“Bein Kesseh l’Assor” — thoughts before Yom Kippur 5784

The period between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is “Aseret Yemei Teshuva” – the ten days of Repentance. The intervening days between these holidays have a special name — “bein Kesseh l’Assor” – between the covering (of the moon) and the 10th (Yom Kippur, whose date is 10th Tishri).

Why is Rosh Hashana associated with Kesseh, covering? The interpretation arises from Psalm 81:4-5, which read:

“Blow the shofar at the New Moon, a covering for the day of our feast; for it is a statute for Israel, a judgement for the God of Jacob.”

According to ibn Ezra, Verse 4 uses the word for covering to portray the darkened presentation of the New Moon, and verse 5 connects the New Moon to judgement.

Indeed, many of us experience the New Moon, Rosh Hodesh, as a mini Yom Kippur.

The Talmud in Rosh Hashana 8b specifically identifies this particular New Moon as Rosh Hashana, because of the promise of judgement.

Additionally, verse 4’s reference to yom hageinu, the day of our holiday, also supports the association with Rosh Hashana, as other Biblical festivals such as Sukkot and Pesah occur mid-month.

Thinking again about the phrase, bein kesseh l’Assor, I find this metaphor most stimulating. The lifting of the “covering” of the moon results in a visible moon on Yom Kippur, but not due to the moon’s own production of light, but because of its reflection of the sun.

I see this related to the concept of zekhut horim, the merit of our forebears. Will we act in the next year in a way that honors and reflects them, whether they are the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of our tefillot or loved ones we will remember at Yizkor?

As part of our teshuva, can we imagine that a successful goal of teshuva in the next year would be, like the moon, letting others shine THROUGH us, opening ourselves to others’ light and reflecting and amplify their voices and lived experiences?

Turning back to text, now, I think about other associations of moon and sun. In Talmud tractate Hullin 60, the moon is dismayed that despite the creation of two “great lights” in Genesis, it clearly has become the lesser light. Isaiah (30:26) imagines a Messianic age where the moon is restored and “the light of the moon shall become like the light of the sun”:

Jewish feminist midrashists find this a metaphor for the equality of women (represented by the cycling moon) and men (represented by the more prominent sun).

So perhaps another goal for our lives after this period of bein kesseh l’Assor is the pursuit of equality.

Tzom kal to all who are able to fast, and Gemar Hatimah Tovah — may we be inscribed for a good year, 5784.

Unetanah Tokef (and Monty Python?!), Rosh Hashana 5784

The piyyut Unetana Tokef is a tough sell.  Few of us accept its theology, the image of a note-taking God who assigns us to either the Book of Life or the Book of Death.  Then again, even the Talmud does not entirely embrace this image. In Tractate Rosh Hashana 16b – 17a, there is an extended discussion of how God metes out justice, in not quite so deadly a fashion as we read in unetanah tokef. Why does the payyetan write it out so starkly? The complexity of the text, the Biblical allusions, and the literary style point to a talented but selectively draconian writer.

So basically, as in much of the High Holiday liturgy, we have an unrestrained, wildly imaginative, and free-wheeling poet pouring out his heart, centuries and centuries ago, and we still have the privilege of his poem to read.  Alav hashalom – may he rest in peace – I for one don’t care for his theology and I also not offended that I have to read it.  In fact, it’s hard to imagine any writing this season where we’re all on board with all the theology.  I’ve read that the only theology Jews can agree on is that the quantity of Gods in our belief system is a number less than or equal to one.

Sometimes I see the text as simply entertaining. My usual metaphor for Unetanah Tokef is that it’s like a horror movie, allowing a person, deeply but still at a distance, to play out worst fears.  Recently, I heard a bit of a Monty Python song in my subconscious – “bravely rode Fabrangen, off to High Holiday services…They were not afraid to die, oh brave Fabrangen. They were not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways, brave, brave, brave, brave Fabrangen…Who by fire and who by water, who by earthquake and  who by beast….”

(It really works. Try it in the melody.)

But this year, I’m thinking more about agony.  I read an essay by Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz of JTS, who decades ago lost her adult son in a bicycle accident and then her husband a few months later.  She pointed out that a lot of our High Holiday readings concern agony and loss. Indeed, the list is long. Sarah is concerned about her bullied son.  Hagar weeps over her parched son.  Isaac is carted up the mountain.  Hannah yearns for a son.  The rabbis could have chosen some uplifting Torah text for the yamim nora’im – Ten Commandments or the Holiness Code – but instead, it’s all agony. 

So for me, listening to and singing Unetana Tokef is another deliberate High Holiday choice to expose oneself to a narrative of agony.  The agony might be physical – death by fire, water, sword, beast, hunger, thirst, earthquake, plague.  It might be spiritual – who shall be calm? distraught? serene? tormented?  Actually, it sounds a lot like reading the newspaper. Fire? earthquake? floods?  That’s just the last month.   Are we as provoked by those descriptions when we see them, essentially weekly, in the newspaper?  Probably not – we’re reading the paper over a good cup of coffee, watching all this happened to folks far far away.  For some of those disasters, there is indeed a Knowing, All Powerful, Extra-Governmental, Prosecuting Decisor who has determined who shall live and who shall die.  It’s not God.  It’s probably Big Oil and its lobbyists.  I can rage against Big Oil, but I prefer not to rage against God.  And unlike the God of Unetana Tokef, those guys at Big Oil don’t bother keeping track of us individually, recording our every deed and moment, before condemning us to the Book of  Death.  I think on balance, I prefer Hashem, God.

For me, reading Unetanah Tokef makes me a better person.  I force myself to stay in touch with agony.  It’s in my face, in all these texts, that I might die this year, that someone I love might die this year, that I could do something so manifestly stupid that I could harm my loved ones, that I might live with my yearnings unrequited, that, like real actual people in Hawaii or Libya, I might die by fire or by water.  And that makes me want to enjoy each day – ok, maybe not THIS particular day – a little bit more, and use each day a little bit better. 

LeDorotam

Shelah Lekha 5783       

     (embroidery, Rachel Braun, 2000, photo Philip Brookman)                                                             

Here’s a very old embroidery that uses a verse from this week’s parasha, Shelah Lekha.  It reads “they shall make themselves tzitzit on the corners of their garments throughout their generations.” The piece is a representation of a tallit (16” x 6”), stitched in honor of the bar mitzvah of my younger son, Hannan. 

This week’s parasha ends with a familiar passage that includes this verse: the third paragraph of the Shema (Numbers 15:37-41):

Verses 39-40 share the motivation for wearing and gazing at the tzitzit: to remember and observe the commandments (mitzvot)and to subvert our inclination toward evil.  The physicality of tzitzit on a tallit also provides a prompt for kavannah (intentionality) while davening.  And so, decades ago, I decided to don a tallit while praying.

Next step: buying one.  I visited a local Jewish bookstore owned by an older Orthodox man.  There, I found a beautiful lace tallit, so lacy, in fact, that it was almost like macrame, with the threads creating large gaps in the fabric rather than a solid, smooth surface.

I asked the owner, “Is this a kosher tallit?  The fabric isn’t really a solid piece” and he raised his eyebrows in skepticism and replied in Yiddish-inflected English, “What difference does that make? It’s a WOMAN’S tallis!”

Now I have to laugh at this comment, brusque though it was.   In his view, the obligation of wearing tzitzit is imposed only on men, rendering my question moot. More than his identity as a shop owner, he was also an Orthodox Jew, and wouldn’t bother with my question even with a $150 sale at stake.

Obligation (hiyyuv) in Jewish law stems from the contract enacted between God and the Jewish people at Sinai.  It was a weird way to enter into a covenant, as God allegedly held Mount Sinai over our heads until we agreed to it. Perhaps recently enslaved folks were accustomed to force when offered a deal.

Beyond that, the concept of hiyyuv is problematic in a world where God’s towering presence in history can feel remote.  If even the newly freed Israelites, fresh from watching God split the Red Sea, needed the threat of a mountain over their heads to accept God’s partnership, we moderns might be forgiven for wondering about hiyyuv. 

So, I might reframe hiyyuv.  (Gosh, that sounds bold; maybe I’ll “expand” hiyyuv.)  Looking back at the embroidery, you’ll see two elements that draw our attention to the legacy of our forebears.  In the center is the elaborately stitched word leDorotam (“throughout their generations”), embellished with gold floss.  And most meaningfully, the corners of the tiny “tallit” hold antique, lace patches taken from a medallion doily stitched by Hannan’s great-grandmother, Hannah Braunstein z”l.  Incorporating Helen Braunstein’s needlework into my celebration of her namesake, Hannan, brought the verse alive for me, as if I was enacting Torah with my own hands. 

Perhaps our obligation now is to those who came before us. The embroidery reflects our family’s obligations to the great grandmother who did not know her great-grandson, but whose handiwork and Jewish legacy lives on through us.

Fear and forgiveness

A selection of penitential verses, Tachanun, is read at the end of most shaharit and minha weekday services. It includes Psalm 130, also commonly recited between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. And therein lies on of the most remarkable pieces of liturgy:

Psalm 130:4

Robert Alter translates this as : For forgiveness is Yours, so that You may be feared.

I prefer his translation, “fear”, to other renditions such as “held in awe” (JPS), because American culture has whittled down the impact of the word ‘awe’.

What a strange combination of clauses! Imagine you had to finish the sentence knowing only one of the two. “For forgiveness is yours…..because You are a compassionate God? because You are a soft-touch? because we all need a bit of permission to push boundaries a bit, and knowing You are forgiving gives us a safety net?

Most of us, I suspect, would not finish that sentence imagining, as the Psalmist did, that our next emotion would be fear.

Or… if you knew that the ending clause was “So that You may be feared”, what would you choose as antecedent? “For retribution is yours…You smote the Egyptians at the sea….You have the power of meimit u’mehaye (able to cause death and restore life) … You call Yourself a jealous God…

Knowing that the concluding idea is fear of God, how many of us would designate “forgiveness” as the qualifying attribute?

The Psalmist gives us a perhaps unexpected reason to experience yir’ah , the fear of Heaven. A God so secure in God’s power, so close to God’s people, so desirous of our correcting our paths, expresses God’s majesty by containing forgiveness.