Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day; it is awesome and full of dread.
If you are not a regular attendee at Temple Sholom services, you might miss the huge differences between our High HolyDay worship and our year-round customs. The Rabbi and the Student Cantor do not wear white robes the rest of the year. We rarely hear the sounds of the organ. Almost all of the music is sung by the whole congregation, and there are very few long pieces. While we work hard during the year to bring ourselves into a circle; to remove the barriers between the bimah and the congregation, on the High HolyDays everything is high up, starched white, and forbidding.
There is a liturgical difference as well. Not only is the music more majestic - slower and sometimes more portentous, but the words of the prayers convey different images of God. Even the prayers with which we are familiar, such as those at the beginning of the amidah - change - adding in images of God as powerful ruler. Additional High HolyDay liturgy, such as the u’netaneh tokef cited above, bring not only metaphors of judgement and terror, but actual details of gruesome death.
Why does our tradition seek to set this mood for this time of year? Is this some kind of Jewish version of Halloween, where we get joy from the contrived terror? There must be a reason for our liturgy - the words AND musical settings - working together to make us unsure, shake our foundations, remind us of the dangers and perils that lurk around every corner.
We often go through life with blinders on - looking directly ahead at what we know we have to do, and not taking time to examine what other paths we might take. We do not take the time for self-examination, to see if we have lived up to the best that we can be. How many movies (or even sit-com episodes) base themselves on the premise that a near-death experience can lead to a main character reconsidering their lives and becoming better people - going after their lost love, pursing their life dream, changing their life’s path? Our liturgy imagines that sometimes we need a good scare to truly wake up and look around.
It is all to easy to look at the High HolyDay liturgy and be put off by its magisterial image of God, it’s simplistic equation of right meriting reward and sin ending in mortal punishment. But, when we refuse to let the effect of this prayer experience penetrate past our ears, we lose an important opportunity to see things clearly, without the near death experience (or disaster that many of us have confronted in the past month).
So, as we enter this new year of 5772, resolve to be shaken up by your High HolyDay experience. Allow a small amount of awe and dread to force you to look seriously at who you are and where you might want to be. Join us as a congregation, as we face this uncertainty together. Share your strength with us as we rededicate ourselves to the tasks of making our world a better place - and making a 5772 that 5771 might not be able to imagine.
L’shanah tovah tikateivu.
-U’netaneh Tokef, High HolyDay liturgy (GOR p.107 and elsewhere)
If you are not a regular attendee at Temple Sholom services, you might miss the huge differences between our High HolyDay worship and our year-round customs. The Rabbi and the Student Cantor do not wear white robes the rest of the year. We rarely hear the sounds of the organ. Almost all of the music is sung by the whole congregation, and there are very few long pieces. While we work hard during the year to bring ourselves into a circle; to remove the barriers between the bimah and the congregation, on the High HolyDays everything is high up, starched white, and forbidding.
There is a liturgical difference as well. Not only is the music more majestic - slower and sometimes more portentous, but the words of the prayers convey different images of God. Even the prayers with which we are familiar, such as those at the beginning of the amidah - change - adding in images of God as powerful ruler. Additional High HolyDay liturgy, such as the u’netaneh tokef cited above, bring not only metaphors of judgement and terror, but actual details of gruesome death.
Why does our tradition seek to set this mood for this time of year? Is this some kind of Jewish version of Halloween, where we get joy from the contrived terror? There must be a reason for our liturgy - the words AND musical settings - working together to make us unsure, shake our foundations, remind us of the dangers and perils that lurk around every corner.
We often go through life with blinders on - looking directly ahead at what we know we have to do, and not taking time to examine what other paths we might take. We do not take the time for self-examination, to see if we have lived up to the best that we can be. How many movies (or even sit-com episodes) base themselves on the premise that a near-death experience can lead to a main character reconsidering their lives and becoming better people - going after their lost love, pursing their life dream, changing their life’s path? Our liturgy imagines that sometimes we need a good scare to truly wake up and look around.
It is all to easy to look at the High HolyDay liturgy and be put off by its magisterial image of God, it’s simplistic equation of right meriting reward and sin ending in mortal punishment. But, when we refuse to let the effect of this prayer experience penetrate past our ears, we lose an important opportunity to see things clearly, without the near death experience (or disaster that many of us have confronted in the past month).
So, as we enter this new year of 5772, resolve to be shaken up by your High HolyDay experience. Allow a small amount of awe and dread to force you to look seriously at who you are and where you might want to be. Join us as a congregation, as we face this uncertainty together. Share your strength with us as we rededicate ourselves to the tasks of making our world a better place - and making a 5772 that 5771 might not be able to imagine.
L’shanah tovah tikateivu.
