In about ninety minutes from the time I am writing, Terri and I will celebrate the Jewish holiday of Rosh HaShanah with our congregation on the south shore of Lake Superior.
The holiday is well known even in non-Jewish circles because Jews emerge from annual hibernation to begin ten days of crowding synagogues before returning to their dens for the remainder of the year. Oh, I kid my folks, but really, it is something to see huge numbers of people we probably won’t see again for another year.
The holiday is mentioned in the Bible, the Torah, in the books of Leviticus and Numbers. There we find mention of the importance of blowing the shofar, the ram’s horn, on the day. What we don’t find is any notion that this is a New Year’s Day.
That idea is first found in the writings of the early medieval rabbis. These rabbis came up with all sorts of intriguing ideas about the holiday such as: Rosh HaShanah is the birthday of Adam and Eve. Rosh HaShanah is a day when the Creator sits in judgment over their creations. And how can Rosh HaShanah be a “new year” when it is celebrated in the “seventh month”? The rabbis will find a way. Rosh HaShanah is the New Year in the liturgical calendar. It marks the period of time in which we complete the reading of the Torah getting ready to begin once again.
One of the scholars I’m proud to call a mentor, Daniel Boyarin, wrote a brilliant treatise he called Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity in which he explains how Judaism and Christianity became distinct religions. Rosh HaShanah is one example of this process–creating a holiday with themes and requirements not known in Biblical literature. Rosh HaShanah falls on the Jewish side of the “border lines” while Christians went their own way.
For those who celebrate, may we all enjoy a good and sweet New Year. And as we begin the period the rabbis deem a ten-day period of reflection, may we all be inscribed in the Book of Life.
