Shuly Rubin Schwartz, Chancellor and Irving Lehrman Research Professor of American Jewish History, 91�첥

I love that our biblical forebears are depicted not as superheroes but as flawed individuals whose jealousies, rivalries, powerplays, and desires are evident, even as we find admirable qualities to emulate. On Yom Kippur afternoon, we read an entire book of the Bible—Jonah—about a particularly flawed prophet.

Jonah is given an assignment by God to warn the gentile people of Nineveh of their impending devastation if they don’t repent. Jonah actively refuses to accept this mission; he flees and boards a ship. When Jonah’s presence on the boat leads God to whip up a storm that endangers not only Jonah but all the sailors on board, Jonah is sleeping in his cabin, seemingly avoiding accountability. To his credit, when Jonah realizes that his flight fueled God’s wrath in the form of a raging sea, he implores the sailors to throw him overboard to end the storm and save their lives. He famously lands in the belly of a huge fish and prays for deliverance—as he was supposed to instruct the people of Nineveh to do. Only after enduring all of this, does he heed God’s directive and warn the people of Nineveh. Lo and behold, they take his warning to heart. The people—and even their beasts—fast and cry out to God, leading God to renounce the impending punishment.

We generally assume that this dramatic example of forgiveness is the reason we read this story on Yom Kippur afternoon. We hope our repentance will merit God’s complete forgiveness. But I think there is another reason why we read Jonah at this point in the process of repentance, for the story doesn’t end there.

In chapter 4, a postscript to the repentance narrative, we learn that Jonah feels angry and upset by the success of his mission. He felt it vindicated his initial impulse of bolting, for, as he had expected, God’s compassion overrode God’s impulse to punish. Feeling betrayed, Jonah asks God to take his life. In response, God again tries to rouse Jonah from this self-pitying posture. Once Jonah finds a place east of the city where he can observe what was going on from a distance, God provides Jonah with a ricinus plant to “provide shade for his head and save him from discomfort” (4:6). The next morning, God creates a worm that causes the plant to wither and then brings an east wind. When the sun rises, it beats down on Jonah causing him to feel faint. Jonah again tells God he wants to die, but this time God offers a withering critique:

You cared about the plant, which you did not work for and which you did not grow, which appeared overnight and perished overnight. And should I not care for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are many more than one hundred twenty thousand human beings who do not know between their right hand and their left and many beasts? (4:10–11)

God attempts to provide some perspective, to zoom out and help Jonah see beyond his personal suffering. As the poet Thomas John Carlisle expresses in “Coming Around”:

And Jonah stalked
to his shaded seat
and waited for God
to come around
to his way of thinking.

And God is still waiting
for a host of Jonahs
in their comfortable houses
to come around
to His way of loving.

In times of personal suffering, it can
be difficult to maintain an awareness
of what others are going through.

As Carlisle notes, in helping Jonah see the expansiveness of God’s love, God offers a new way of thinking, a new perspective on the vastness and depth of God’s dominion and concern.

In times of personal suffering, it can be difficult to maintain an awareness of what others are going through. And in times of collective suffering and struggle—a time such as now, when the precipitous rise in antisemitism has exacerbated our sense of vulnerability—we, as a people, can struggle to remain open and connected too. Understandably, we feel a deeper affinity with those who may share our sense of upset, betrayal, and fear—people who share our values, culture, and beliefs. Many Jews are now feeling a need to turn to one another for support and validation even more acutely.

Yet, in the face of this, the story of Jonah reminds us that it is precisely in our most challenging moments that God invites us to move beyond our comfort zone and show compassion, concern, and understanding for others, just as God wished Jonah had done with the plant and with the people of Nineveh. Building bridges of understanding and caring in our global and interconnected world with members of other faiths, cultures, and political allegiances honors our recognition of God’s love for all and of everyone’s potential to achieve redemption. It also gives us new opportunities for finding common ground with those who are different from us, who can work alongside us toward a better future.

As Jews, we have experienced, throughout our history, many moments of uncertainty, fear, and suffering, but also many times when Jews and Judaism flourished because of the strong ties we built with those around us. Just as Jonah found unlikely allies in the sailors who hoped to save him and in the fish that gave him respite and a fresh start, so, too, must we look for allies—even in unlikely places. 

At the end of the book, Jonah doesn’t respond to God’s critique, but I like to imagine that he’s mulling it over as he processes all that he’s just been through. As we listen to this story being chanted near the end of the Days of Awe and our own period of contemplation and reckoning for our relational missteps, we can appreciate the importance of both internal reflection and engagement with others. This year, I pray that we be granted not only forgiveness for our shortcomings but also the fortitude to engage more generously with others to improve the lot of all of God’s creatures.

Watch video of Rabbi Uhrbach sharing her thoughts on this topic.

We come to synagogue on the High Holy Days for many reasons: to affirm our Jewish identity, to be part of Jewish community, to connect with family, and to fulfill our obligations to God, the Jewish people, and Jewish tradition. We come for inspiration, learning, comfort, and challenge. 

Whatever our usual reasons, this year we’re coming amid uncertain and turbulent times, and most of us are hoping for some guidance and nourishment to help us manage our fears and find hope. A good sermon can certainly do some of that, inspiring us to think and act differently. 

But what we’re asked to do for most of our time in synagogue is pray. And prayer is a problem. It’s a problem generally because prayer is rarely easy. It’s a particular problem on the High Holy Days because the services are so long and repetitive, the themes and images of the liturgy are so challenging, and many of us simply don’t know how to engage.

But prayer does different work from teaching within a sermon, and it can offer exactly the kind of hope and sustenance we need.

Why Are High Holy Day Services So Long? 

Certainly there’s a lot of special holiday liturgy to get through. But there’s a much deeper, more important reason: authentic prayer, especially transformational prayer, takes time.

Praying is much more than merely reciting words. It involves encountering aspects of ourselves we rarely, if ever, see, shifting our perspective and seeing all things anew, awakening our spirits and sense of wonder. It’s about connection: with ourselves, with a community of other seekers, and with Someone or Something beyond ourselves (God, Oneness, or whatever metaphor you choose for “the all-encompassing larger something of which I’m but a part”). 

And on the High Holy Days, prayer has some additional goals. 

First, we’re meant to experience and claim the fullness of our humanity. On the humbling side, that means facing our smallness: our vulnerability, our fallibility and actual failures, our powerlessness, and our mortality. On the ennobling side, it means recognizing and embracing ways in which we are made in the image of God: our inherent dignity and unique value, our agency and consequent responsibility, our belovedness, and our resilience and strength. We’re reminded that we’re not supreme and that we’re not alone. 

The liturgy and the positioning of ourselves as “pray-ers” facilitates all that. These help us remove or at least pierce our protective armor of ego, self-deception, rationalization, external and internal makeup, posturing, shame—whatever keeps us from seeing ourselves as we really are.

Second, the arc of the liturgy from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur imagines that our prayer may inspire God to leave kisei hadin (throne of judgment) and ascend kisei harachamim (throne of compassion/kindness), thereby bringing us forgiveness, life, and a second chance. But whatever we believe or don’t believe about God, ideally our prayer will have the same effect on us, helping us push past our own harsh judgment (of self and others) and access the gentleness and tenderness within, the place where we feel deeply loved and valued and where we feel most loving of others. That experience may enable us to seek and offer forgiveness of others and lay the foundation for our own growth and change. This, too, brings us life and a second chance.

All of this is part of what makes prayer a religious obligation and service to God. Ideally, those moments of profound encounter that may occur in the process of praying change us, shaping our character, our choices, and our behaviors outside the synagogue.

And all of this is the real reason services are long: Moments like that aren’t easy to come by, and they don’t happen in a few minutes or even a couple of hours. In reality, we could get through the required liturgy in a fraction of the time, but then very little would get through to us. We need time to focus, to get past our resistances, to delve deeper, to connect. In other words, services aren’t long because we have a lot of liturgy; rather, we have a lot of liturgy because we need a long service.

How Should I Engage in Prayer?

The most obvious way to engage in prayer is simply to pray the words on the page, along with the prayer leader and congregation, in Hebrew or English or transliteration, silently or aloud. One can do so in a meditative way, losing oneself in the sound and rhythm of the words. Or focus on meaning, taking in the ideas and themes expressed, noting one’s reactions, connecting the text to one’s own life. It helps to remember that liturgy is poetry, not prose, and it needn’t be taken literally to be taken seriously.

At the same time, few of us can stay fully focused and prayerful for a brief weekday service, much less the lengthier davening on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. Short-circuiting the process isn’t the answer; as with any practice, the key is persisting past distraction or boredom to where the depth of meaning is found. (Think how often psychotherapy, gym workouts, or creative endeavors may seem like a waste of time just before a major breakthrough.) And following along with the congregation is by no means the only way to engage. At different times throughout the day when boredom or distraction strikes, rather than disengaging, try employing one of the following alternative paths to meaningful prayer.

Choose one particular prayer and linger there. Abraham Joshua Heschel compared the prayer book to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, filled with great works of art, too rich and beautiful to take in on one visit. So just as some people go to the Met to spend time with a single painting or in a single gallery, you may find that one or more particular prayers speak especially powerfully to you. If so, don’t feel pressured to push forward with the congregation. Stay on that page and allow the text to resonate within you. Explore its many possible meanings and their connection to you.

Pray in your own words. The formal texts of the confessions on Yom Kippur are merely an opening to help identify the failures and regrets each of us needs to own up to as individuals. Similarly, the formal text of the prayer book isn’t meant to substitute for your own concerns, needs, longings, gratitude, and praise. Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav stressed the importance of pouring out your heart to God as though you were speaking to your closest friend. You should feel free to put down the book and say whatever’s on your mind and in your heart. You can do that silently or quietly, stepping out for a few moments to a private place or taking courage and comfort from the company of the community. And don’t worry if you’re not sure who (if anyone) is listening; the important thing is to open your heart and see what’s there.

Read something else for a few minutes. The Conservative Movement’s prayer book, Mahzor Lev Shalem, features a wealth of commentary, poetry, and explanations. If you find yourself distracted or alienated, wander into the margins of the page. Some people bring their own reading material relating to the theme of the High Holy Days for additional inspiration. Choose reading that will keep you in a reflective and prayerful mindset—something that will focus you on inner work, not distract you from it, and help you reconnect to the service. 

Meditate or sit in silence. Prayer happens not on the page but in the heart, mind, and soul—and not always in words. Feel free to close the book, close your eyes, and open reflective space within. 

Sing. Singing—with words or a wordless melody—can be one of the most powerful modes of prayer there is. Singing can do for the heart and soul what a therapeutic massage does for the body, loosening up places of pain and tension, and allowing us to be more in tune with ourselves. Singing has a way of bypassing some of our defenses, and we may encounter parts of ourselves we rarely see (including our childlike side). So just join in. It doesn’t matter if you know the tune or you don’t, if you sing the words or just hum or chant along, if you stay on pitch or not. The point is not to sing well; the point is to sing.

Listen. We hear a lot about participatory services, by which we usually mean congregational readings and singing. That’s all great. But the participation that really counts is inner engagement. For some, that happens best through active listening. So you may choose to simply listen for part of the service, perhaps closing your eyes and letting all the sounds of prayer wash over you—melodies, words, mumblings and murmurings, sighs, page rustlings. Active listening can take you out of your own concerns and connect you with something larger. As you listen, allow yourself to feel part of the prayer community, uplifted and embraced by the sounds of prayer, and imagine the needs, concerns, joys, pains, fear, and gratitude those sounds express. See if you can feel a moment of capaciousness, the ability to hold more love and compassion for those you know and those you don’t. 

Prayer is worth it, especially in these turbulent, uncertain times. Where else can one do such a deep soul dive in the privacy of our hearts while buoyed by the company of others doing it too? What else offers not only the thought but the experience of being tethered to something so much vaster than ourselves, anchored by an ancient and loving tradition, held by a caring community, with mutual obligations toward others? And what could be more important in the face of dehumanization than the challenge and opportunity of confronting and reclaiming the fullness of our humanity? 

May you be blessed with a moment of genuine prayer on these High Holy Days.
May your heart open, your soul soar, and your tears flow.
May you lose yourself and find yourself, heal and be healed.
And may you and we be renewed.

David C. Kraemer, Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian and Professor of Talmud and
Rabbinics, 91�첥

�²��ٳ�����videoof Dr. Kraemer sharing his thoughts on this topic.

The Amidah—the standing, silent prayer—is the central prayer of rabbinic tradition. During its 18 recitations on the six days of a normal week, it has an essentially unchanged form. But on Sabbath and holidays, the prayer changes, omitting the centrally placed daily requests and adopting a form appropriate to the occasion. These changes help us understand how the rabbis understood the nature of the holidays and other special times.

The Amidah for the High Holidays commences its central section—for any service on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur—with a single formula: three paragraphs known for their opening words “and so” (uvekhen, a short word that is difficult to translate exactly).

The first of the paragraphs reads as follows:

And so, place Your fear, Lord, our God, upon all Your works, and Your awe upon all You have created; and all works will fear You, and all creatures will bow before You. And they will all form a single band to do Your will with a perfect heart. For we know Lord, our God that dominion is Yours, strength is in Your hand, might is in Your right hand. and Your Name is awesome over all You have created.  [Emphasis added.]

Oral performances, such as prayer, often emphasize their central theme through repetition, which the reciter or listener can’t help but notice. Unmistakably, the theme of this paragraph is that all creatures are God’s creatures, which leads to the hope that one day, at least, all creatures will unite in a single whole, in recognition of the single God. No Israel, no nations, just a single, unified humanity, embraced by and embracing the whole of God’s creation. It is difficult to imagine a more universalistic expression, one thoroughly appropriate to the day on which we celebrate the birthday of the world and everything in it.

The second paragraph assumes a very different focus:

And so, grant honor, Lord, to Your people, praise to those who fear You, good hope to those who seek You, and ease of speech to those who yearn for You, joy to Your land, gladness to Your city, the sprouting of promise to David, Your servant, and an array of light to the son of Jesse, Your anointed Mashiah [Messiah], speedily in our days.

This paragraph is about the Jews, the Promised Land, and Jerusalem. It anticipates the messianic redemption, when Jews will be honored for their loyalty to the true God. Given its narrowness of focus, is this an abandonment of the universal tone of the first paragraph in favor of a particularistic sensibility, one more appropriate for a Jewish holiday?

The third paragraph makes it clear that the triumph of the Jews and their Messiah is not the hoped-for end:

And so, the righteous will see [this] and rejoice, and the upright will be jubilant, and the pious will exult with joyous song; corruption will close its mouth, and all the wickedness will vanish like smoke, because You will remove the rule of evil from the earth.

In this vision of the perfected, redeemed world, it is not Jews who will rejoice at the downfall of evil, but the righteous, the upright, and the pious. Any person can attain this status, especially in the messianic stage of history. Yes, Jews will, in this world, be relieved of their humiliation, but so will others who do what is right and just. And Jews who do evil will find no more place in this world than evildoers of other peoples. In the end, as at the beginning, there will be only one humanity.

Why is this theme emphasized on the High Holidays? The answer lies in the recognition that the High Holidays are a New Year festival, commemorating and celebrating the creation of the world in its entirety. On its birthday, the world—and everything in it—faces judgment. Sins committed during the prior year must be erased and the world cleansed anew. Rosh Hashanah is the occasion of judgment; Yom Kippur, the occasion for mercy, the time when God forgives repentant sinners and purifies the world of their sins. This cleansing accomplished, the world may rejoice, as Jews do on the “time of our joy,” Sukkot. And though it is Jews who perform this drama, it is the whole world who are its subjects. Jews on these holidays perform a universalistic function.

The three “and so” paragraphs offer a quick outline of the progress of this history: The world begins as one. It then divides into tribes and families, some of whom dominate and some of whom suffer humiliation. The hope is for a universal reunification, the formation of a single band, bound together by our common creatureliness. Perhaps this is what the lulav is meant to symbolize: the binding together of our many types into a single, inseparable whole. This would be a fitting symbol, indeed, for the end of our yearly New Year festival.

Whether or not we read the symbolism of the lulav this way, the words of the High Holiday Amidah demand that we view the world this way. Today we may be divided against one another. But we were once one, and it is to that oneness that we long to return. It is our sins that divide us. We must struggle to leave those sins behind to forge a new unity. When we return (teshuvah), we will return to ourselves.

The Akedah

Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, Ripps Schnitzer Librarian for Special Collections; Assistant Professor, Talmud and Rabbinics

The most terrifying moment in the Binding of Isaac comes just before it ends. Abraham has built the altar. He has bound his son. He has lifted the knife. And then—suddenly—a voice from heaven calls, “Do not stretch your hand against the boy. Do nothing to him.”

The Akedah stands at the heart of Rosh Hashanah, not only as story but as liturgy. In the Zikhronot section of the Musaf service, we remind God not of Abraham’s belief, but of his submission—his impossible willingness to sublimate paternal love and fulfill a terrible command. We ask God to do the same: to sublimate divine anger, to restrain the strict demands of justice, to turn away from what is deserved and toward what is merciful. Abraham turned from love to duty. We ask God to turn from judgment to compassion.

At The 91�첥 Library, a rare woodcut of the Akedah is tucked into a 17th-century volume of Seder Kodashim. It appears not in a prayer book or Bible, but between two Talmudic tractates on Temple offerings—Zevahim and Menahot. It fills what would otherwise be a blank page, a silence in the structure of the book. On the left side of the image, a ram is caught in the thicket. On the right, Abraham stands over Isaac, knife raised. Smoke rises toward heaven. And in the upper corner, an angel leans out of a cloud.

The artist meant to draw logs beneath the altar—fuel for a burnt offering. But they resemble the pages of a book. Perhaps that’s coincidence. Perhaps not. Books, after all, are made from wood. And sometimes they are burned. In rabbinic memory, Rabbi Ḥanina ben Teradyon was wrapped in a Torah scroll and set alight. As the flames rose, his students asked him what he saw. He said, “The parchment burns, but the letters fly upward.”

Isaac was spared; Rabbi Ḥanina was not. The olah (burnt offering) is not always interrupted. The Greek word holocaustos—consistently chosen by Septuagint to translate olah—means “wholly consumed.” Rosh Hashanah asks us to remember a sacrifice that did not happen and to draw merit from the willingness nonetheless. Abraham offered more than faith. Isaac offered more than submission. They offered the human will—restrained, terrible, and transcendent.

When we open the book to that old woodcut, we see wood shaped like pages, fire shaped like prayer, and memory shaped like mercy. The knife is raised. The angel speaks. The sacrifice is paused—but not forgotten.

Harold Nathan Aaronson, Rabbinical School 2029

Hineni begins the Musaf service of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and describes the seemingly impossible task of the shaliah tzibbur: to stand before God as a messenger for the prayers of the community. In Israel as part of his rabbinical studies at 91�첥, Harold Aaronson reflects on how the themes of Hineni reflect the tensions facing the Jewish people today. 

הִנְנִי Here I am. Behind me: thousands of stickers plaster a concrete wall, covered with eyes—eyes of those gone forever and those still waiting to return. In front of me: ruins. Mounds of concrete, heaps of rubble—the only evidence that Beit Hanoun once stood in Gaza. 

Hineni reminds us that to come before God with these desperate pleas is a daunting task, one that requires us to scrutinize our feelings, our actions, and our words, and to elevate the best within ourselves—even when it feels impossible.

הֶעָנִי מִמַּעַשׂ, נִרְעַשׁ וְנִפְחַד מִפַּחַד יוֹשֵׁב תְּהִלּוֹת יִשְׂרָאֵל I, poor in deeds, tremble and quake from fear of the One who is enthroned upon the praises of Israel. I walk through the remnants of Nir Oz. Bullet holes, shattered windows, burned homes. Flags fly quietly in front of each house, marking the fate of those who once lived there: alive or dead, captive or free. בָּאתִי לַעֲמֹד וּלְהִתְחַנֵּן לְפָנֶיךָ עַל עַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל (I have come to stand and plead before You, On behalf of Your people Israel). I look at the father rooted in the ashes of his living room telling his story. We stare upon the wreckage of his neighbor’s house, scattered toys in the yard. On the afternoon of October 7, when finally freed from their safe room, his son went to play with those toys and wait for his friend to emerge and join him. Like any other afternoon. But his friend Ariel would never come.

And as the father speaks, the ground shakes with the constant thrum of shells landing in Gaza. 

הֱיֵה נָא מַצְלִיחַ דַּרְכִּי אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי הוֹלֵךְ לַעֲמֹד וּלְבַקֵּשׁ רַחֲמִים עָלַי וְעַל שׁוֹלְחָי Please, let my path that I am walking—to stand and request mercy for myself and for those who sent me—be successful. The sun beats down as I look upon the faces on the signs surrounding me. Young couples, building new families, creating new worlds—futures gone in an instant, a graveyard erected where they danced. In the distance, I watch as new soldiers rise in formation with our national song of hope dancing on their lips:עוֹד לֹא אָבְדָה תִקְוָתֵנוּ (Our hope is not yet lost).

Fewer than 10 miles away, an 18-year-old trudges through this same heat, wearing 50 pounds of combat gear and making split-second life-and-death decisions. We keep asking the impossible of him; perhaps we feel compelled to do so because it seems the impossible has been asked of us. But the reality remains. He returns to Gaza again.נָא אַל תַּפְשִׁיעֵם בְּחַטֹּאתַי וְאַל תְּחַיְּבֵם בַּעֲו‍ֹנוֹתַי Please do not punish them for my sins, nor make them liable for my transgressions.

“My heart is cold,” he tells us, as he assesses the situation with broken eyes. And I understand him. Hamas commits wanton violence against civilians by design, starving our hostages with intent. Their hate is so consuming that they prefer a world without us to a world of freedom for themselves—even at the expense of their people. The world watches in self-righteous judgement as if it were simple. The walls that isolate us grow.

Yet doubts also gnaw at me. Some realities are too simple to ignore, hunger among them. Each day I see children starving, houses destroyed, families broken. וְאַל יִכָּלְמוּ בִּפְשָׁעַי וְאַל יֵבֹשׁוּ הֵם בִּי וְאַל אֵבוֹשׁ אֲנִי בָּהֶם (Let them not be disgraced because of my offenses, nor be ashamed through me, and let me not be ashamed through them).Is our compassion yet another casualty of the war?  

We have erred. We have transgressed. There is nuance; there is context. But in endless complexity we neglect the obvious: rationalizations do not feed a family. No matter the double standards or culpability of others, Hineni is about our actions, our thoughts—not theirs. Must we not demand more from ourselves than this?

וְכָל צָרוֹת וְרָעוֹת הֲפָךְ נָא לָנוּ וּלְכָל יִשְׂרָאֵל לְשָׂשׂוֹן וּלְשִׂמְחָה לְחַיִּים וּלְשָׁלוֹם Transform all troubles and hardships for us and for all Israel into joy and happiness, into life and peace. To bare your soul before God on our holiest day—the vulnerability, humbleness, and courage required to reflect honestly and openly in judgement—is a demanding request. But it is a necessary one if we are to ask to transform our troubles and hardships into joy and happiness. This moment requires that resolve from us all: To openly and honestly assess ourselves and our actions. To do what’s right—for our own sake as well as for others. 

כִּי אַתָּה שׁוֹמֵעַ תְּפִלַּת עַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּרַחֲמִים. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה שׁוֹמֵעַ תְּפִלָּה For You hear the prayer of Your people Israel with compassion. Blessed are You, who hears prayer. We appear before You with prayers that have held our hearts captive for nearly two years, prayers that are new reflections of ones that have bound us for millennia. Grant us the wisdom to judge justly, the power to do what is necessary, and the strength to refrain from cruelty. Do not harden our hearts. Grant us the will to protect our people in body and in spirit.

We may not know how—but we know we must. הִנְנִי So here I am.

Shoshi Levin Goldberg, Director, H.L. Miller Cantorial School

As a spiritual leader dedicated to communal singing, I sometimes struggle with the sections of the High Holiday Mahzor that are written for the cantor or prayer leader to sing solo. The liturgical poem (piyyut), Ohila La’el, found in the repetition of the Musaf Amidah on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, is a short but thought-provoking example. Ohila La’el is of unknown authorship and was likely written in the 6th century CE or earlier. This piyyut comprises four lines, followed by three biblical verses. Though the poem is brief, each of these four lines can offer us a method of engaging with moments in our liturgy that may be challenging. 

Our first approach which highlights the importance of showing up, can be found within the opening line of this piyyut:

אוֹחִֽילָה לָאֵל אֲחַלֶּה פָנָיו 

“I pray to You, God, that I may come into your presence” 

Attending synagogue or tuning into a livestream is sufficient, because listening can be true prayer. Witnessing prayerful moments of the service leader, as if attending a performance, is indeed one way to pray, simply by being present. Yet while many people appreciate performative moments in prayer, that modality can be uncomfortable for others. 

The second line encourages us to try active listening as an alternative: 

אֶשְׁאֲלָה מִמֶּנּוּ מַעֲנֵה לָשׁוֹן 

“Grant me proper speech” 

Difficult words and melodies in our Mahzor can serve as a barrier to engagement. Here, the poet acknowledges this challenge, and the line can be understood as an invitation to hum or tap along, perhaps mouthing the Hebrew or engaging with the translation or supplementary readings. This, too, is authentic prayer.  

Sometimes, even active listening isn’t enough, and a congregational tune is needed:

אֲשֶׁר בִּקְהַל עָם אָשִֽׁירָה עֻזּוֹ 

“For I would sing of Your strength amidst the congregation of Your people” 

There is nothing quite like singing together and hearing the voice of the community, which is far greater than the sound of one voice. This experience brings us together and can be deeply moving, especially during these fraught and divisive times. And yet, there is still one additional level of what is possible in prayer—co-creating the service, along with the leader: 

אַבִּֽיעָה רְנָנוֹת בְּעַד מִפְעָלָיו 

“And utter praises describing your deeds” 

When we feel our voices connecting both to our community and to the Divine, individuals have the power to serve as co-leaders of the service. This prayerful presence is palpable.  

When it comes to connecting with our services, performative elements are not the only parts that can prove challenging. There are many reasons to wrestle with prayer in general or with specific sections of our liturgy. Sometimes the words are difficult to read or pronounce. Other times, the melodies are hard to sing. And often, the content of our prayers is emotionally challenging. And yet, it is in that very struggle—with words, melodies, and meaning—that we often discover the most honest and transformative moments of connection.

Ayelet Cohen, Pearl Resnick Dean of The Rabbinical School and Dean of the Division of Religious Leadership

We approach the New Year in a time characterized more by brokenheartedness than anticipation. It is a time of fear, and loss, and moral reckoning for the Jewish people. While many of us feel spiritually shattered this year, our tradition and our liturgy can guide us on this journey through our brokenness into a new year.

Three ancient sections lie at the core of the Rosh Hashanah Musaf service: Malkhuyot, Zikhronot, and Shofarot. Each consists of a series of biblical verses, framed by liturgy and punctuated by the sounding of the shofar. The Mishnah and Gemara dictate that verses describing divine fury or punishment are not appropriate for Rosh Hashanah liturgy. The verses are not intended to scare us but rather to help us connect to God and explore the internal work we each need to do.

The first section, Malkuyot (Sovereignty), is about the wonder of creation, God’s sovereignty over the earth, and our smallness in the universe. While some contemporary Jews find this aspect of God alienating, Malkhuyot may be easier to access in times like these when we are so in touch with our own powerlessness over global forces, when there is so much that we cannot control and fear we cannot change. But we do not dwell in that powerlessness.

We turn the page to Zikhronot (Remembrances) like a comforting voice from a safer time. While Zikhronot is associated with divine judgement, it draws on biblical verses that tell of God remembering our ancestors in times of suffering. As Jews, we carry the memory and the legacy of tragedy, antisemitism, and exile. The mahzor reminds us of the good. We awaken to the possibility of God’s lovingkindness, which can keep us from succumbing to despair and callousness even as we continue to witness and experience terrible things.

This is where the act of remembering intersects with the work of teshuvah. We perform an accounting of our souls as we consider where we are in comparison to years past. Nearly two years into the Gaza war and nine months into the current US administration, Zikhronot invites us to examine what we have learned and what choices we will make in the year ahead to try to repair the brokenness in ourselves, our people, and our world. It urges us to take action to bring more lovingkindness into our relationships and in the world.

The final section, Shofarot, represents the fusion of voice and action necessary to move forward with hopefulness. The call of the shofar accompanied revelation. In broken times it is the cry that accompanies war, but it can also represent laughter and joy. It is the voice we need to amplify that will sound one day for peace, justice, and redemption.

We can hear this message in the words of Rabbi Akiva in a foundational talmudic story set in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple. Rabban Gamaliel, R. Elazar ben Azariah, R. Yehoshua, and Rabbi Akiva were standing together near the ruins of the Temple, when they saw a fox running from the wreckage where the holy of holies once stood. The first three Rabbis began to weep, but Rabbi Akiva laughed. Stunned, his colleagues asked how he could laugh. Rabbi Akiva asked them, “Why do you weep?”

“How can we not weep,” they said, “when we see the curse from the book of Eicha (Lam.) enacted before us?[1]

“That’s why I’m laughing,” answered Rabbi Akiva. “Before these terrible prophecies came to be, we were afraid to believe the visions of good from our prophets; but now, since we see all of these things coming to pass, can we possibly doubt the eventual fulfillment of the consolation of Zion?” And his friends were comforted.[2]

As Jews, we are realists who recognize brokenness in the world and ourselves. Our tradition also asks us to have faith. Our mahzor guides us to draw from the pain of our past, remember the Divine and human capacity for generosity and compassion, and choose to act for a better future. The wisdom and courage of Rabbi Akiva, which allows him to laugh even in devastating times, teaches us that though terrible things may happen, we can promote goodness and justice in the wake of the wreckage. 

The Israeli writer David Grossman once wrote, “The battle lines today are drawn not between Israelis and Palestinians, but rather between those who are unwilling to come to terms with despair and those who wish to turn it into a way of life.”[3] Later, eulogizing his son, Uri, who was killed in 2006 in Lebanon War, Grossman said:

I learned from Uri . . . that we need to defend ourselves, but in two senses: to defend our bodies, and not to surrender our souls. Not to surrender to the temptations of force and simplistic thinking, to the corruption of cynicism. Not to surrender to boorishness and contempt for others, which are the really great curses of the person who lives his entire life in a disaster area like ours.[4]

Grossman’s words are apt for Shofarot, which refuses to come to terms with despair. Its verses urge us to find the courage to be hopeful. Hope comes easily in simple times. But Malkhuyot, Zikhronot, and Shofarot remind us to be hopeful in the midst of real suffering and fear and to cultivate the strength we so desperately need to build a more just and compassionate world.

[1] For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walked upon it.” (Lam. 5:18)

[2] Based on BT Makkot 24b

[3] Grossman, Death as a Way of Life: From Oslo to the Geneva Agreement (New York: Picador, 2004), xi.

[4] Excerpted and adapted from the translation by Haim Weizman, printed in the Washington Post, Sunday, August 27, 2006.

Are we really being set up for success for this whole teshuvah business? We might commit to doing all the preparation—journaling, going to shul, talking to therapists, chatting with rabbis, calling up hurt family and friends, New Year’s resolutions, etc.—and it still feels inadequate. Am I actually morally transformed? I am some infinitesimally small fraction of a hypermodern, global, complex network. My actions bear consequences for people on the other side of the globe I will never meet and whose names I will never even know. I still need to bring teshuvah to bear on my most intimate relationships, but is this millennia-old process suitable to the messiness and uncertainty of modern moral life?

This seemingly modern plague of angst and cynicism is actually described in ancient Jewish texts, albeit in different terms. A halakhah in Tosefta Bava Kamma (10:14) reads:

הגוזל את הרבים חייב להחזיר לרבים. חמור גזל הרבים מגזל היחיד, שהגוזל את היחיד יכול לפייסו ולהחזיר לו גזילו, הגוזל את הרבים אין יכול לפייסן ולהחזיר להן גזילן.

One who steals from the masses is obligated to return [the object] to the masses. Stealing from the masses is more severe than stealing from just one individual, because one who steals from just one individual is able to appease that individual and return to him his stolen object. [In contrast,] one who steals from the masses is unable to appease them and to return to them their stolen objects.

This text addresses the severity of stealing from a broader community, which consists of many unknown people. Here are some contemporary examples: using an accessible parking space without a placard, holding onto a library book indefinitely, and riding the subway without paying the transit fare. These cases constitute theft from the masses in the broad sense—I don’t know my victims and have no idea how to make proper amends.

But once we identify the essential quality of this wrongdoing against unknown—and unknowable—victims, we can find more frequent occurrences than these. For instance, active or tacit engagement in political causes that, I’ve realized upon reflection, have actually had adverse impacts on others. Consumption of products that were produced in unethical and harmful ways. Actions taken that led to needless environmental devastation, felt by communities thousands of miles away. In trying to fathom the sheer number of unknown victims of my actions, whether in my own neighborhood or anywhere in the world, I might be convinced that I am truly awful and unworthy of teshuvah, thereby succumbing to an intense moral nihilism about my impact and the broader world.

Another passage from the Tosefta (Bava Metzia 8:26) has something powerful to say about this kind of response:

הגבאין והמוכסין תשובתן קשה, ומחזירין למכירין, והשאר עושין בהן צרכי רבים.     

“Charity and tax collectors—their teshuvah is hard. They return [stolen objects] to the people whom they know, and as for all the rest, they put it toward public needs.”

When this passage is cited in the Talmud (Bava Kamma 94b), Rashi makes clear that these are charity and tax collectors who defrauded the public and have no record of who they have wronged. The text affirms that their teshuvah is indeed hard. This simple wording from the Tosefta may be exactly the language we are looking for to describe our own situation: in modern society, our teshuvah is also hard. While not an endorsement of outright nihilism, there is a healthy acknowledgment of legitimate despair concerning living a righteous life in the face of moral complexity. Being in relationship with so many unknown people around the world is unfathomably hard; and despite our most serious efforts, teshuvah in that context is very hard, too.

Without dismissing or belittling this challenge, the Tosefta tempers this despair with a necessary measure of optimism. Even when teshuvah is hard, we must nonetheless return stolen items to the people whom we can identify as victims and give back broadly to public need. Rashi describes an example of the latter in which an individual helps build a cistern to provide fresh water to the community. While it may fall short of repaying the people I’ve specifically wronged, it enables me to engage in a kind of reparative mirror; I can positively and constructively engage in a moral act that will help people I don’t know and will never meet. This is a far cry from the heroic righting of wrongs I nobly imagined when I first embarked on this process. But it is something I can do and a deeply positive action worth holding onto.

In the spirit of these texts, bring this nuanced mindset entering into this holiday season: pursue teshuvah for all your wrongdoing, while being honest about the inexhaustible nature of this work. Be kind to yourself when acknowledging the many constraints and limits that lead to some moral failures and make up for them—however imperfectly—through heartfelt gestures of communal involvement and civic action. In short, turn teshuvah into a sacred opportunity to humbly affirm all the inherent joy and pain of what it means to live as human.