indeed.

This phrase comes from this week’s Torah reading of Ki Tavo.  In its list of the blessings we will receive if we keep the commandments, the Torah promises u-netanecha Hashem le-rosh ve-lo le-zanav, ve-hayita rak le-ma’ala ve-lo tehiyeh le-mata, “God will make you the head, not the tail, and you will be only at the top and never at the bottom.”  Not bad.  Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin explains that this refers to ma’alot ha-nefesh, to spiritual highs and lows: we are all strong in certain areas and weaker in others.  Elul is when we take stock of those parts of us.

Rav Aryeh Yitzchak HaCohen Kook writes that there are times when we need to look down on ourselves, in our areas of poor behavior, and take great pride in the areas where we have worked on improving ourselves.  In other words, sometimes we need to be both the head and the tail simultaneously.  

And sometimes we need to lead, to just be the head.  The first responders of 9/11 took action and led, even though undoubtedly many of them felt like turning tail and fleeing.  Such people, as Mr. Rogers famously explained, are the heroes.  Cowards, on the other hand, hide in a crowd with a sniper rifle.  Such people are the evil ones.  There can be no confusion on that point.  This week’s terrible event in Utah has reminded us of the horror of political violence, and should inspire us not to turn tail, but to find ways to lead by creating genuine discourse within our micro- and macro-communities.

The only way to succeed in such bridge-building is by being simultaneously courageous and modest: by being both the head and the tail.

May Shabbat bring us both peace of mind and a true, lasting peace in Israel.