Rosh Hashanah 5785: Destroying the Evil Decrees

“May it be your will, our God and the God of our ancestors, that our evil sentence be torn asunder, and may our merits be proclaimed before you.”

-recitation said upon eating gourds on Rosh Hashanah

While most Jews know about dipping the apples in the honey, asking God for a ‘sweet new year, ‘ fewer know about other foods eaten by many communities along with accompanying recitations.  Called Simanim, or ‘signs’, these symbolic acts are meant to internalize a certain yearning, a certain prayer we might have in our personal or collective lives.  In our case above, one takes a bite from a gourd (Hebrew qera’) which has the same root letters as the Hebrew word to ‘tear up’, qara’.  In essence we are asking God to break us away from the evil decrees.  However, playing on the word for gourd, the last letter ayin is interchange here for aleph, transforming the word to the similar sounding  qara, ‘to proclaim.’ Thus, we simultaneously ask that our merits be proclaimed to the heavens,  warranting a better future.

This ritual spoke to me this year in particular, as I do not believe there is one of us who has not felt the heaviness of the past year, almost if 5784 was cursed.  Honestly, who has not sensed the evil decree!  (As I write this reflection, hundreds of missiles are reigning upon Israel from Iran, and who can tell what tomorrow will bring us.) Yet at the same time, who has not tasted the merits of our people- our resilience, our dedication to one another, the sacrifices of some for our land and our increased dedication to our faith. Indeed, the eating of the gourd and its associated recitation might encapsulate in one line our deepest feeling and desires for this coming year.

This ritual might seem like a Jewish superstition, but in actuality Jews have many laws and customs in which we try to suppress curses.  For example,  in both Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 28, God is said to bring blessings on the people if they follow the covenant, but also bring about curses- including exile from the land- if they fail to live up to the standards of the Torah.  These two sections are customarily quickly read by the Torah reader and in an undertone, although this is a matter of dispute between various communities.  What is not a dispute is that the Talmud rules that one must read the entire section of curses elucidated in Leviticus 25 in one Aliyah, and the context of the verses both before and after the section, in order that ‘one does not say a blessing (for the Torah reading) on the calamitous events described’ (T.B. Megillah 31b).[1] The Talmud even brings a story of Levi bar Buti, who was reading the Torah before Rav Huna, and when he got to the curses, he began to hesitate and shudder in his reading.  The words could not come out of his mouth as they were so harsh;  the question was raised if he was allowed to step down and allow another to read in his place.

All of us are like Levi ben Buti this year.  We all have moments in which we have shuddered and wished we did not need to speak of the curses we have seen.   The barrage of endless waves of violence, heinous and unspeakable crimes, and vicious antisemitism threaten to drown whatever sense of equilibrium we have.  Practically, how do we as Jews respond to such events?  Like our brave IDF soldiers, we do not have the ability to bury our heads in the sand.

Perhaps the key can be found in the same piece of Talmud which records an enactment of Ezra the Scribe, who legislated that the curses recorded in Deuteronomy must be read in the annual cycle before Rosh Hashanah in order that the ‘year conclude with its curses’, turning the page for a New Year. For this reason, Rabbi Nissim of Kairouan (962-1062) was reported by all the medieval commentators to rule that the parashah the Talmud refers to is last week’s parashah, Nizavim. That parashah must always immediately proceed Rosh Hashanah, for the portion talks of evil tidings that will happen if the people do not observe the Torah. [2]  A new year cannot begin with a subsequent shabbat reading of more curses.

Like the gourd, is this simply some form of game?   We are reading it to get the bad stuff out of the way?!  Perhaps the key can be found in another type of siman often referred to in Jewish texts, mnemonic word game sometimes used to remind communities of the annual cycle and other curious calendrical facts.  In our specific case the mnemonic hint that Parashat Nitzavim proceeds Rosh Hashanah is ‘kum u’teka’, ‘stand up and blow.’[3]  (Think of this like a New York Times word crossword puzzle clue that needs to be solved.)  What does this enigmatic statement mean? Let’s unpack both words.  The words of the opening of last week’s parashah are instructive:

You stand this day, all of you, before your God—your tribal heads, your elders, and your officials, every householder in Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer— to enter into the covenant of your God, which your God is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; in order to establish you this day as God’s people and in order to be your God, as promised you and as sworn to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before our God and with those who are not with us here this day.

The first part of the riddle is that all of us, from the senior leadership to the wood chopper, men and women, adults and children, and even those yet to be created are all called to stand together before God to formally enter into an eternal covenant, as they are about to cross the Jordan River into the land of Israel.   At a point of national transition, all of us from all backgrounds, stand at the ready, playing our historical roles.  All of us commit to staying true to our historic values contained within our sacred tradition.  In other words, the first part of the riddle, kum/ get up is actually an invitation for each of us to see ourselves as part of the story above, realizing we are part of the covenantal story begun long ago. We get up and stand just as they did at a critical moment.

The second part of the riddle (u’teka)  is more obvious; blow the shofar.  Thus, one reads the section in which the people formalize the covenant through standing before God (Nitzavim) immediately before the days of blowing the shofar, the essence of Rosh Hashanah.

What is the purpose of blowing the shofar?  While there are many levels to it, one is clearly to call out to God for mercy, to help us achieve our lofty goals.  The sounds of the shofar not only pierce our own heart, helping us to consider our own lives and our present needs, but they are a cry for Divine mercy.

In this play of words, the rabbis give us the true key as to how to defeat the sense of fatigue and the barrage of curses we experience.  The rabbis tell us to double down on the themes of last week’s parashah, to realize we are people who in spite of suffering, in spite of tragedy, in spite of our fears and exhaustion are the people that decided to stand before the Infinite.  Our pleas to God in the form of the shofar take place in the context of our long-standing commitment to ultimate values we hold sacred..  The doors of mercy remain open to us because we are a people who chose to place our life and our story in the light of the Eternal, and we pray that God remember this in spite of any shortcomings we might have.

Just as all of us stood together in unity at a critical moment of transition in the past, on Rosh Hashanah all of us will stand at attention at a critical time of the year, and more generally in our history. When the Jewish people entered the promised land, history did not come to an end; there were future battles and future challenges and even tragedies.  In our time as well, I am sure the coming year will continue to present challenges, including bringing the hostages back home.  However, like the crossing of the Jordan river which was pregnant with  new meaning and destiny for the ancient Israelites, let us pray that this Rosh Hashanah can be seen as the beginning of  individual and national renewal.[4]

Indeed, let us stand up in fellowship with God and one another and call out to God through the blowing of the shofar, and may God see our merits, destroying any evil decree.

May we all be blessed with renewed blessing and deliverance in the coming year.

Shanah Tovah

[1] The section in Deuteronomy is not a direct revelation from God but Moses own speech, so the Talmud is more lenient here.

[2] This explanation of Rabbeinu Nissim is debated by all the baalei Tosafot as well as the most subsequent codes which rule that in fact, the Talmud is referring to the litany of curses of the week before in ki tavo , invoking parallel Talmudic texts that imply this.  If so, the so-called curses in Nitzavim  are not truly substantive in the same way, and the reason we always read this parashah before Rosh Hashanah is to provide shabbat between curses an blessings. However, from a strictly literary point of view, Rabbeinu Nissim logic seems compelling. (See e.g. Rosh Megilah 4:10).

[3] See  Hagahot Maimoniyot hilkhot tefillah u’nesiyat kapaim 13:2 quoting the siddur of Rav Amram Gaon (d.875)

[4] Many scholars have noted that Rosh Hashanah may have been a covenantal renewal ceremony.  This is certainly the implication of the festival in one of the few places that the festival is described according to many scholars in the eight chapter of Nehemiah.