Rosh haShanah 2024: The Day of Creation

Rosh haShanah has many meanings within it - the Celebration of the New Year, Day of Remembrance, Day of the Shofar's Blast. One of the ways the traditional prayer book refers to Rosh haShanah is "Yom haRat Olam." This is often translated as "The Birthday of the World," but that's not quite correct. The phrase, "Yom haRat" really means "day of conception." The world has not yet been born - but is on the verge of being born.

The phrase "haRat Olam" are originally the words of the prophet Jeremiah - and in that context the meaning is quite different. It does not mean "The world is born." The Hebrew word Olam has two meanings, in fact - it can mean "universe" but it can also mean "forever."

In Jeremiah, the prophet is mourning his own birth, due to the suffering he has faced for standing up and speaking truth against the powers of his day. He is, in fact, wishing that he be forever conceived but never born.

We see two opposite metaphors occurring to describe the meaning of this day. One is hopeful - it is a day of possibility; a new beginning is on the horizon. The other, the opposite - it is a day of desolation, in which the world to be born may never see the light of day.

I think we, gathered here today, are feeling this mixture. After this year of unending horror, in which not only our country has funded the ongoing genocide in Palestine, but that the genocide is being committed in the name of our safety as Jews; a year where many of us were punished, like Jeremiah, for speaking out against power; a year where it seemed things couldn't get worse, and then they have continued to; it may be that many of us stand in fear of what is to come in the new year, many of us may not want it born at all.

And, for some of us, there is a glimmer of hope. That, perhaps in this new year ready to be born, a new beginning is possible. Perhaps something subtle, something imperceivable, will change in the world along with the turning of the calendar, and we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps.

A step further into the metaphor of the day. Our tradition tells us that it was on Rosh haShanah that the first human was created. This could mean, then, that it is not about the literal world's creation, but instead about the promise of human creativity - not until humanity was created was the world truly ready to begin. It wasn't yet alive. And now, we are here, and it is our job to make it alive. This, too, is why our tradition tells us that saving a human life is like saving a whole world, and taking a human life is like destroying a whole world.

This means that each of us, today, are generating a new world. Each and every human being is on the precipice of a brand new beginning; conversely, we can hold that world back. We can keep it from ever emerging.

This idea - each human producing their own new world - can resonate with a capitalistic sense of separateness that blinds us to the true nature of our worlds. They overlap. They intersect. And, in fact, they even collide, and combine with other worlds we find anathema. Worlds we find completely unacceptable. Each and every one of us has experienced this. Our vision of the world, of what is right and just, is whole in our minds and in our bodies. And sometimes we encounter someone who, just as whole in mind and body, contains the precise opposite vision. Abjection occurs - disgust - a desire to fully separate; to draw a thick barrier; perhaps even to destroy.

Now, I'm not suggesting every world is equally valid and good. I am suggesting, though, that they each must be acknowledged, and even approached, if only to combat them. But how we do that, and with whom, is a major question. And, in so doing, our own worlds are always altered. We can not enter into relation, even a combative one, with someone or something without being changed by it. We must be careful of how we can be changed to more closely resemble that which we loathe, simply by being in a combative relationship with it, and therefore create a world in their mirror image, but still their image. We must remain aware of how we are changing even as we work to change others.

As we step into this moment, this new year, this opportunity to birth our world anew, let's discuss what it means to be in relationship with those we find completely antithetical to us. Who and what have you encountered this year that have made you feel that abjection, that sense of total revulsion? How has that feeling changed your own vision for the world, or affected your approach to your vision? How would you want to revise that experience now, as we have an opportunity to reconceive of the world we are bringing into being?