The Jewish Holiday in Need of a Good Script Editor

What exactly is Rosh Hashanah? Only God knows. Literally.

Jews performing a customary Jewish atonement ritual on Rosh Hashanah (painting by Aleksander Gierymski, 1884)

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This is a guest essay written by Daniel Clarke-Serret, author of “Exodus: The Quest for Freedom.”

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I am going to lay my cards on the table.

Today, Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish New Year — is by far my least favorite Jewish festival. And the reason is simple: After 41 years of life, I still haven’t the faintest clue what this holiday is about. I defy any reader to provide a satisfactory explanation.

Conversely, Passover reminds us of the Exodus from Egypt. Shavuot is a remembrance of the receipt of the Torah at Sinai. On Yom Kippur we are held to account. Simchat Torah celebrates and marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, and the beginning of a new cycle. And on Purim we recount the bravery of a Persian Queen in preventing genocide.

Some celebrations have a double purpose, both remembering a religious/historical event and marking a time in the agricultural year when the farmer brought his produce to Jerusalem. In the modern era, however, the historical story predominates and the meaning of the festival is clear to all participants.

But Rosh Hashanah? Only God knows. Literally.

Is it the Jewish New Year, a feast of celebration, meeting family and thinking sweetly of the 12 months ahead?

Or is it Yom Ha’Din (Hebrew for “Day of Judgment”) where we are awoken from our slumber and reminded that we are to be judged for our merits and sins in 10 days?

Is it Yom Teruah (Hebrew for the “Day of Blasting”) where we blow a ram’s horn in compliance with Leviticus 23:24 — “Speak to the Israelite people thus: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a remembrance of the shofar blast on a holy occasion.”

Or is it Yom Harat Olam (Hebrew for “The Day the World Was Conceived”) — a birthday party for Planet Earth?

Is it Yom HaZicharon (Hebrew for the “Day of Remembrance”) where we pray that God remembers us for good over the course of the coming year?

Or, as in modern secular Israel, is Rosh Hashanah a national holiday to be spent going to the beach and national parks?

In the popular imagination, Rosh Hashanah is associated with something entirely different. A Biblical tale and a notorious near-sacrifice. A lay person would likely comment that the holy day commemorates the binding of Isaac: when Abraham went upon Mount Moriah — the Jerusalem hill upon which the Temple stood — to (nearly) sacrifice the son he had been praying for his whole life. Yet that connection is made explicit not in the Torah but in a Talmud text (Rosh Hashanah 16a:16) which states:

“Similarly, Rabbi Abbahu said: Why does one sound a blast with a shofar made from a ram’s horn on Rosh HaShanah? The Holy One, Blessed be God, said: Sound a blast before Me with a shofar made from a ram’s horn, so that I will remember for you the binding of Isaac, son of Abraham, in whose place a ram was sacrificed, and I will give you credit as if you had bound yourselves before Me.”

According to Aish Ha’Torah, the organization with whom I once spent a Rosh Hashanah morning opposite the Western Wall, the feast is not primarily about any of the things hitherto mentioned. Above all, it is a coronation (they said). It is where we crown God “King of the Universe.”

Given the aforementioned, it is very difficult to identify what emotion we are meant to feel on Rosh Hashanah. Happiness that the new year has come? Excitement about the year ahead? Joy at the world’s birthday? Solemnity at the King’s coronation? Dread that we are about to be judged? Or contemplativeness about our past and the story of Abraham? [Insert emotion] about seeing your family?

Indeed when we blow the shofar (the ram’s horn), we are meant to feel (at least) two contradictory things: the terrifying call to change our ways and a great happiness that the King is about to arrive.

Put simply, Rosh Hashanah is confusing. Confused. A feast in need of a good script editor. A festival about everything and therefore nothing. And, at least to my mind, it is utterly incomprehensible.

I could end this piece with an explanation that ties all these loose ends together. But alas no. That is a task that has defied the greatest of minds for thousands of years.

Perhaps, though, that is the ultimate message of Rosh Hashanah — a message epitomized by the image of Abraham standing terrified and trembling above his beloved, much hoped-for son, with a knife of sacrifice. Namely the message of confusion. The divided mind. The existential despair of Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.

Followed up 10 days later by a moment of absolute clarity. When we stand before the Holy of Holies on Ne’ilah, the final service of the Day of Atonement, we know precisely the order of the hour. To pray for forgiveness. To change our ways. To improve. To beg for mercy before the Almighty Himself.

And that is the journey that the people of Israel have been going on over the last two years. A process of turning confusion into clarity. Doubt into resolve. Division into unity. Last year on Rosh Hashanah, in the midst of the “judicial reform” madness, Israel was going through a period of complete disarray. We struggled to agree on politics, religion, and society. We could not remember the purpose of our faith or the meaning of our history.

Yet only one year on, life has mirrored art — or at least the religious calendar. If Rosh Hashanah teaches us anything, it is that some contradictions cannot be resolved. And that’s okay, because in 10 days time we will have remembered our principal purpose and our most treasured goal. We will have become united by what really matters.

And that is precisely what differentiates Rosh Hashanah 2024 from Rosh Hashanah 2023.

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