Rosh Hashanah 5766 (2005):

Or Teshuvah: Finding Holiness In Our New Machzor      

Or Teshuvah, the Light of Repentance, our new prayer book, is here! We have it in our hands. No more shifting from book to supplement and back and forth. Its typeface is beautiful. Its paper is easy on the eyes. Or Teshuvah is full of tradition, yet replete with relevant contemporary translations. The gender neutrality of its blessings recognizes that God is neither she nor he but the source of all. This gender neutrality also teaches us that both men and women are fully made in the image of God.

There are so many aspects of worship that make it meaningful. Music touches the soul. The sound of the congregation praying all around us, cradles us and uplifts us. There are moments when we are lost in the chant, and times when private and personal prayers well up from within us. All of these add to the beauty and success of our worship. 

Yet the vast majority of the worship service follows the prayer book. Out of the encounter with God in prayer over the centuries, the Rabbis chose to guide us along pathways of thinking and awareness. The prayers are the ways we come to understand who God is and what our traditions would have us value and affirm. Prayer then is not just our speaking to God. God speaks to us through these prayers. New translations and new prayers based upon the old, help us to understand the messages of these ancient prayers and how they still apply to us in the 21st century. 

Take for instance, the traditional confessional called the Ashamnu.  I know from talking with you that the vast majority of you no longer could relate to the literal translation of the sins of the Ashamnu in our old prayer book.  Who knew what it meant when we recited,  “we have revolted, we have provoked, we have rebelled, we have committed iniquity and abomination.”  In Or Teshuvah we have replaced these arcane sins with their corollaries from Judaism in modern life. These are realistic modern sins meaningful to confess:  “We have lost self control, manipulated others, told petty lies, quietly acquiesced in wrong, refused to back down from positions we could see were incorrect, sneered at serious matters and trifled with other human beings, we have been contemptuous of others, said Yes when we should have cried out no; and have lacked the Zeal to struggle for our convictions. These are the kinds of sins meant when the Hebrew is translated with contemporary life in mind. They remind us that there is Kedusha, sanctity or holiness in our everyday lives that can be desecrated by our acts. To recount them is to think of negative mitzvot, the thou shalt nots…that we do not want to transgress. They give us examples of actions that we certainly want to repent, repair and avoid in our everyday lives.

Then there are prayers like the V’ahavta which we recite from memory. They are pivotal prayers but ones we gloss over because it’s unclear exactly what they mean.  Coming after the Shema we are commanded to love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your might. What does it mean to love God? Does loving God have any meaning for us today?  It traditionally says, you shall speak of these words when you lie down and rise up, at home and on your way. What words does the prayer mean we should have on our hearts and be discussing with our children night and day?

 Vahavta et adonai eloheycha be kol levav cha, be kol nafshecha, u’v chol meodecha. How do we love God? Our new translation begins,  “So you shall love what is holy with all your courage, with all your passion and all your strength.” We can’t just be commanded to love God. We have to be helped first to discover God. When we come to take notice of the experience of the holy, we become aware of God’s presence. This holiness, this presence enhances our lives.

I asked our high school class ”When did they experienced holiness?” Two members of the class said they experienced powerful feelings of holiness in the love and joy felt in their families the day they became Bat Mitzvah. A girl mentioned she experienced holiness in the feelings of the love in her family as they poured out their love together when they mourned at her grandfather’s funeral. One student said he found God present in the awe and beauty on top of a mountain in Alaska. One student said she found holiness in the quiet of crewing by herself on the water, like a meditative state. One student said he found holiness present in moral dilemmas and struggles as God guided him and helped him make decisions. Another participant found holiness in the good feeling of goodness when he did a mitzvah helping another person.  One student said he felt that special holiness praying together with the congregation in the Temple on Friday night. All agreed that these were examples of feeling and knowing God was present. Their list illustrates how and when we might find God present for us.  If we pay attention to the holy we begin to love those times of connection and we want to create them, with our courage and our passion and our strength.

In fact these experiences often move us to respond with performing a blessing or a Mitzvah. We experience some great joyful celebration or some deep mourning and we are drawn to respond. One of the participants in a spirituality workshop I conducted started reciting contemporary blessings when experiencing the sacred. She told me her favorite was after reading her grandchild a story. She said thank you God for the holiness of links of love across the generations. She said it really expressed how deep the experience was and made it deeper as well.

I remember a time when family members were gathered after a Shiva service where a father’s mitzvot were recalled. They decided to take on the father’s mitzvah of giving Tzedakkah to Israel. Their action kept the holy energy of this Mitzvah alive in the family. I know someone in the congregation who was so transformed by the holiness of the beauty of nature she experienced while hiking that upon her return she dedicated herself to the holiness of recycling. In all these situations awareness of the feeling of holiness begat holy action in spontaneous blessing and in Mitzvot.      

How do we begin to give ourselves over to these experiences?  The new translation continues, “let the words that have come down shine in our words and in our action.”  We each possess a soul: the Bible refers to them as sparks of God. Taking notice of the experience of holiness sets off sparks in our souls, words and deeds. One of our members told me of the feeling of holiness she felt when performing the Mitzvah of writing a condolence note.  Later when she ran into the mourner, the mourner expressed deep feelings of how much it meant to her to receive the note. They both experienced sparks of holiness between them. When we experience the holy and respond with some Mitzvah, the commandment comes alive: holy energy does indeed infuse the words and the action.

Another way we let these words that have come down to us shine in our words and our actions is to study them. Torah study itself can be a very holy experience. Torah study also helps us learn about and understand the Mitzvot. Learning about different Mitzvot and how to achieve them opens gateways where God’s holy energy resides. In my weekly Ten Minutes of Torah email group, we studied in one week’s Torah portion, the mitzvah of kabel et kol b’nei adam b’saver panim yafot. This is the mitzvah of being conscious of the goodness and sweetness in others as we encounter them. I have heard from some in the class that they began to practice this mitzvah. They began to experience more of the holiness that resides within other people. It has been enriching.  Call the Temple office to join our weekly on line Ten Minutes of Torah in the coming year. These words of Torah will open gateways to holiness in your life in an easily accessible way.

Continuing the new translation of the V’ahavta,  “We must teach our children to know and understand them. We must speak openly and pointedly about what is good and holy within our home.”  We do this by consciously naming blessings, as we experience them to awaken our awareness of daily miracles. Judaism gives us a whole vocabulary of blessings and mitzvahs to share with children to nurture their spiritual life.

Our informal God talk need not be complicated. You put a band aide on your child’s skinned knee. You say, “God is in the power of the healing of your knee.” Let’s thank God who is the source of our healing. Baruch Atah Adonai, thank you God for healing.”  

“We must speak openly and pointedly about what is good and holy.”

Judaism creates times and rituals, blessings to help us bring the holy into our lives. Friday night in the Jewish home is the most important of those places and times. It can be done with children and geared to their level. It is just as valuable when there are all adults.  Again it need not be complicated. Begin by lighting Shabbat candles. Lighting Shabbat candles creates a glow of energy. It sets aside the meal as a holy gathering, a time to give the warmth of love and attention to each other.  As the candles are lit, prayers on behalf of those whom we love can be uttered silently or out loud. Before the Kiddush over sweet wine, have everyone present take a moment and reflect on what was a joyful or happy experience during the past week. We all have a moment of beauty, or a new insight or moment of pleasure to share. This creates a spirit of happiness and thanksgiving around the Sabbath table. Before blessing the Challah, those present can share a mitzvah they accomplished, some way they used the sustenance of the past week to do some act of goodness. If older children or just adults you may want to discuss something from that week’s Ten Minutes of Torah. One mother told me she knew that her son had really understood the connection between sharing a Mitzvah on Shabbat and doing one during the week. He came home on a Wednesday and said, “I know what Mitzvah I’m going to share on Friday night.” With just a little effort and not much knowledge the Shabbat evening meal and its rituals can transform the home into a small sanctuary of holiness in our everyday lives. Kavenah means intentionality. With these brief reflections or kave’not before the blessings you can bring holy intention and experience to these  blessings.  You can do this brief Shabbat eve ritual even if you are going out later in the evening.

The new translation of the V’ahavta continues, “When we are working, when we are at play, when we lie down and when we get up, Let the work of our hands speak of goodness, let it run in our blood and glow from our doors and windows.”  When we are at work it’s hard to listen to the pain in the voice of a co-worker. We need to make the effort to move beyond our own concerns. What about when we lie down and when we get up? Traditionally we say the Shema upon getting up and going to bed. Our prayer book reminds us to pause and reflect at the beginning of the day on opportunities to give love. When we lie down we reflect on the love we have given. Then we can then recite the Shema and ask God to help us be agents of love in our families, friendships and in the world. This bed time or wake up ritual we can definitely teach to our children. Doing it creates for ourselves and for them moments of holiness that frame our day.

The V’ahavta speaks of the purpose of having the Mezzuzah on our doorway.  It is to remind us not to fall into routine and habit when we leave the outside world and cross the threshold into our home. Speak words of praise and thankfulness to those whom you love. Cherish the holiness of love in the home. Make time for it. Give to it your best. Our prayer says, let our doors and windows glow with it. When we support each other, care for each other, share with each other in deep ways, we experience holy moments where our homes do glow with love.

Why?  The prayer answers, “We should love ourselves for we are of God.” We are made in the Divine image, capable of caring and sharing. That is our deepest aspiration and fulfillment.  

The Vahavta continues,  “We should love our neighbors as ourselves for we were once strangers in the land of Egypt and have been strangers in all the lands of the world since.”  We are part of a sacred story, connected by history. We know what it’s like to be the victim of oppression or prejudice. Thirty six times the torah says we should help and not harm the stranger for we were strangers in the land of Egypt.  To be a Jew, to make God present, is to live out this social justice responsibility.  So the prayer concludes, “Let love fill our hearts with its clear precious water. Heaven and earth observe how we cherish or spoil our world.”  You can participate in our Temple COPA social justice work, take food to the River Street Shelter, or go to the Religious Action Center web site from the Temple web site to find out each week how to be a social justice advocate from your own home.

So important is the pursuit of everyday holiness that it was chosen to conclude the worship service in the prayer called the Aleynu. The Aleynu prayer was included in the prayers of the High Holidays in the 3rd century by the great Sage Rav. He placed it in the Shofar Service of Rosh Hashana. It conveys the great hope that the Shofar would be sounded one day in the future to herald a day when, “all the inhabitants of the earth: would worship God and be united in justice and peace. About the 13th century it was introduced as the final prayer of the daily and Sabbath service. As we close the service it reminds us of the task of Tikkun Olam---you can hear it in the Hebrew----Le taken Olam B’malchut Shadai. It is up to us to repair and complete the world, to make God’s vision of justice and goodness for the world the reality on earth.

At the conclusion of today’s service we will pray this new translation of the Aleynu in our prayer books. It reads,  “It is up to us to hallow Creation, to respond to Life with the fullness of our lives.” Hallow comes from the word holy. To hallow the world is to try to experience holiness in the world, to find God’s presence in that holiness and to respond to it by performing contemporary blessings and Mitzvot. When we do this we are experiencing and responding to the fullness of Life with the fullness of our lives. The new translation continues, “It is up to us to meet the World, to embrace the Whole even as we wrestle with its parts. It is up to us to repair the World and bind our lives to Truth.” When we study Torah and pray the words of the prayer book we bind ourselves to deep truths. They lead us to wrestle with a fragmented world in an effort to create one in the Torah’s vision. In the Aleynu we physically bend the knee and bow. We thereby physically express that we acknowledge God’s purpose for creation and our purpose in it as well. The translation as it continues provides the thoughts we might think as we bend and bow. ‘The translation continues, “Therefore we bend the knee and shake off the stiffness that keeps us from the subtle graces of Life and the supple gestures of Love.” Promoting love and awe, compassion and caring, empathy and goodness requires a bending of our will in subtle and supple gestures of love. We have to be supple to communicate well and resolve conflict effectively. The prayer now concludes,  “With reverence and thanksgiving we accept our destiny and set for ourselves the task of redemption.” Reverence and gratitude are the best attitude for our task of improving, repairing and redeeming the world. Reverence is perceiving the holy in the world. Gratitude is being thankful, reciting our own prayers of thanksgiving, and responding with generosity and love.

We reach God through the prayers of the prayer book. Through our prayers, God also reaches us. The contemporary version of the three prayers I’ve explored provide each of us a pathway of Jewish spirituality in our everyday lives.

There is so much in our prayers, so much meaning, so much wisdom. I hope I have been able to unpack the Ashamnu, the V’ahavata and Aleynu in ways that will deepen your worship. May we not only go through the prayer book this holiday season. May our new prayer book go through us and remain in our consciousness and patterns of living. Or Teshuvah means the light of returning to God and our better selves.  May it messages light the path to holiness in our everyday lives. 

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