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Page 22 THE JEWISH GEORGIAN September-October 2012 The wonderful symbols of the High Holidays By David Geffen An item in The Jewish Chronicle, of London, dated September 26, 1902, focused on the consecration of a “Sepher Torah and Shofar,” in addition to several large barrels of apples and small containers of honey, all to be used by Jewish immigrants sailing shortly for South Africa. The short piece in the paper stressed that these items were needed, since “the immigrants will be on the High Seas during the ensuing festivals.” The shofar, apples, and honey are among the most familiar symbols of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. An insightful assessment is made by Amichai Lau-Lavie, an innovative Jewish educator, about the importance of the objects we use during the coming festive season: “During the High Holidays, we are involved in the verbal process of acknowledging who we are and how we wish to change ourselves for the better. But beyond the words we use, we ‘do many things and experience the season through our bodies and not just our minds.’” Lau-Lavie continues in this fashion. “We eat certain foods, like apples and honey and remember the taste and mood of the holiday. We hear certain sounds, like the shofar, and we experience something inside that goes beyond words. The sights, smells, and feelings all amount to one thing...an integrated awareness in our bodies and our minds of the New Year.” He concludes, “Very often, the things we do, rather than the things we say, are what we remember.” ———————- Initially, let us seek to understand the meaning of the shofar and its symbolic value. The shofar is one of the oldest instruments known to humankind. Mentioned 69 times in the Tanach, it first appears in Exodus 19:16. The shofar was used to announce the Jubilee-Yovel year and the proclamation of freedom throughout the land. “Thou shalt cause the shofar to sound...and you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants, and you shall return every man to his family.” This verse, from the Book of Leviticus, was selected, even before the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, to be engraved on the Liberty Bell, in Philadelphia. In Jerusalem’s Liberty Bell Park, it is possible to examine the replica of that famous American icon—biblical verse and all. Better known to most Jewish people is the relationship of the shofar to the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe. In the Book of Numbers 29:1, the shofar is mentioned in the ritual for Rosh Hashanah. “You shall observe it as a day when the horn (shofar) is sounded.” The shofar was commanded to be part of the New Year observance by this prescription. It was defined as a ram’s horn by the sages who included in the Rosh Hashanah service the story of Isaac on the altar and his replacement by a ram caught in the thicket by its horn. The horn also became a symbol of God’s mercy. Hence, the sounding of the ram’s horn reminded God that He should forgive the Jewish people their transgressions. Maimonides taught: “Although the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is a mitzvah for which no reason is stated, it is as if the shofar were suggesting, ‘Arise from your sleep, you who slumber. Repent with contrition. Remember your Creator. Peer into your soul and improve your ways and your deeds.’” Then God will forgive you. The shofar became “the ritual horn” of the Jewish people as well. When the Torah was given on Mt. Sinai, the shofar was sounded. When the walls of Jericho fell, the shofar was utilized. The victory of the Judge Ehud ben Gera over the Moabites was marked by the sound of the shofar. At Ein Dor, Gideon and his hundred men blew the shofar as an accompaniment to their surprise attack. —- To be ready, every baal tokea (shofar blower) must practice so that the tekiah (a single, unbroken note that in ancient times was the call to assembly), shevarim (three short notes that sound like sigh or cry), teruah (nine notes that are a call to action), and tekia gedolah (the longest sounding note) are as perfect as possible. —- In June of 1967, when the Israeli army captured the Western Wall, Chief Chaplain Shlomo Goren sounded the shofar. When that victory occurred, I was serving as a chaplain in the United States Army, stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. To be honest, we did not know too much about the war, because American TV provided limited coverage. However, about noon on the third or fourth day of the war, Oklahoma time, I drove to the post office to pick up our mail. As I was about to turn off the car’s engine, there was a newsflash on the radio. The announcer said that the wall had fallen to the Israelis, and then I heard, loud and clear, the tekiah gedolah from the shofar of Chief Chaplain Goren. What a thrill—one not to be forgotten. —- The first sounding of the shofar each year takes place during the weekday mornings of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah. After the recitation of the Penitential Psalm 27, the tekiah, the shevarim, and the teruah can be heard. This is a daily act, except for the Sabbath and the day before Rosh Hashanah. Most important, it is a reminder that each individual must prepare for the days of judgment ahead. —- In The Washington Post, on September 15, 2004, just before the High Holidays, a story titled “A Rabbi’s Unorthodox Revival” began: “The 30-second television ad begins with a blast of the shofar, the Jewish ceremonial ram’s horn. A young bespectacled rabbi then extends an invitation. ‘Please join me for an incredible Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at Washington’s National Synagogue.’ For a free brochure on the congregation, he adds, ‘Please call 1-888-8- Prayer.”’ Many Washington Jews were critical of this PR blitz by an Orthodox rabbi, but the shofar caught people’s attention. The phone rang nonstop, and the shul was packed for the High Holidays. —- When pointing to the specifics of shofar blowing, the baal tokea must make sure that the ram’s horn emits 100 notes on each day of Rosh Hashanah. If the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on the Sabbath, the shofar is not blown on that day, but only on the second day. This year, however, the first day of Rosh Hashanah is on Monday, September 17. So the shofar will sound the majestic tekia gedolah on both days, as well as a week later, at the end of Yom Kippur, September 26. —- This year and every year, it is important to recall the words of the Prophet Isaiah when we hear the sound of our ancient musical instrument. “A great shofar shall be blown and they shall come that have been lost in the land of Assyria and dispersed in the land of Egypt and they shall worship the Lord in the holy mountain of Jerusalem.” ———————- Now, let us turn to the apple-and-honey treat that is so enjoyed on Rosh Hashanah. A major source cited for this custom is to be found in the Biblical book Nehemiah 8:10. Hana Goodman, in her article on the “Culinary Art of Rosh Hashanah,” in The Rosh Hashanah Anthology, pointed out that after Ezra the scribe had read the “Law” to the people on the first day of Tishri, they began to weep. Then Nehemiah said, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet...for this day is holy to the Lord.” Using this verse as a prooftext, Rabbi Jacob Molin (1360-1427), better know as “Maharil,” emphasized that the custom of eating an apple dipped in honey is rooted in the Nehemiah source. Molin created the following formula, which we continue to use, to be recited after the apple is dipped in honey: “May it be Thy will to renew unto us a good and sweet year.” In recent years, one New Yorker took this custom to an extreme. In 2007, a man was arrested atop the Empire State Building, as he poured honey down the side of the New York landmark. Supposedly, he told the police, “There is the Jewish custom of celebrating the New Year by dipping apples in honey. What better way to bring in Rosh Hashanah than by covering the Big Apple in honey?” —- A college student at Cornell University, Rachel Mattes, put her thoughts about this holiday treat in the student newspaper. “The apple, a fruit of the fall and consequently readily available during the holiday, acts as a symbol of the season.” Honey, for the writer, gives us a boost, in the hope of a sweet year to come. Rachel noted that, “An apple dipped in honey is a delicious, crunchy sweet to begin the holiday meal.” This follows in the wake of what Abaye taught in the Talmud: “Since an omen is significant—at the beginning of the New Year, each person should accustom himself to eat that which symbolizes sweetness.” —- In 2005, Captain Howard Perl was serving with the United States Third Infantry Division in Iraq. He recalled his Rosh Hashanah experience that year. “On Monday afternoon, I took a helicopter flight with a Jewish sergeant from Camp Taji to Baghdad, a 10-minute ride. We were met by Chaplain Schranz of the U.S. Navy.” Then Perl described what had been prepared for Rosh Hashanah: “At the site used for the services, one congregant had made an ark for the Torah. We had candles, kiddush cups, wines, mahzors, challah, apples, and honey. What more could we American Jewish soldiers ask for?” The evening services went well. “In the morning, the chaplain gave out aliyot,” he continued. “I had one. I was very proud that my father’s name was mentioned in an aliyah in Baghdad, Iraq, for Rosh Hashanah. After a wonderful meal with round challahs dipped in honey and especially made by Filipino bakers, since the chapel was right on the river, we went straight out for tashlich.” Pictures from Baghdad of the ark and the chapel, along with one of the river used for tashlich, brought Perl’s description to life. See SYMBOLS, page 23
September-October 2012 THE JEWISH GEORGIAN Page 23 Three Days at Chautauqua The Chautauqua Institution might be described as a summer camp for learningaddicted adults. It offers a smorgasbord of studies, alongside a beautiful lake in the southwestern corner of New York State. Its main attraction is the possibility for total immersion each week in a different subject of intense current interest. When I visited there this past July, it featured a highly controversial nation located in the world’s most fought-over neighborhood. The British carved this state out of a colonial possession after World War II. Its people, long oppressed because of their religion, were heavily concentrated in a small area of the land, which the ruling power promised them as a national home decades earlier but failed to deliver. Much of the allotted territory was desert or swampland, with a disputed border and a portion of the land separated from the rest and indefensible. Three times in its short history, this nation was forced to defend itself in war Symbols From page 22 BY Janice Rothschild Blumberg —- Lily Arouch, in her memoir of her youth in Salonika in the 1930s, described what was done in her family. “We always said, ‘Let the New Year be as sweet as honey.’ Then, as we ate a traditional Sephardic treat, ‘apple sweet,’ our wish was that the New Year be both sweet and nice.” —- A noted rabbi, Samuel Dresner, once wrote, “Honey comes from the bee, which stings, but at the same time, it is able to produce a sweet food that can add a delicious flavor to other items.” Dresner now pointed to the real essence of this sweetness. “We use honey because it represents the power of Rosh Hashanah. When we begin a fresh new year, the past is not always so sweet. Sometimes, we may have stung and hurt those close to us. But on Rosh Hashanah, we turn it all around. The honey we eat on the holiday reminds us that we are not perfect, but with a little effort we can achieve sweetness.” —- A visitor to the Golan Heights, in January 2009, wanted to help her readers recognize what there is to see in the north- against its much larger neighbor. The people of this country are progenitors of an ancient culture that underlies much of our Western civilization. Their government is a parliamentary republic, striving for democracy, while committed to maintaining the religious dominance that was the very raison d’etre for which it sought independence. Compounding the difficulty in achieving this is the fact that, within the broad embrace of their national faith, the people are divided into several major denominations, with many subdivisions, each with its own traditions, rules, and perceptions of absolute truth. Given this reality, “religious democracy” becomes an oxymoron. It also threatens the stability of this nation, which is crucial to all nations, because it is known to be a nuclear power. You realize by now that the country we studied was not Israel. Like it or not, Pakistan has striking parallels to the Jewish state. Much as we love Israel, we can hardly deny that it, too, has deep problems internally, especially as it struggles to establish equal justice for all of its citizens, regardless of where they stand on (or off) the spectrum of Judaism. Muslim society has similar problems, but with infinitely more anger and variation among its orthodox elements. ern part of Israel. In doing so, she has provided a fascinating observation on the apples we use on Rosh Hashanah. During the tour, she took her family to see the Bereshit Apple Packing plant in the Golan, the largest in Israel, and penned these thoughts: “You go to the supermarket and put a bag of apples in your shopping cart. You have absolutely no idea what the apple has gone through to get to your cart.” Then she leaves us with a beautiful apples-people parallel that is most appropriate for Rosh Hashanah: “They clean the apples by the ton; they sort them; they measure them; they put them through Quality Control; they sort them again and again and again—a fascinating process.” ———————- May the delightful apple and honey combo inspire us, first, to seek God’s forgiveness and, then, to make sure that during the New Year, we transform the sweetness granted us into the beauty of life in the days ahead. Admittedly, I had little interest in Pakistan when I went to Chautauqua. I was drawn there because of curiosity about the place. Founded in the 1870s as a summer learning program for Protestant religious school teachers, it is now a mecca for the intellectually curious of all faiths. It was there that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his memorable “I hate war” speech, in 1936, and where President Bill Clinton went to prepare for his crucial campaign debate with Senator Bob Dole, in 1996. Thanks to the generosity of Edith Everett, in establishing the Everett Jewish Life Center, Chautauqua currently includes a Jewish component that brought Deborah Lipstadt, Jonathan Sarna, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, and other luminaries for a Jewish Writers Conference this summer. I had no knowledge of this summer’s program when I chose my dates for visiting Chautauqua. Atlanta native Brenda Sugarman Goldberg and her husband, David, who have a summer home there, convinced me that July was a good time for fair weather, and I wanted to hear my friend Ori Z. Soltes, of Georgetown University, who usually lectures there the last week of July. His subjects are always of interest to me, so I didn’t ask for specifics. In addition to the lectures, I eagerly anticipated the opportunity to visit with him, his wife, Leslie, and their two sons. Ori gave us a background of Pakistan’s history and culture, without which the uninitiated, such as I, would have missed the import of much that followed. Two major lectures each day featured such speakers as former ambassadors from Pakistan to the United States, a brilliant woman who represents Pakistan’s tribal territories in parliament, and the author Akbar Ahmed, familiar as a CNN consultant on Islamic issues. They drew huge crowds, filling the great amphitheater under the big white tent. Their opinions differed, as did their areas of expertise. One former ambassador seemed a bit too diplomatic, glossing over the real issues faced by our two countries in confronting terrorism. Most, however, were factual and frank, candidly admitting that some of our differences are irreconcilable. They agreed, essentially, that we Americans should think of Pakistan as a friend, not as an ally. Most importantly, they reminded us that they see issues through their own spectrum, not ours, as all countries do, a point that we tend to forget when dealing with friendly nations. Although I vacationed at Chautauqua for only three days this year, it inspired me to learn more about a timely subject and hopefully to return for other insights next summer. Meanwhile, let’s pray for a peaceful and prosperous New Year for all people, a year in which the spirit of democracy will prevail in Israel, in Pakistan, and throughout the world.
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