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 are lost in the land of Assyria and those who were cast away in the land of 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 an eagle guarding its nest, over its young birds hovering, he spread out his 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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