Unlearning for Rosh Hashana: A Song in the Dark
It’s a wonderful time of year. There is a sense of newness and possibility, the autumn air is crisp and BH school is back in session. I often think about this time of year as a time for learning new things. But this year, I’ve been thinking about a different idea I recently came across: unlearning.
Unlearning is the process of looking at ideas we once took for granted, especially those we first absorbed as children or as beginners, so that we can encounter truth more deeply. It is not about forgetting or rejecting what we have learned; it is about re-examining inherited assumptions and making room for a truer understanding. This is true in all fields, and it is certainly true in our Jewish learning. Unlearning is sometimes harder than learning because it challenges our very foundations. But unlearning can also free us, allowing us to see the Torah, the world, and ourselves with fresh, truthful eyes. It deepens our faith and brings us into a more authentic, joyful connection to God and to the life we live. As much as we need to learn, it’s also critical that we unlearn.
In the spirit of unlearning, I present to you today: The Top Three Things You Might Have Learned in Jewish Education about Rosh Hashanah that you also might want to UNLEARN.
#1: The Birthday of the World
In many Jewish classrooms, Rosh Hashanah is celebrated as the birthday of the world. Children might eat a cake, wear party hats, and sing “Happy Birthday” to the world. It’s a lovely image, but it’s not quite true. The world was not created today.
The Midrash is explicit: the world was created on the 25th of Elul. So, if you’re celebrating the world’s creation today, you are six days late to the party.
I know we say the phrase, hayom harat olam (היום הרת עולם), but if this was a birth, the phrase would be hayom nolad olam (היום נולד עולם). A better translation of hayom harat olam is, “Today, the world is pregnant.” This is a very powerful image. Pregnancy is a state full of potential and newness. But it can also be uncomfortable, painful, and even dangerous. It is a time of constriction before expansion. Perhaps this is a much more apt metaphor for the world as it is now, a world pregnant with possibility, but also fraught with tension and uncertainty.
#2: The Books
The Gemara teaches that “three books are opened in heaven on Rosh Ha-Shanah: one for the thoroughly wicked, one for the thoroughly righteous, and one for the intermediate. The thoroughly righteous are forthwith inscribed in the Book of Life, the thoroughly wicked in the Book of Death, while the fate of the intermediate is suspended until the Day of Atonement.” This passage has greatly influenced the entire conception of the High Holidays.
It shows up in our liturgy and the piyyutim of these days. Of the four special insertions in the Amidah for the Ten Days of Penitence, three are prayers for “Inscription in the Book of Life.” It is the central theme of the powerful U-Netanneh Tokef prayer.
This is a very powerful image, and it motivates people. People daven with a fire and intensity on Rosh Hashanah that they don’t the rest of the year. The idea of getting into “the book” brings people to shul. But the books also keep people away.
I was talking with someone recently who told me, “I can’t come to shul. My father died from a cruel disease. How can I pray to a God who wrote that in a book? I’m not going this year.” Now, we are all here today, but many of us might share some of those feelings. Was it sealed last Rosh Hashanah that my loved one would die this year? Were the Bibas boys written into the book of death last year for not being righteous enough? What on earth does this all mean?
And what about for me? What if today my davening isn’t great? What if it was hard to concentrate? What if I fall asleep in shul? Will that get me written into the Book of Death? Instead of inspiring steady inner growth, this imagery risks turning a season of profound reflection into one of paralyzing anxiety. It also overshadows all the other beautiful themes in the Rosh Hashanah davening.
So here’s the unlearning: The books of life and death are not in the Torah. A book of the righteous is mentioned once in Tehillim (Psalms), with no connection to Rosh Hashanah. The concept is mentioned in the Gemara, but a lot of things are mentioned in the Gemara! It appears here and there in Midrashim. Many rabbis throughout history have struggled with it, just like many of us struggle with it.
I want to offer this: take the books seriously, but maybe don’t take them literally. Sometimes, taking something literally is far less serious than taking it seriously. The books are a metaphor, a powerful religious image. If this image is helpful for you, if it creates spiritual awe, helps you confront your mortality and human frailty, and inspires you to reflect and connect, then great!
But if the books create a sense of panic, fear, anger, or disbelief, if they make you want to walk out of shul, then I invite you, this year, to unlearn them. Instead, make space for all the other wondrous, awe-inspiring themes in our davening and in our Torah readings. Think about Malchuyot, Zichronot, Shofarot, crowning God as king, remembering the covenant we have. Think of the God who, in our haftarahs and parshiot, hears the cry of the brokenhearted. Or even better, don’t think of anything at all. Just listen. And be.
#3: Good Deeds Will Save Us From Bad Things
The image of the heavenly books is abstract. But right after, we get something much more real in our prayers, a listing of who will die by flame, by sword, by famine. People dying tragically, before their time, those are not abstract at all. Those images are painfully real.
And then the davening: U’teshuva, u’tefilla, u’tzedaka ma’avirin et roah hagzeirah – teshuva tefillah and tzedak do something to the evil decree. In other words, if I do good, then bad things won’t happen. Maybe a teacher once taught you about tzedakah and quoted the Gemara: u’tzedakah tatzil mimavet—”and charity will save from death.” Maybe you learned as a child that if you do good things, you will be protected from bad things happening to you. I think deep down, we all really want to believe in a world of perfect justice.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of Hersh, z”l, has become a powerful voice for our community and the world.4 She said: “I actually thought the world worked one way: be kind, be respectful, work hard, raise your kids well, pay your taxes. But in the crash course of geopolitics, I came to learn that every single thing is transactional. That the world works based on interests and equities. And that we human beings, though we tell ourselves otherwise to get through the day, can be quite vicious. My worldview was dashed, like babes against the rocks in Psalm 137. Almost two years in, now I know better.”
That’s a very painful unlearning. I think on much smaller scales, many of us have had similar unlearnings in the past few years.
I recently had a pastoral conversation with someone, not a member of the shul, who was struggling with infertility. She is a good person, a kind person, who desperately wanted to do the biggest mitzvah in the Torah, to bring life into the world. But her hopes were raised and then dashed, again and again. Rosh Hashanah can be a very challenging day for people struggling with fertility challenges. Please, keep in your tefillot everyone yearning to bring children into their world and their families. She called me and said, “You’re a rabbi: tell me the thing to read, or believe, or say that will make this all make sense.”
So I said something. She told me I was the one person who had said something helpful after she had talked to therapists and friends, all of whom had upset, frustrated, even angered her after turning to them for slace. Do you want to know what my brilliant pastoral intervention was? The genius rabbinic words that came out of my mouth? Three words. I said: “This. Really. Sucks.”
People had previously told her it wasn’t meant to be, that maybe in the future it would work out, that she should try their doctor. And those words just hurt more. “This really sucks” was healing. And the only reason I knew to say that was not because of five years of rabbinical school. It’s because it’s what someone said to me that helped me when I was going through similar challenges.
We’ve got a lot of challenges right now. This is true on an individual level and it is true on a global level. Whatever one’s politics, everyone can agree that a lot of big things are not so great right now. Things are being torn apart, things are breaking down. Dark and extreme forces are gaining power. People are angry and afraid. It’s all happening so fast. So many things are not the way we want them to be.
There is a song from the early ’80s that’s seen a tremendous surge in popularity in Israel recently. It’s called Shir Lelo Shem (שיר ללא שם), a “Song Without a Name.” It’s about longing and encounter, someone sings into the emptiness, praying for someone to arrive. It was popularized by the family of Alon Ohel, an amazing pianist and one of the hostages who remain in Gaza, for whom we just saw signs of life yesterday. I mention his name on this day, Rosh Hashanah, a day of freedom, the day Yosef was freed from captivity. We pray for all those who are hostages, for all innocents wherever they are held captive. We pray for the success and safety of all our chayalim and all those seeking to bring them freedom. We pray for all who are captive to hate, captive to terror, and we offer a tefillah that they, and the world, will know freedom.
Alon Ohel would sing this song to lift up the spirits of the other hostages he was with. When they were not allowed to sing, he would tap out the rhythm on his body.
.אוי, עלטה סביב—Oy, Darkness is all around.
כי שירי הוא משב הרוח — For my song is the breath of the wind,
חלוני הפתוח — My open window,
מעיין כוחי — The spring of my strength,
צחוק ובכי — My laugh and my cry,
קץ יסוריי — The end of my suffering,
אתה בא והולך אליי — You come and walk with me.
It’s a dark time. Even in great, great darkness, there is still a song. But to quote my rebbe, Rav Avi, “It’s a dark time, but it’s our time.”
We may not be able to guarantee, fix, or solve the huge problems we are dealing with. I think the editors of our machzor understood this. An early Midrash says: שלשה דברים מבטלים גזרות רעות, ואלו הם, תפלה וצדקה ותשובה, “Three things cancel evil decrees: prayer, charity, and repentance.” But the editors of the machzor understood the power of good deeds more deeply. So they unlearned the Midrash.
They changed it to ma’avirin et ro’a hagezeirah (מעבירין את רוע הגזירה). Teshuva, tefillah u’tzedaka ma’avirin et ro’a hagezeirah, these acts do not cancel the evil; they carry us through it, to the other side.
Darkness will come this year. Loss will come this year. Hate will come this year. Death will come this year. One response is to answer darkness with darkness. That’s a simple and easy choice: hate with hate, cynicism with cynicism, violence with violence, death with death. Or, we can meet hate with the reconciliation of teshuva, despair with the hope of tefillah, and evil with the righteousness of tzedaka. We can respond to mavet (death) with the power of chaim (life) itself.
Teshuva, tefillah, and tzedaka are not the antidote to darkness; they are our song in the darkness.
A life of consciously choosing repentance, prayer, and giving helps us find our way through and ultimately out of the darkness, without letting the darkness find its way into us. And we as a people have done this, successfully, repeatedly. We’ve somehow gotten through. We have been ma’avir the ro’a of the gzeira, in times that have been much worse than this. Much, much worse. We’ve crossed over the darkness. You’re here because someone before you endured, survived, and thrived in a dark time.
And this is why Rosh Hashanah is so important this year. It is a time to unlearn things that did not serve us well, that led us to falsehood, that blinded us to reality, that shielded us from things we didn’t want to confront. It’s a time to unlearn a little bit, without throwing out what we’ve learned, but by looking at it in a new way, turning it around, and finding the renewal, hope, and strength that is already in you.
Like the books. The Maharal of Prague taught: והספר הזה הוא האדם עצמו, “And this book, it is the person themself.” The book is you. Maybe the task is to unlearn the question, “What will Hashem write for me this year?” or “What will my past write for me this year?” or “What will the government write for me this year?” And instead ask, “What are you going to write for you this year?”
Today is a good day to start writing chapter 5786 in your story. One that recognizes both how small and vulnerable you are, and also what a blessing you are, what a gift you are, what a source of light and goodness you can be. A new chapter that unlearns some of the things that might be holding you back. Unlearning ways we saw the world, saw our relationships, saw ourselves that were compromised, false, or incomplete. This can be painful. But sometimes, unlearning can be so surprising, so healing, so liberating.
Like the birthday. Yes, it’s not the birthday of the world. The Midrash teaches that the world’s creation began on the 25th of Elul. That was six days ago. But count six days later, what does that get you? The sixth day of creation. The day humanity was created.
It’s our birthday!
There is so much heaviness and darkness right now. But if you have learned that there is only despair, there is only darkness, that we cannot celebrate, I think you need to unlearn that too. Because we must, we must, we must celebrate. And there is so much to celebrate!
The great Rav Aharon Lichtenstein taught: why do we call Rosh Hashanah a day of creation? To remind us that we are creators. We are not God, not infinite creators. We cannot create everything we want in the world. But we are like God, created b’tzelem Elohim, in the divine image, and there is so much we can create. We can create communities and friendships, and families and schools and shuls and neighborhoods and chevrutas and sports teams and men’s clubs and sisterhoods and community fridges. We can create love and courage. We can create music and art and poetry. We can create Torah. My God, we can create so, so much.
And we must talk about it! Talk about your dreams, your hopes, your plans at your Rosh Hashanah tables. Yes, talk about how terrible everything is, but also talk about what you are going to do, what you are going to work on, what you are going to build.
Happy birthday to us!
Today, this Rosh Hashanah, take a moment to unlearn that everything is dark. And find the light. Find the song. In the world, and in yourself. And celebrate it. Not as the fix to all that is broken, not as an escape from all that is painful, but as a full realization that while you are alive:
With Teshuva you can still make it a little better.
With Tzedaka you can still give.
With Tefilah you can still pray.
And like Alon Ohel, you can still sing.
כי שירי הוא משב הרוח — For our song is the breath of the wind,
חלוני הפתוח — Our open window,
מעיין כוחי — The spring of our strength,
צחוק ובכי — Our laugh and our cry,
קץ יסוריי — The end of our pain,
אתה בא והולך אליי — You come and walk with me.
Shana Tova.
