INDEED, AT A DISTANCE YOU

SHALL SEE THE LAND,

BUT THERE YOU SHALL NOT

ENTER,

THE LAND THAT I AM GIVING TO

THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL

(Devarim 32:52)

"Indeed, at a distance you shall see the land, but

there you shall not come" – Here is written "but there

you shall not come"; but further on it is written "but

there you shall not cross". It cannot say "there you

shall not come", for already it says "there you shall

not cross!" What does the Torah want to teach us by saying "there

you shall not come" and " there you shall not cross"?

Said Moshe to The Holy One, Blessed Be He: If I cannot enter as a king, let me

enter as a commoner; if I cannot enter alive, let me enter dead. Replied The

Holy One, Blessed Be He: "There you shall not come" and

"there you shall not cross", neither as king nor as commoner, neither alive nor dead".

 (Yalkut Shim'oni, Haazinu 247:949)

FROM AFAR

Rachel

The heart listens. The ear is

attentive:

There-no one comes.

Has he come? Will he come?

In every expectation

Is the sadness of Nebo.

Facing each other-the two shores

Of a single river.

Rock of proscription:

Distant forever.

Spread palms. See from afar.

Man and his Nebo

Far and wide.

                  THE

LITTLE SHOFAR, THE GREAT SHOFAR, AND MAN

Shalom Bahbout

The sounding of the shofar is one of the most

distinctive mitzvoth of the Days of Awe, beginning with the obligatory blasts of Rosh Hashanah till the optional soundings at the

conclusion of the Ne'ila service. Although much has been written on this mitzvah,

and innovation would appear to be difficult, it seems to me that there is still

room for reinvestigation of this mitzvah, examining aspects heretofore

not considered.

A. Today Is the

Birthday of the World

The piyyut 'Today Is the

Birthday of the World' (Hayom Harat Olam), which is sung joyously following the shofar blasts of the Rosh Hashanah Mussaf service,

is one of the piyyutim sung in all the liturgies: Sephardic, Ashkenazic,

Italian, etc, seeming to indicate its antiquity. There is a certain

contradiction in the opening words of the piyyut: Today-the first day of Tishrei-is the birthday

of the world-the day on which the world was created; according to Chazal tradition,

the world was created on the 25^th of Elul, and on the first of

Tishrei, man was created. (I heard the question posed by Prof. Avi Ravitsky.) This contradiction may be

resolved by assuming that the author is referring to the conclusion of creation, and that the creation of man was actually the

crown of all creation. But why, then, would the poet use a word which is so

unfitting: the word harat [which we translated as 'birthday'] indicates "herayon"

– pregnancy, a process awaiting completion; a more suitable

phrase would have been "today the world was created". We may posit

that the poet's choice – based on the words of Yirmiyahu (20:14-18),

who bewails his

coming into the world-was not accidental:

Accursed be the day that I was born! Let not the day

be blessed when my mother bore me!… so that my mother might be my grave, and

her womb and her womb big with me for all time. Why did I ever issue from the

womb, to see misery and woe, to spend all my days in shame!

These words, which parallel the beginning of Job's rejoinder

to his friends who came to comfort him, are distinguished by extreme pessimism.

It is difficult to understand why these words in particular were chosen to mark

so festive an occasion, one which calls for an optimistic and positive attitude

towards the future and the world in general; at the beginning of the year, we

would all expect more emphasis on the blessing ("A beginning of year with

its blessings') or on the hope for a good and sweet year (as recited at the

meal on the first night of Rosh Hashanah).

B. The Great Shofar

On that day a great shofar shall be sounded; those who

Egypt shall come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Yerushalayim. (Isaiah

27:13)

The purpose of the shofar is to awaken the sleeping from

their slumber: on one hand, "those who are lost" – those Jews who

assimilated and were absorbed into the nations, such as the ten tribes who were

exiled to Assyria and disappeared, and we all hope that that God will return

them; on the other hand, the shofar will arouse and bring back also those Jews

who behave like castaways-far from the Jewish people-who actually preserve

their Judaism, but "the situation" forces them to behave outwardly as

gentiles. True, we sound the shofar year after year and the lost and the

castaways do not return: thousand of Jews have assimilated and are assimilating

daily, but we hope that the shofar will awaken them and return them to the

bosom of Judaism. Perhaps the shofar we sound is too small…

One tradition has two shofars fashioned from Yitzchak's

ram: One we blow every year, and the other is hidden away for "that day".

Let us understand in what sense this latter shofar is greater than the former.

The first shofar reminds us and all the

nations counted among "the descendants of our father, Avraham" that

in the worship of God there is no place for human sacrifice, even for the sake

of the most sanctified goal-after all, the end of the story finds Avraham

listening to the voice of the messenger of God who orders "Do not

stretch out your hand against the lad"–and it is not for naught

that the episode is called the "akeida" – "binding",

and not the "hakrava" '"the offering";

Yitzchak is tied to life. In our times, man

is often willing to endanger his life or to forgo the quality of the

environment, so that his life be easier (for example: fast and dangerous

driving, air pollution). The internalization of the message of the first shofar is still far off.

3. The Blasts of Rosh Hashanah

and Yom Kippur

As noted, the shofar blasts of Rosh Hashanah are

obligatory, and therefore "lest one carry it four cubits in public domain"

we do not blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah which falls on the Shabbat. The

blasts concluding the Ne'ila service are custom and not obligation, and

therefore, when there is no shofar in the synagogue, there is no concern that

one may go to bring a shofar. The blasts of Rosh Hashanah are interwoven into

the service; they are part of the service because there still exists the need

to articulate the thoughts in words, whereas the blasts of Yom Kippur which

were positioned at the end of the service are actually the ultimate prayer: when "all the prayers have ended", there is

no choice other than to make the voice of the shofar into primary prayer-sans

words-to express the thought.

"The mitzvah (of shofar) of Rosh Hashanah

and Yom Kippur is with a bent shofar" (Rosh Hashanah 26b): Man who bends himself, who

raises his voice, imagining himself to be a shofar, he himself

becomes a shofar, prepared to observe the word of The Holy One, Blessed Be He. The moment

that God "blows into his nostrils the spirit of life" anew-and this

is feeling of the Jews on the conclusion of Yom Kippur, when his authentic

voice returns, the voice with which he was created as a human being-there is no

longer need for a shofar, for man himself becomes a shofar.

In Conclusion

The question asked at the beginning of this article

still awaits an answer: why did the poet use the words "today is the

birthday of the world", as if the world is still in a process of creation?

Every man is a complete world, and the days between Rosh

Hashanah and Yom Kippur are a unique and only opportunity given man to recreate

himself. Man wonders and asks whether this situation, which necessitates a

tremendous and prolonged spiritual and psychological effort, is worthwhile. The

quandary is illustrated in the celebrated controversy between the Houses of

Shammai and Hillel, "Is it better that man was created or better had he

not been created?". The answer given by the Talmud is: "… But now

that has been created, let him scrutinize his

behavior."

At the end of a protracted and demanding process, man

will transform himself into the shofar of The Holy One, Blessed Be He, and then

he will merit that God himself will sound him, and he will be that great shofar which will be sounded on that day.

Shalom Bahbout is a rabbi physicist who teaches in the

University of Rome.

The

World of The Holy One, Blessed Be He, Is a World of Faith, Justice, Integrity,

and Mercy

"A God steadfast"

– who

believed in the world and created it.

"With no corruption" –men did not come into the world to be evildoers, but

to be righteous people. Thus it is said: "God made man plain, but they

have engaged in too much reasoning." (Ecclesiastes

7:29)

"Equitable and upright is He:

– He

deals straightforwardly with all who come into this word.

(Sifri, Haazinu, Piska 307)

"Like an Eagle Guarding Its

Nest": The Simile of God as

Merciful Father

… but the eagle is merciful, as is written, "Like

wings, he took him, bearing him on his pinions" (Devarim

32:11). He does

not trust them, because of other birds which pursue them. What does he do? He

places them on his wings, saying: Better the arrow pierce me and not my

children.

 (Midrash

Tanchuma, Ekev 2)

The Thirteen

Attributes-Blueprint for Action

"And God passed before his face, and called out"

– Said R' Yochanan: Were this not written in Scripture, it could never have

been said; it comes to teach us that The Holy One, Blessed Be He, wrapped

himself in a tallit like a cantor, and taught Moshe the order of prayer.

He said to him: Whenever Israel sins-let them perform this order before me, and

I will forgive them.

(Bavli Rosh Hashanah 17b)

But we see that many times, because of our sins, we wrap

ourselves in a tallit and recite the thirteen attributes, yet we are not

answered. But the meaning is, as long as Israel acts according to this order

which I (God) perform, to be merciful and gracious to the poor, to be slow to

anger and to keep kindness with them, to forbear to retaliate, as Chazal said, "Whoever

forbears to retaliate, his failings are forgiven," then they (Israel) are

promised that they will not return empty-handed; but if they are cruel, and do

bad, and certainly if they do so while still reciting the 13 attributes, they

are punished.

 (From Sefer Yereim, quoted by Y.

Leibowitz: Discussions on the Festivals of Israel and its Appointed Times,

p.185)

Between Man and Man

Every man should remember, on Yom Kippur eve, to pacify all

against whom he has sinned, because Yom Kippur atones for sins between man and

the Omnipresent but it does not atone for those between man and his fellow

until he pacifies him. And even if he angered him only with speech, he must

pacify him and he must go to him, and if at first he refuses conciliation, he

must go a second and a third time, and each time he should take along three

others to convince him to forgive, and if he refuses to accept appeasement

three times, he is not required to continue to appease him. All this is said

with regard to his fellow, but if [he had sinned] against his teacher, he must

bring more and more friends until he is appeased-and if he [the one sinned

against] is no longer alive, he brings ten men and stands them by his grave and

says "I have sinned to the God of Israel and to so-and-so against whom I

have sinned", and this is done so that the

heart of every Jew be at peace one with the other and there will no occasion

for the Satan to indict them.

 (Tur Orach Chayim, 706)

Speech As An Instrument

for Serving God

"Your lips are like a crimson thread" – this

is the crimson cord,

"Your mouth is lovely" – this is the

sent-off goat.

Said Israel before The Holy One, Blessed Be He: Master of the

Universe, [today] we have not the crimson cord and the sent-off goat.

He replied: "Your lips are like a crimson thread"

– the murmur of your lips is beloved to me like the crimson cord.

Regarding this, R'Abahu said (Hoshea 14) "Instead of

bulls we will pay the offering of our lips" – what shall we

offer instead of bulls and instead of the sent-off goat? Our lips.

 (Shir HaShirim Rabba 4)

Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser

(Editor), Miriam

Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak

Frankenthal and Dr. Menachem Klein

Translation: Kadish Goldberg

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