Rosh HaShana

I would like to discuss both the parsha of Ha’azinu, which we will read on Shabbat, together with some aspects of Rosh Hashana. Parshat Ha’azinu (which means “listen”) is the penultimate portion of the Torah. Together with the final parsha, Zot Habracha (This is the Blessing) it contains Moshe’s last words to the Jewish people before dying. Both portions are poems, and are written in a difficult, highly literary, often obscure style. Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, one of the great Chasidic masters, asks why this is so: why, at the end of his life and the end of the Torah, does Moshe depart from the prose style which he has used for most of his life and speak, instead, in verse?

Rav Levi Yitzchak has an interesting, perhaps somewhat counter-intuitive explanation. Many of us might see the switch to poetry as an attempt to express more beautifully, more richly, more profoundly, the last things that Moshe has to say. After all, poetry is, well, poetic, whereas prose is, basically, prosaic. The final chapters of the Torah can be seen as a beautiful, artistic finale to the books of the Bible, a final farewell rendered all the more touching and inspiring for being put to verse. Rav Levi Yitzchak, however, says the opposite. At the end of his life Moshe was weak, neither the man nor the prophet he had once been. Therefore, he was forced to abandon the clear, direct, precise, and readily understandable prose style which he employed for most of his career and lapse, instead, into an obtuse, allusive, stylized and difficult-to-understand poetic style. According to Rav Levi Yitzchak, the poetic material which Moshe produce at the end of his life does not constitute a crowning artistic achievement but, rather, a falling off of his powers of communication, a lapse, brought on by his advanced age, failing powers, and impending death.

This interesting understanding is highly suggestive about language and its uses. I would like to suggest the ‘truth as opposed to beauty’ dichotomy as a possible framework for understanding some of the implications of this idea. Traditionally, many have placed Judaism, with its emphasis on the written and spoken word, at one pole, in opposition to the Hellenistic world, enthralled as it was (and is) by images and their representation, at the other: the Jews believe in and seek truth, the Hellenists worship beauty. In this way of looking at things, Judaism, with its prohibitions against the making and worshiping of images, and its emphasis on the legal and moral system given to us by an “invisible” God, stands in opposition to the centrality of the beautiful human figure and, in fact, all artistic representation, in Greco-Roman culture. Rav Levi Yitzchak sees the beautification of language by poetry as a weaker, less Jewish, less ‘true’ form of communication. He is, perhaps, suspicious of the beauty of such a text, afraid that its message, its truth, may be obscured or in some way slanted by its aesthetic aims and considerations. He prefers the clarity and directness, the less ambiguous tone, the simplicity and lack of ornamentation, of prose.

On Rosh Hashana we performed one basic Mitzva, which we will repeat again at the end of Yom Kippur: the blowing of the Shofar. The Rabbis understand the sounds which we are bidden to make with the Shofar, the notes which we traditionally play, as sighs and sobs; we imitate, with the Shofar, the sounds made by a person crying (according to the Rabbinic tradition, the sounds of a mother crying for her lost child). Although on the High Holidays we also recite thousands of words in both poetry and prose, the central communication, the basic message, is a wordless cry. This is the most simple, unadorned way we have of expressing ourselves on this Day of Judgment, when, as we examine what we have done and who we are, we realize that not only the aesthetic strategies of poetry, but even the straightforwardness of prose feel false, and we resort to our first, most intuitive, and least artificial method of communication - we cry.

This shiur was originally recorded in the Beit Midrash of Yeshivat HaMivtar in Efrat.
 

One of the seminal, foundational texts of Rosh Hashanah appears in the Mishna, in the tractate called, appropriately, Rosh Hashana. The Mishna tells us that on Rosh Hashana all the creatures in the world pass before God to be judged like bnei maron - a difficult phrase which either means one at a time, or in single file, or like sheep before the shepherd - something which means individually, personally. The Mishna then quotes a proof text, from the Book of Psalms: “He created their hearts all together, He understands all of their actions.” Now, this would seem to be an odd choice for a proof text for the fact that God judges us all on Rosh Hashanah. There are other verses in Psalms - for instance some of the ones we recite on Friday night as part of Kaballat Shabbat, which speak more explicitly of God as the judge of all mankind - “He arrives to judge the earth, He will judge the world justly, and the nations with His faith”. In fact, in the verses which immediately precede the one which is quoted, God is clearly described as He who “looks down from heaven…beholds all the son of men” and “…looks upon all the inhabitants of the earth”. Our verse does not explicitly refer to judging at all, but rather talks about the act of creation, when God, by bringing Adam into existence, created, at once, all our hearts, and, therefore, understands all our actions. Why is this verse chosen to prove that we are all judged on Rosh Hashana, rather than one of the more obvious choices, which speak explicitly of God as judge?

I think the message behind this choice is clear - the simple fact of judgment is not the point of Rosh Hashana, not the lesson we need to learn from the dynamic of the day. After all, the fact that God judges is not such a big deal - we all, quite naturally and intuitively, judge. Food, TV shows, books, countries, our friends and family, people we have never met, our colleagues at school or work, we judge them all the time. To simply present God as He who judges would not really give us any new insight. We judge, He judges. We condemn whatever or whoever we dislike to eternal damnation - not that it seems to do any good - and so does He, with, I imagine, graver consequences. The lesson the Mishna does want to teach us, and which is, I think, much more interesting, is the relationship with humankind out of which stems God’s ability or desire to judge us.

This relationship is what we need to understand and, perhaps, emulate, if we want to correctly judge things. What is that relationship, as expressed by the proof text quoted in the Mishna? Well, the first word is about creativity - God created us. He created, and therefore understands, our very hearts, our innermost feelings, thoughts, and desires. This would seem to indicate that God’s judgment of individuals is an extension of His creating them - a further, ongoing attempt to understand, assess, and perfect that which He created. A further attempt to take responsibility for that which He created. It would seem that it is this relationship that is needed in order to really judge. A relationship of creator to created is necessary between the judge and the person, or collective, to be judged, if that judgment is to be, like God’s, meaningful.

Let’s use as an example a country, like Israel, or the United States. What someone sitting on the sidelines, uninvolved in any creative way with the life and development of either of these countries - not really taking responsibility for them - has to say about them, how he or she judges them, would seem to be a lot less interesting and compelling than the judgment of someone actively involved in creating these countries - in determining what they will really be like. The same would be true within a smaller community; only someone creatively and actively involved in shaping that community can see, as God does, into its heart, understand it, and, in an attempt to perfect the creation which he or she has worked on and takes responsibility for, judge it. Certainly the same is true on an individual level. Only those with whom we have a creative, productive, caring and nourishing relationship, which is the key to our understanding them, can be seen clearly enough for us to judge them in any meaningful way - in an attempt to continue our creative interaction with them.

I wish us all on this Rosh Hashanah the ability to refrain from judging those individuals or collectives with whom we do not have this kind of relationship. More importantly, and more realistically (what, we are really going to stop judging people we don’t even know? I don’t think so), I wish all of us much success in developing the kinds of relationships where a Godly judgment is possible. Relationships in which we work to actively create, nourish, and take responsibility for the people with whom we interact, the communities of which we are members, and the nations in which we live. May we all be creators first, and only then, judges.