Rosh Hashanah Source Sheet
Historically Rosh Hashanah is the time
of the Creation of Adam and Eve (according to Rabbi Eliezer – see source 9). It
was also on this date, while Moshe was on Mount Sinai praying for forgiveness
for the sin of the Golden Calf, that G-d’s Mercy was shown and He heard and
answered Moshe’s prayers. The days from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur have
been set aside as days for forgiveness ever since.
The Torah, in describing Rosh Hashanah,
mentions only the sacrifices and the festival nature of the day, and the
blowing of the Shofar. The concept of judgment and ‘New Year’ does not appear
in the Torah, but is first explained in the Mishna.
This section of Nechemiah describes the return to Israel from Babylonian slavery. This was a new beginning for Israel and the Jews. The refugees who returned from exile were mainly poor, uneducated and many of them were intermarried. In this section Ezra inspires and educates the people to observe the mitzvot and divorce their non-Jewish wives. From this beginning the new Jewish state was created with the Second Temple as its focus. It is appropriate that this occurred on Rosh Hashanah, the time of Creation and new beginnings.
Rosh Hashanah is one of several New
Years that have halachic (Jewish legal) significance. It seems that there is no
direct connection between the ‘New Year’ of Rosh Hashanah and its significance
as ‘Day of Judgment.’ (There does not necessarily have to be any connection
between the two. For example the New Year for trees is on 15th Shevat
but the Day of Judgment for trees is on Shavuot). According to the Mishna, Rosh
Hashanah is the New Year for agricultural and seasonal reasons rather than
because it was the day of Creation.
The Mishna describes the four annual
Days of Judgment. How these relate and connect to the final judgment after a
person’s death or the judgment of the world at the end of days, (or even the
relationship between judgment for crops and the judgment for the people who eat
those crops) is beyond the scope of this source sheet.
On each of these days of judgment we
give offerings (in the Temple). On Passover, the Omer of barley (crops). On
Shavuot, the Two Loaves of wheat, considered similar to a tree in Talmudic
literature. On Succot there is a special water offering poured on the altar
(symbolizing rain) as well as rituals with willow branches, which require large
quantities of water to grow.
On Rosh Hashanah we offer our lives (our
breath) with the Shofar blasts.
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The Ran (Nissim ben Reuven (1320 –
9th of Shevat, 1376, Hebrew: נסים בן ראובן)
of Girona, Catalonia was an influential talmudist and authority on Jewish law. ) explains that according to
the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer the world was created in Tishrei, Accordingly,
Rosh Hashanah is an appropriate time for judgment because Adam was judged with
mercy on that day. He asks, however, according to Rabbi Yehoshua, who says that
the world was created in Nissan, why should Rosh Hashanah be a day of judgment?
The Ran gives two answers. Firstly it gives people time to take stock, examine
their deeds and repent before Yom Kippur (and for the righteous, who don’t need
G-d’s mercy, they can be already judged and sealed for life). Secondly, he
says, perhaps while Moses was on Mount Sinai praying for forgiveness for the
Jewish people from the sin of the G0lden Calf, there was a change in G-d’s
attitude on Rosh Hashanah which preceded the full forgiveness on Yom Kippur.
Our prayers on Rosh Hashanah reflect the
duality of creation. The world was created in potential, and actuality.
Rabbeinu Tam explains that on Rosh Hashanah we are commemorating the ‘thought’
of creation, the ‘remembrance of the first day’. From our perspective the
physical creation did not occur until six months later in Nissan. However,
since G-d is beyond time (and created time when He created the universe) we can
understand that these two events occurred simultaneously, but when they were
brought into creation (from our perspective) they were separated in time.
Humankind is the ‘completion’ of the world because it is the
purpose of creation. Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of judgment and mercy. We
have two very different explanations of what that mercy was.
The Aruch Hashulchan (a chapter-to-chapter restatement of
the Shulchan Aruch (the
latter being the most influential codification of halakhah in the post-Talmudic
era). Compiled and written by Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein (1829–1908),
the work organizes each chapter of the Shulchan Aruch, with special
emphasis on the positions of the Jerusalem Talmud and Maimonides. understands that mercy is defined as
spreading punishment over time. (This also explains how G-d ‘forgave’ the Jewish people for the sin of the Golden
Calf, yet the Talmud says that we are still paying the price for that sin.
Historically Rosh Hashanah was the time
of our freedom from the slavery of Egypt (even though we didn’t leave until
Pesach). This freedom is recreated every year on Rosh Hashanah and symbolized
in the Shofar blasts, which represent freedom from the Evil Urge, freedom from
sin and G-d as King; free to do.
The entire world is judged on Rosh Hashanah, even things
that have no free choice. Clearly, therefore, the judgment is not about whether
a person has made the right choices in the past year or has done the right
things.
Everything in Creation was made to
fulfill a Divine Plan. On the anniversary of Creation G-d prepares an ‘annual
report’ giving a breakdown of how well the ‘company’ of the universe is doing.
There is a complete ‘stock-taking’ of each component of creation to evaluate
its efficiency and effectiveness in meeting the ‘corporate goals.’
The judgment of Rosh Hashanah is not
judging ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ which are free choice issues, but rather the yearly
‘stockholders meeting’ where each component of the ‘company’ must justify its
effectiveness over the past 12 months, and for the coming year.
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