Rosh Hashanah – Why does it take so long to get to the Shofar and the meals?

By: Fred Rutman

Why does Jewish ritual take so long? Why do we have to repeat everything? And what are we really doing on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. (Credit to Rabbonim Akiva Tatz, Breitowitz, Avi Geller, Mayer Birnbaum & Yitzchak Alloul and apologies to anyone I forgot.) Also, thanks to Jon Waldman for his editing.

Some insight for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
This is the formal version of some thoughts I wanted to share at my nephew Zane’s Bar Mitzvah (Parsha Ki Teitse) a couple weeks ago. It was inspired by a talk I had with my brother Ray, my sister-in-law Linda and her family when they were visiting Toronto a number of weeks ago. It is not designed to be a Halachic discussion or to cover everything, so as usual, if you have questions, contact me but preferably, your local orthodox Rabbi.

When the question came up of why do things take so long and why do we repeat things, I was able to give the standard answer that the repetitions are for those who are unable or don’t even know they are supposed to be saying the Amidahs (the silent prayers). So while this is true, it is not a satisfying answer. And I think when people ask this question, they are often really saying I am not connecting with my Yiddishkeit or this ritual. How do I make it more meaningful?

This got me thinking - not in time to give a proper answer then, but a better answer now. And this answer leads into the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services, where a big part of the goal is to get your spiritual white board erased so that only the good deeds you did are noted and you get inscribed for a healthy, sweet and prosperous year. Keep this thought in mind as you read through and it will connect at the end and hopefully makes Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (and our prayer ritual) more meaningful to you.

The first thing to note is that when we say the silent prayers (and yes, I said say), you are supposed to mouth the words in an undertone so that only you can hear them, but ultimately, most of us don’t have that level of control and the people around us can hear what we say. This becomes doubly important in the Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur prayers.

If you ever studied or read the Amidahs, you might have noticed that they are not written in the singular but in the plural. We are in fact praying as a collective for the entire Jewish nation. There are a few places where you can insert personal prayers (and you should) but for the most part, our liturgy is in the plural. When we do the first Amidah, think of it as your opportunity to petition on behalf of a group, association, community or whatever to the most accomplished and powerful person you know in a one-on-one setting. This person has the power to grant everything you want, or nothing or anywhere in between. Nonetheless, you have that 5 or 8 or ten minutes of his/her undivided attention to make your case. Most of us would not pass up that opportunity. That is the first Amidah.

In the repetition, we do much of the same thing. All in the plural again and davening as a proxy for those who cannot, be it health reasons, they don’t know how to, or maybe even they are Jews who do not even know they are Jews. It is part of the Jewish social contract and Zane’s parsha was full of the Torah defined social contract: things we need to do, never leaving anyone behind. It is our obligation to pray for those as a committee, not as intimate as the one-on-one but we still have the undivided attention.

Now knowing this, what does this have to do with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? Don’t we just go to Shul, repent, have some good meals, wait ten days, fast if we can, pray again, then eat again (and if you are normal, go back to doing whatever it was you just asked to be forgiven for?). Well, it is not quite that simple. Yes, you get points for going to Shul and thinking about things while in shul. The problem is we don’t actually do any repenting in our Rosh Hashana prayer service. Even the Al Chayts (the sins where we go through a laundry list of sins) - those are not actually for our individual sins. As with before, we pray in the plural. And on top of that, we don’t follow the entire repentance formula.

Repentance formula? There is a repentance formula? Yes there is. It would be pretty silly of G*d to ask us to repent and not give us the rules as to how to actually repent (or the Hebrew, Tshuvah). According to the great scholar Maimonides (aka the Rambam), the basic formula is:
1. Admit your sin,
2. Express remorse, and
3. Take on a sincere obligation to not do it again, or reduce what you do, or something. If it is not sincere, you are just lying to G*d face-to-face and that is probably not a good idea. That almost makes you a Rasha (the evil son we talk about at the Passover Seder).

Now that we have the basic formula, we need to talk about the two major categories of sins; then the formula will make more sense. The sin categories are divided just like the Ten Commandments – with sins between you and G*d on the left side (one through five, even though five is honour thy parents – G*d is all our parents) and the right side, sins six through ten represent sins between man and man, man and child, woman and woman, woman and child, man and woman... I think you get the drift. Person to Person.

The level of difficulty for cleaning out your sins on the right side (person-to-person) is infinitely more difficult because it has an added step to the formula, Step Zero. G*d is much less involved in this one but still notices it. The laws surrounding this category are complex and way beyond this note. Zero requires you trying to apologize to the person and have them say they forgive you, making restitution if required and of course doing the same if someone asks you to forgive them. Face-to-face is best, but you can also send letters, faxes, emails or text them: whatever gets the job done. Once Zero is fulfilled, you can get on to 1, 2 and 3. Given how difficult this is, you are better off just sinning between you and G*d. Takes a lot of the pressure off.

So now we know we have categories of sin, that we should “say” our prayers, why we repeat them and have a formula for doing repentance so all is good, right? Sorry, there is one more layer. Because we have to say our prayers with some degree of voice, G*d doesn’t want us airing our dirty laundry in shul. So two things happen:

1. When we do the All Chayts we are doing them in the collective and in broad categories. We are not admitting our individual specific sins, which is what we need to do. Thus, there is work that needs to be done on this and it will be explained in a few lines.

2. Again, we are praying in the plural. So when we do the All Chayts and other bits of repenting, we can only do the first two parts: admit and show remorse. The third part, obligating someone to change their behaviours, we cannot do as a collective. I cannot obligate you to do something and you cannot obligate me. Besides, I don’t know what obligations you need to take on, nore do you know mine. Thus, we are not doing personal repentance on Rosh Hashana & Yom Kippur. What does this mean? It means that we have to do this ourselves and for most of us, outside of the regular prayer services.

Fortunately, G*d doesn’t leave us hanging and desperately wants us to go against nature here. G*d wants us to have a second chance to make a good first impression. And not just a second chance, a third and a forth and a fifth and well, as many chances as you can generate. We do this through personal Tshuva, using the formula as often as we can.

The sages tell us that in particular, we are supposed to use the 30 days of this month, Elul, to do Tshuva/Repentance. And again, in the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, do some more. Pick out a few things you know you can improve on. Don’t pick a bunch as that is a recipe for failure. I would say five max (and again, these are the sins between you and G*d, not you and other people). A couple of examples might be:
• I don’t keep Shabbat,
• I am sorry I did not keep Shabbat,
• I will keep Shabbat this year (or once a month, or Friday evening) or some derivation of this.

Again, it must be sincere. Or perhaps you don’t keep kosher. So the drill is the same:
• I did not keep kosher,
• I am sorry that I did not keep kosher,
• I will keep kosher (or I will eat a kosher meal once a week, or on a Shabbat etc).

How many times do you have to do this? Maybe this image will help. As mentioned before, we are trying to clean off the bad things from our spiritual white board. And if you noticed any white boards, many of them have residue and images on them after they have been erased. The more you use this formula, the better the eraser and cleaning fluid G*d provides. Once is great, twice is better. As many times as you can fit in will really help you out. And the more you do this, the more powerful your thoughts will be in the communal prayers.

I hope this gave you some additional insights into the Holy Days. In the spirit of the commandments six though ten, I unconditionally forgive you for anything you may have done to me, knowingly or unknowingly. I ask the same of you, to unconditionally forgive me for anything I might have done to you, knowingly or unknowingly.

In addition, if someone asks you to forgive them, as hard as it may be, please do so even if they don’t really deserve it. Why do it? Because there may be a time when you need to be forgiven and may not merit forgiveness and in those times, both people and G*d will remember when you did some selfless forgiving. Just one more deposit in the spiritual bank account.

I wish you all a good year, of health, peace happiness and sweetness.

For the all chayts http://www.aish.com/h/hh/yk/48952266.html