Rosh Hashanah: The Particular and the Universal

The Talmud in Rosh Hashanah (10b) records a debate between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua as to when the world was created. Rabbi Eliezer says the world was created in Tishrei; Rabbi Yehoshua says Nisan. Nisan of course is the month of the exodus, of Pesach, the birth of the Jewish people. The argument here is about the birth of the world: does it fall at the opposite end of the year from our national birth, or does it coincide with it?

They disagree about the future as well. For Rabbi Eliezer, who holds that the world was created in Tishrei, the final redemption will also come in Tishrei, the time of the universal new year. For Rabbi Yehoshua, who holds that it was created in Nisan, the time of Israel’s redemption, the ultimate redemption will likewise come in Nisan.

I think this argument represents much more than the question of the month in which the world was created. It is an argument about universalism and particularism, about the ultimate redemption and God’s plan for humanity. Is the world ideally to be one that is unified under a Jewish banner, symbolized by the month of Nisan, or a more general, universal one symbolized by the month of Tishrei? 

This question is also the subject of the paragraphs we add at the beginning of the Amidah for the Yamim Noraim: 

First, the universal vision: “Grant that Your awe be upon all Your works, and Your dread upon all You have created… and may they all form a single band to do Your will with a perfect heart.”

Second, the particularistic: “Grant honor to Your people, praise to those who fear You… Joy to Your land, gladness to Your city, and flourishing to David Your servant. The righteous will see and rejoice… and all wickedness will vanish like smoke, when You remove the rule of evil from the earth.”

Lastly, a combination—a universalism achieved through the particular: “You will reign alone over all Your works. On Mount Zion, the dwelling place of Your glory, and in Jerusalem, city of Your Sanctuary.”

We believe that Rosh Hashanah falls not on the birthday of the Jewish people but of the world. Rav Moshe Avigdor Amiel, the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv from 1936 to 1945, warned that our world had become too particular: 

“They have forgotten the birthday of the first man, and only we, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, remember it well, for we are not only the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but also the children of Adam and Eve. There is but one nation, the nation of Israel, whose New Year is reckoned …from the creation of the first person. And what is more, it celebrates a New Year festival that is really the New Year for others and not for itself, for ‘The kings of Israel are counted from Nisan,’ and only ‘The kings of the nations of the world are counted from Tishrei’ (see the opening of Tractate Rosh Hashanah). And whereas all nations know only of national holidays, for the Jewish People, the very first festival is not a national holiday at all, but a festival of all humanity…”

He lived in an era of nationalism, of particularism, which almost destroyed the world. Perhaps it is the case that too much universalism, the erasure of particular nations, can also destroy the world. Maybe Rosh Hashanah’s message is that we must first celebrate the universal, the month of Tishrei, for all people are made in the image of God and have one parent, but also we must, six months later, celebrate Passover, our particular story, and thereby exemplify the value of each nation’s particularity.

May we merit this year to have a world of both, the particular and the universal, in peace.