THE FIRST TRAITORS

The Amidah, the central prayer of Jewish liturgy, originally had eighteen blessings. One more was added in the time of Rabban Gamliel. Thirteen of the blessings are requests. We ask HaShem for understanding, forgiveness, health, livelihood, justice, redemption, and much more. But the added request is surprising.

In the Sephardic text, this berakha opens with the words laminim velamalshinim al tehi tikva: “Let there be no hope for the heretics and the informers.” The two usually go together: betraying the covenant with God and betraying one’s own people. This request is unlike all the others. We ask nothing for ourselves. We ask for nothing material. We ask God to protect us from the enemy within.

The Talmud (Berakhot 28b) tells us that after the destruction of the Bet Hamikdash, around the year 90 CE, the Sages gathered in Yavne. Rabban Gamliel asked for this new request to be composed and added to the sacred text of the Amidah. That was extraordinary.

Rabban Gamliel dared to change a liturgical structure set by the Sages and prophets of Israel. Why? Because a new problem had appeared. The Jewish people had lost their sovereignty. They no longer had their own judges or courts. They lived under Rome, which had no sympathy for Jews. In this new reality, a Jew could bring an accusation against another Jew before the imperial authorities and put his freedom, his property, and even his life at risk. The Jewish community had no jurisdiction over the accuser. In normal times, when a rabbinic court existed and a conflict arose between Jews, the case was judged by the rules of the Torah: solid evidence, and witnesses who appeared with their faces uncovered, before anyone could be condemned.

Now, if a Jew went to the Romans to accuse another Jew, as in the story of Kamtsa and Bar Kamtsa, everything was turned upside down. The accused lost the presumption of innocence. The informer gained an “extraordinary right”: near-total credibility.

Why?

Because an accusation against Jews made by a non-Jew could raise suspicion. Maybe there was hatred, antisemitism, or money involved. But an accusation made by a Jew carried special weight. And the Roman authorities, always eager to feed their anti-Jewish propaganda, received it as a gift on a silver platter: “If a Jew informs on a Jew, it must be true.”

YOUR SLANDER IS ALL I NEED

The heretic and informer could also profit from his betrayal. He could gain protection from the authorities, money, revenge, prestige, or simply the pleasure of destroying a fellow Jew with almost no effort. The Jews, for their part, had no legal means to stop or punish the traitor, or to undo the damage.

Our Sages called the one who slandered his own people a malshin, an informer, or a moser: literally, “one who hands over,” a collaborator with the enemy. The malshinim became an extraordinary danger, the greatest threat to the collective survival of the Jewish people. This problem outweighed every other need of the nation. So our Sages created a new “national request” and placed it in the Amidah. When the community had no power to defend itself against a traitor, the only thing left was to appeal to Heaven. And they did it officially and permanently, not as a temporary measure, because they understood this would not be the last time the Jewish people faced this reality.

This berakha is a permanent reminder. It does not sit in history books or in some minor law code. It sits at the heart of our religious life: in the Amidah, the prayer we say with the greatest solemnity, three times a day.

NON-COLLATERAL DAMAGE

A few days ago, Jews around the world were shaken. A documentary called NAZA, from the Hebrew nezek agavi, “collateral damage,” a title that in English or Spanish inevitably sounds like a blend of GAZA and NAZI, won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival after an extraordinary standing ovation of nearly 25 minutes.

It was made by two Israeli Jewish journalists from the far left. The film claims that during the Gaza war, the war that began with the massacre of October 7, the Israeli army deliberately authorized the killing of large numbers of innocent civilians, used artificial intelligence to choose targets, and did nothing to reduce civilian deaths. In other words, the film hands antisemites the ammunition they need for the absurd charge of “genocide” against Israel.

The film relies on anonymous testimony from alleged Israeli “soldiers.” They speak Hebrew but do not identify themselves. The accusations come without dates, without places, and without any verifiable identity behind them. They would not stand up in any court. The Israeli army has rejected them: the witnesses describe situations in which, by definition, they took no part, and the decision to strike or not strike a target is made by people, not by artificial intelligence. But who cares about checking evidence or asking about the accusers’ motives? The Europeans infected with the “deicide” virus (the Jews killed a god) and twenty centuries of cultural antisemitism? Or the open supporters of Islamism? For them, few things are more appealing than a blood libel against the Jews issued by Jews themselves.

What price will we pay for this act of betrayal and slander? And who will pay it, while the malshinim enjoy fame and glory? Our brave soldiers, the ones who risk their lives to defend us?

WHO NEEDS CONTEXT?

NAZA does not only slander the Israeli army. It also erases the context that explains why this war began. A few days ago, Bill Maher, an American TV host, said on his show that what Israel did in Gaza was not genocide but a counterattack, and he questioned the use of the word “genocide” as if October 7 had never happened. He told his guest, an anti-Zionist influencer: “If you want the Jews to stop killing people in Gaza, stop attacking them.”

The Europeans who applauded the documentary should spend another 45 minutes of their precious time watching a different one: the real footage of October 7, filmed by the murderers themselves. There are no anonymous witnesses there and no covered faces. There are names, images, places, times, and identifiable facts. Perhaps it is time to show that material, horrific as it is, as a small counterweight to slander presented entirely without the context of October 7.

THE MOST CAREFUL ARMY IN THE WORLD

A few days ago I listened to John Spencer, an urban warfare expert at the Modern War Institute at West Point. He has spent years studying combat in cities and has followed Gaza closely. His comparisons are worth knowing. In the battle of Mosul, in 2016 and 2017, about 100,000 Iraqi troops, backed by the US-led coalition and overwhelming air superiority, needed roughly nine months to drive a few thousand ISIS fighters out of a single city. Thousands of civilians died. Spencer holds that the ratio of combatants to civilians killed in Gaza has been exceptionally low for urban warfare on this scale, and he has argued again and again that Israel took extraordinary measures to reduce civilian casualties. His conclusion is blunt: in his analysis, Israel did more to prevent civilian deaths than any other army he has studied in comparable conditions.

Those of us who know Israel’s soldiers know the enormous risks they take with their own lives to reduce civilian casualties on the enemy’s side. That is the exact opposite of what this film shows.

But for the antisemite, European or Islamist, the favorite Jew is the small Jew: subdued, defeated, weak, and humiliated. What he cannot stand is a Jew who is free and strong, who defends himself and wins. The engine of modern anti-Zionism, which is modern antisemitism, is the refusal to tolerate a Jewish state that defends itself, strikes back, and prevails.

So there is one last resort. Yes, the Jews win. But they win because they are “genocidal,” because they are “baby killers.” Israeli soldiers are the modern world’s new “deicides.” And the Gazans are the innocent figures in a peaceful nativity scene.

LET GOD DEAL WITH THEM

למינים ולמלשינים אל תהי תקוה וכל הזדים כרגע יאבדו וכל אויביך וכל שונאיך מהרה יכרתו ומלכות הרשעה מהרה תעקר ותשבר ותכלה ותכניע במהרה בימינו. ברוך אתה ה׳ שובר אויבים ומכניע זדים.

Let there be no salvation and no escape for the traitors and the informers. Let those who act with treachery disappear, and let every evil force that seeks to destroy Your people be broken and brought down.

Notice something striking. Here the Amidah does not ask HaShem that these people repent, admit their error, ask forgiveness, and be redeemed. The text leaves no door open. Because this is not only about religious heretics. It is about something far more serious: people who betray their own nation. This unusual request asks that they be cut off, separated from our people, and that justice come from the hand of Bore Olam.

Why such extreme language?

Because the damage done by a Jew who uses his Jewishness to give the world credibility for an accusation against his own people cannot be repaired. It is national, collective damage. It cannot be undone.

And against this enemy within, we are defenseless. Powerless. There is nothing we can do when slander comes from inside. What are we going to say? That there are antisemitic Jews? So in this blessing we demand justice from God. It is a very harsh text. It does not say “Make them understand.” It does not say “Make them change.” It says much more: free us from them, and You bring justice, bimhera beyamenu, as soon as possible. Before they do more harm.

THE AMIDAH AS TESTIMONY

Three times a day we say laminim velamalshinim al tehi tikva. Our Sages understood how serious this danger is, and they engraved it at the heart of the Amidah so that we would never forget the threat of betrayal from within. Those who hand their people over to the enemy have crossed a line of no return. They are no longer on our side. They are on the other side. Not everything is forgivable. But it does not go unpunished. It is left to Divine justice. That Justice knows the dates, the places, the evidence, and who is behind the covered face. It knows what lies in the deepest corners of the human heart. It knows the good and the wicked. The one who protects and the one who attacks. The one who builds and the one who destroys. The one who loves his people and the one who betrays them. And it will deal with them.

This coming Sunday, September 20th, right before sunset, we will begin the observance of Yom Kippur, a day of fasting and atonement.

There are five prohibitions during Yom Kippur:

In some cases, we do not fast

For example:

MINORS

A boy or a girl younger than nine should not fast, even for a few hours. When children reach nine years old, they should fast for a couple of hours if they are healthy. The following year, parents should encourage them to fast for a little longer so they slowly get used to fasting for an entire day. When a child reaches eleven, they should try to fast for the whole day if they are in good health. A healthy girl of twelve and a healthy boy of thirteen are obligated to fast.

MOTHERS

A mother should not fast during the first three days after childbirth. The same rule applies for 72 hours after a miscarriage. After the first 72 hours, from the day of childbirth until the seventh day of delivery, if the mother says she needs to eat, she should eat. After the seventh day, she must fast like everyone else unless otherwise indicated by her doctor. A woman in labor should not fast.

Days counted from childbirth

SICKNESS

A person with a chronic illness like diabetes, an elderly person who is weak due to advanced age, or someone taking necessary medication or undergoing essential medical treatment should consult a reliable physician to see if they can stop the medication or if they need to take it or if the medication can be taken without water. After discussing the options with a physician, a Rabbi should also be consulted to determine, based on the doctor’s advice, how to eat food or take medication if needed.

In case of a life-threatening situation or even if that is potentially the case (safeq sakana), the fast should be discontinued, even if no physician was consulted. See below for instructions on how to eat when you need to break the fast.

PREGNANCY

The following information is a general guideline for normal and healthy pregnancies. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for professional medical advice.

Pregnant Women: The following information is intended as a general guideline for normal and healthy pregnancies. It should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice. A pregnant woman should observe the fast like everyone else, provided she and the baby are in good health and the pregnancy has no complications. Nevertheless, if the mother feels sick during Yom Kippur, particularly if she is vomiting or experiencing symptoms of dehydration, she should break the fast and eat or drink immediately (see below: “How to break the fast”). However, mild dizziness and nausea that can be managed by lying down on a couch or bed are considered normal on a fast day and should be endured. If the dizziness or nausea persists or worsens, then the fast should be interrupted.

Dr. Jessica Jacob, an expert OBGYN from Long Island, NY, explains that according to research done on healthy pregnant women, there is no evidence that fasting would cause complications to the mother or her baby. A few years ago, Dr. Jacob gave a very detailed lecture in UMJCA on ‘Pregnancy and Yom Kippur’. It is highly recommended for every pregnant woman to listen to this lecture, where Dr. Jacob explains the medical research on this subject. Dr. Jacob also explains why a doctor would advise a pregnant woman against fasting, how to cope with discomfort, the circumstances in which pregnant women should break the fast, etc. Click here to download the transcript of Dr. Jacob’s class.

RECOMMENDATION TO REDUCE THE RISK OF DEHYDRATION DURING YOM KIPPUR

To reduce the risk of dehydration, you should hydrate your body with enough fluids. But you have to do it the right way. Drinking much water right before the fast is of little benefit. Most of that water leaves the body right away, and usually, by the night of Yom Kippur, that water is gone. Instead of drinking a lot of water at once, you should drink small amounts of water over the 48 hours before the fast. The recommended amount is to drink approximately 6 to 8 ounces every hour for the two days before the fast so that the cells themselves become hydrated. This recommendation is also given to athletes before running a marathon. Always consult with your physician.

HOW SHOULD YOU EAT AND DRINK WHEN YOU NEED TO BREAK THE FAST?

When you were instructed by your doctor and/or your rabbi to eat on Yom Kippur, proceed as follows

SMALL PORTIONS, WITH PAUSES

FOOD 1 oz (30 grams) → wait 10 min 1 oz as needed DRINK 1 oz any liquid → wait 5 min 1 oz and so forth

Use 1 oz plastic cups to measure

1. Eat a portion of food up to 1 oz. (or 30 grams). After you finish the first portion, wait ten minutes and then eat the second portion of up to 1 oz. You could do this (eat 1 oz., wait ten minutes, eat 1 oz.) as needed until you recover.
2. When you need to drink. Drink 1 oz. of water or any liquid, then wait 5 minutes and drink 1 oz. again and so forth.
3. Once you feel better and don’t need to eat or drink anymore, you should continue fasting.
4. When you eat or drink on Yom Kippur for medical reasons, you do not need to fast another day to compensate for the fast.
5. To measure “1 ounce,” it is recommended to use the plastic 1 oz. Liquor shot cups (kiddush little plastic cups) as shown above.

6. In case of an emergency or a possible life-threatening situation (hypoglycemia, passing out, dehydration, etc.) when these small portions are not enough, one should drink or eat whatever is necessary.

Today, Monday September 14, the third of Tishri of the new year 5787, we observe Tsom Gedalia, a fast day established to remember the assassination of Gedalia ben Achiqam, the governor of Israel in the days of Nebuchadnetsar. That murder brought about the final exile of the Jews from the land of Israel in the times of the First Bet HaMiqdash (the Temple of Jerusalem).

This is the story.

After the Destruction of the First Temple

When Nebuchadnetsar, the emperor of Babylonia, destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, he killed a large part of the population of the kingdom of Judea (Yehuda). He also took tens of thousands of Jews captive to Babylonia. Many others escaped to the areas outside Jerusalem, or to neighboring nations such as Ammon, Moab (today Jordan) and Edom. Once Jerusalem was destroyed, the independent Jewish State ceased to exist, and Nebuchadnetsar declared Judea a province of the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonians allowed a small number of survivors, the poorest farmers, to remain in Israel to work the land and keep it from turning to desert.

Gedalia ben Achiqam

To govern the Jews who were left in Israel, Nebuchadnetsar brought Gedalia ben Achiqam, a Hebrew nobleman, from Babylonia, and appointed him governor of the province of Judea. It was unexpected, a miracle really, that a Yehudi would be named to govern Judea. Gedalia belonged to the family of Shafan, Jewish noblemen who had settled in Babylonia during the exile of Yekhonia (597 BCE), and he had the emperor’s trust. Gedalia established himself in Mitspa, a city north of Jerusalem. The king of Babylonia declared the war over and guaranteed that the Jews who had escaped to neighboring countries could return to Israel and live there in peace as his subjects. The prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) joined Gedalia. Together they held on to the hope that one day the emperor of Babel would let the exiles return and rebuild the Temple.

When the surviving Jews who had fled Jerusalem heard that Gedalia had been appointed governor, they came back to Israel rejoicing. They settled the land, worked it, and harvested its fruit with great success and joy. With Gedalia in charge, the hope of returning to a normal life and rebuilding the Bet HaMiqdash was now a matter of time, and it looked more real than ever.

The Assassination

Then the unimaginable happened. Ba’alis, the king of Ammon, was an ally of Egypt, the main enemy of Babylonia. Ba’alis knew that with Gedalia as governor of Judea it would be easier for Babylonia to conquer his own kingdom. So he designed a plan to get rid of Gedalia, destabilize Judea, and keep Babylonia away from his borders. He identified Yishma’el ben Netania, a violent and ambitious Yehudi, a descendant of the dynasty of King David, and convinced him to murder Gedalia and claim the government of Israel for himself. Ba’alis offered him logistical help and political support, and promised he would be the first to recognize him as the new king of Judea.

A Dangerous Naivety

At the beginning of the seventh Hebrew month, Tishri, Yishma’el and a group of armed men arrived in the city of Mitspa. Gedalia received them warmly and gave them the honors due to a descendant of the dynasty of David. A Jewish general, Yochanan ben Qareach, had warned Gedalia that Yishma’el was planning to kill him. Gedalia dismissed the warning, certain that no Jew would murder another Jew, and that such rumors were absurd. And then the inexplicable happened. Yishma’el and his men murdered Gedalia and the Babylonian officers who were with him. This murder, committed by a Jew, was an act of war and insubordination against the emperor of Babylonia.

The Second Exile

Yishma’el took every Jew in Mitspa prisoner and set out for Ammon to proclaim himself king. Yochanan pursued him, and Yishma’el escaped with his men and took refuge with Ba’alis. The Jews, now led by Yochanan, did not know what to do. Staying meant risking that the king of Babylonia, no matter who had planned the murder of Gedalia, would blame them and kill them all for insubordination. The other option was to flee to Egypt and side with Babylonia’s enemies.

Yochanan asked the prophet Yirmiyahu to pray and to ask God to give them light and help them decide whether to stay in Israel or flee to Egypt. After ten days of prayer and meditation, Yirmiyahu received a clear Divine message: “Stay in the land of Israel. The king of Babylonia will do you no harm. God will help you settle and rebuild the Jewish community. But if you escape to Egypt, the sword and the hunger you fear so much will find you there.”

Inexplicably, Yochanan and the Jewish refugees refused to listen to Yirmiyahu. They accused him of lying, and of falsely claiming to have received a Divine message. And they decided to flee to Egypt under Yochanan’s leadership.

Exactly as Yirmiyahu had said, in Egypt they met hunger, persecution, calamity and death. When those Jews escaped to Egypt, the land of Israel was left desolate, and for fifty-two years there was no organized Jewish population in it. The hope of returning to Yerushalayim and rebuilding the Bet HaMiqdash vanished completely. It was as if the Temple of Jerusalem had been destroyed a second time, and this time by the actions of the Yehudim themselves: the murder of Gedalia, and Yochanan’s decision not to listen to the Divine word delivered by the prophet Yirmiyahu.

The Fast of Gedalia

In memory of these tragedies, which sealed our first exile, the prophets of Israel established Tsom Gedalia, a fast day observed the day after Rosh HaShana. The prophet Zekharia mentions it together with the other three fasts that recall the fall of Jerusalem:

כֹּֽה־אָמַ֞ר ה׳ צְבָא֗וֹת צ֣וֹם הָרְבִיעִ֡י וְצ֣וֹם הַחֲמִישִׁי֩ וְצ֨וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֜י וְצ֣וֹם הָעֲשִׂירִ֗י יִהְיֶ֤ה לְבֵית־יְהוּדָה֙ לְשָׂשׂ֣וֹן וּלְשִׂמְחָ֔ה וּֽלְמֹעֲדִ֖ים טוֹבִ֑ים וְהָאֱמֶ֥ת וְהַשָּׁל֖וֹם אֱהָֽבוּ

“Thus said ה׳: the fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth will be for the house of Yehuda days of gladness and joy, and good festivals. Seek truth and peace” (Zekharia 8:19).

“The fast of the seventh month,” צוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, is this one, the fast of Gedalia. That is its name in the Tanakh. The other three recall 1. the siege of Jerusalem, 2. the breach of the wall, and 3. the destruction of the Temple. This fast recalls the end: the day the land of Israel was left empty of Jews.

The prophet Zekharia promised that in the future these four fasts will become days of joy. May God grant that Zekharia’s future be our present.

Rabbi Yosef Bitton

Who is exempt from today’s fast?

Minors: boys under 13 and girls under 12 are completely exempt from this fast.

Pregnant women are exempt from the fast of Gedalia.

Nursing mothers. In many Sephardic communities, the tradition is that after giving birth, a woman is exempt from fasting for 24 months, even when she is no longer nursing her baby. In other Sephardic communities, and in Ashkenazic communities, a mother is excused during those 24 months only if she is still nursing. Consult your community rabbi about which custom to follow.

Someone who feels ill, with flu symptoms or fever, for example, or someone with a chronic illness such as diabetes, should not fast.

Older people should ask their doctors whether fasting will affect their health. If it will, they are exempt.

Times

The fast is observed from dawn today until nightfall.

In UMJCA, the times for the fast are from 5:22 AM until 7:35 PM. For other cities or communities, check the times at myzmanim.com.

וְרָאוּ אוֹתוֹ כָּל הַבְּרִיּוֹת וְנִתְיָרְאוּ מִלְּפָנָיו, סְבוּרִין שֶׁהוּא בּוֹרְאָן, וּבָאוּ לְהִשְׁתַּחֲווֹת לְפָנָיו. אָמַר לָהֶם אָדָם: לָמָּה בָּאתֶם לְהִשְׁתַּחֲווֹת לִי? בּוֹאוּ אֲנִי וְאַתֶּם וְנֵלֵךְ וְנַלְבִּישׁ גֵּאוּת וָעֹז וְנַמְלִיךְ עָלֵינוּ לְמִי שֶׁבְּרָאָנוּ. וְהִלְבִּישׁוּ גֵּאוּת וָעֹז וְהִמְלִיכוּ עֲלֵיהֶן לְיוֹצְרָן, וְאָמְרוּ: ה׳ מָלָךְ גֵּאוּת לָבֵשׁ.

A beautiful Midrash in Pirke deRabbi Eliezer tells that on the sixth day of creation, the first of Tishri, the animals approached Adam haRishon, the first man. They saw him make fire, build weapons and tools, and his intelligence frightened them. They thought Adam was their creator. They knelt before him and wanted to crown him their king. In a remarkable gesture of humility and greatness, Adam said to them: “Why have you come to bow before me? Let us go together and crown the true King, the Creator.” And so they all proclaimed that HaShem is the King, the Creator who gives life and takes it back at will.

Rosh Hashana, the first of Tishri, the day that commemorates the creation of the first man, is a reenactment of that glorious event, when humanity proclaims God as its King, or, in Hebrew, MELEKH.

On Rosh Hashana we change one key word in the Amida, the central prayer. All year long we say “haEl haQadosh”: HaShem is the holy God. But from Rosh Hashana until Yom Kippur we say “haMelekh haQadosh”: we address Him as the holy “King.” Let us be clear that in this context “holy” means “hidden”: present everywhere, and at the same time out of reach of our senses. We cannot see God or touch Him. The tools we have for reaching God are not our eyes or our hands. They are our mind and our thinking.

But what does it mean to say that God is the King? Why does it matter that we acknowledge it? And why do we have to stress it on Rosh Hashana?

To understand Rosh Hashana, and how on this first day of the year we should reorient our lives, we will look at a beautiful parable by Maimonides in Moreh Nebukhim, the “Guide for the Perplexed,” Part Three, Chapter 51. Perhaps the most important parable in his entire work. There he explains, with clarity and depth, the relationship between the King, God, and us, His subjects.

THE PALACE AND THE KING

This parable explains how to relate to God: where to look for Him, how we move away from Him, and how we come closer to Him. For Maimonides this search is not one subject among many. It is our mission in life. If we make progress, even partial progress, our life has meaning. And the reverse is also true.

For Maimonides, “knowing” God is not a “mystical” experience in which you imagine yourself talking to God or something of the sort. God remains hidden. Invisible. In Maimonides’ parable, “haMelekh haQadosh,” the King resides in His palace, in the royal chamber, and we are the ones who must look for Him. The goal is not to find Him or to see Him. The goal is to come closer to Him.

The King dwells in the innermost chamber of His palace. The palace stands in a particular city. Some subjects live in that city; others prefer to live outside it.

1. Those who live outside the city have cut themselves off from the King on purpose. Nothing about the King interests them. They do not want to be considered subjects of this King or to submit to His laws. They have no interest in looking for a palace; on the contrary, the very idea of a king bothers them.
2. Then there are the subjects who live in the city but stand with their backs to the palace and walk in the opposite direction. They say, or think, that they are looking for the King, but since they are headed the other way, they move further from Him all the time.
3. A third group knows the palace exists but has never seen it. They have not been able to find the road, and they wander the city without knowing how to get to the palace.
4. Others have found the palace and want to get in. They circle the palace walls, but they cannot find the entrance.
5. Then there are those who have already entered the palace, but it is so complex that they have not been able to locate the inner chamber where the King is. They walk the corridors as if in a maze, looking for signs.
6. And finally there are those who know where the King’s chamber is. They cannot enter, but they see a glimmer of light slipping out from under the door.

Now let us see who the subjects are. Maimonides refers here to the only people who declare God their king: the Jewish People.

NOT INTERESTED

In the first group, those who live outside the royal city, Maimonides places those who have no interest in knowing God. They deny Him; they call themselves atheists. And they give their minds to other things: material goals, physical pleasures, wealth, prestige. Looking for God never crosses their minds; it would only distract them from what they really want. It is not that they have failed to find the palace. They have no interest in looking for it.

UTILITARIAN JEWS

The second category includes those who know the King exists and has a palace, but look for Him in the wrong direction. Maimonides describes them harshly: they observe the Torah, believe in God, and are intelligent, but hold mistaken ideas about Him. Either because they reason poorly or because they follow someone who led them astray. The result is the same: they walk with conviction, but away from the palace. The further they go, the further they get.

An example. Picture an observant Jew who keeps the Mitsvot out of superstition or self-interest. Someone who figures that every time he does a Mitsva he will get more money, more health, or more luck in business. Every time he performs a commandment, he thinks more about the payoff than about serving God. In this extreme case, this person is not serving God. He is using God for his own benefit. He belongs to the group that moves away from the Creator because it holds a false, “utilitarian” image of God. Such people exploit the Torah, or use it for their own gain. They invoke God, but what they are after is their own interests, and so they move away from the palace.

Maimonides adds something very hard. These people are worse than those who live outside the city. The ones outside drag no one down with them. These, on the other hand, can be influential “in God’s name,” and so they confuse others.

(It is worth noting that many ba’ale teshuba, many Jews who have returned to Torah, may have begun their way back out of self-interest or emotional need, mitokh shelo lishma, until one day, B”H, they discover the right direction and set out toward the King’s palace.)

DOING GOD’S WILL WITHOUT THINKING OF GOD

The third category includes those who know the palace exists but have not yet seen it. Maimonides gives as an illustration observant Jews who are busy with the Mitsvot, neither superstitious nor self-interested, but who never stop to think about what they do or say. They know the palace exists, that is, that one must come closer to God. They are headed in the right direction. But they have never seen it.

For example: someone who says blessings every day and has prayed the Amida three times a day for thirty or forty years, but has never stopped to think about what he is saying. Or someone who says Shema Israel every morning and every night, but has never seriously asked himself what it means to “love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might,” or how to do it. Or someone who reads Tehilim without trying to understand the words, as if pronouncing them were enough for them to produce some magical effect.

The words of Tehilim and of the Tefila are precious pearls that, when we understand them, lift us up and inspire us. They are words that must be understood, reflected on, and absorbed, so that they shape and improve our ideas and our character.

Maimonides does not criticize this group. They are in the city, they are walking toward the palace, and that is already a lot. But they still need to understand how the Mitsvot act on us. Reciting Shema Israel without understanding what we are saying wastes (almost slighting, even unintentionally) the message and the effect the Tefila is meant to have on us. The Mitsvot are meant to bring us to Yediat HaShem, to “knowing God,” that is, to coming closer to Him with our minds.

For Maimonides, Yediat HaShem means focusing on God and turning our thoughts away from the material. Not abandoning the material! But no longer treating it as the goal.

Only when a person understands that his priority in life is “to come closer to HaShem” does he suddenly see the palace! He has not entered yet. But he has seen it. That is, he has discovered it. From that point on, he no longer walks blind. He walks toward something.

THINKING OF GOD, WHEN TALKING TO HIM

The fourth category includes those who have seen the palace but do not know how to get in. They keep the Mitsvot out of love for HaShem. They know their goal is to come closer to Bore Olam. But they do not know how to connect with Him.

For this group, Maimonides proposes a very concrete plan. Start by concentrating intensely on Shema Israel and the Amida. While we say these tefilot, we learn to control our thoughts and to keep out distractions, and that is the key to everything. Understand, pay attention, and pause on every word. Push away every thought that is not God. This is the way to find the entrance to the palace. Nothing more. And nothing less. And you have to master this level before moving on to the next. It can take years.

THINKING OF GOD, OUTSIDE SYNAGOGUE

The fifth group includes those who have already entered the palace. When they pray the Shema and the Amida, their minds are where they should be. Now they walk the corridors in search of the royal chamber. They are very well oriented.

Searching for the royal chamber means extending my “awareness of God’s presence” beyond the moments of the Amida and Shema Israel: to Torah study, and then to the other Mitsvot, so that each one is done with the mind on the One who commanded it. The mind fixed on Bore Olam as much of the time as possible, as the pasuq in Tehilim (16:8) says: שִׁוִּ֬יתִי ה׳ לְנֶגְדִּ֣י תָמִ֑יד, “I keep God before me, [in my mind], always.”

FIXED ON GOD

In the sixth group are those who have reached the door of the Royal Chamber, the closest point a human being can get to. Their mind is on Him not only when they pray or study, but also when they eat, work, or talk with another person. Maimonides quotes Shir haShirim: “I am asleep, but my heart is awake.” This was the spiritual level of Moshe Rabbenu, of the Patriarchs, of David haMelekh: they herded sheep, did business, raised families, but their minds never left God.

TRAINING

An exercise I plan to do this Rosh Hashana. When I say “haMelekh haQadosh,” I will stop for a few seconds and ask myself honestly: what level am I at? Not the one I would like to be at. Which one am I at? And then one more question: what is my next step toward the King?

For most of us, I think, that step is the recipe Maimonides offers without hedging: that when I say the Shema and the Amida, I think about the meaning of each word, reflect on it for a few seconds, and absorb what it teaches me about God and about myself.

Rosh Hashana is the perfect time to begin this project. It is the day we proclaim God as the King who sits in His palace. Let us go look for Him!

עֵ֣ת לַחֲשׁ֔וֹת וְעֵ֖ת לְדַבֵּֽר

“A time to be silent and a time to speak” (Kohelet 3:7)

There is a moment on Rosh HaShana when the synagogue goes completely silent. The ba’al toqea, the one who will blow the shofar, lifts it after saying the berakha, and nobody moves or speaks. Many close their eyes, bracing for one of the most solemn moments of the day, maybe of the year.

While they listen to the shofar, some ask for health, or for parnasa, a decent livelihood, or for a shidukh, someone to marry. But asking for things while we listen to the shofar is not what we are supposed to be doing.

This is not anyone’s fault. People pray at that moment because that is what they have always done, or what they were taught, or what feels natural. Somewhere along the way we picked up a bad habit: the moment we feel close to God, the first thing we do is ask Him for something. But the mitsva of the Shofar is not about asking God for anything. The berakha, blessing, we say before we hear the shofar says it plainly. Our obligation is lishmoa qol shofar, to hear the voice of the shofar. In silence. And the halakha reinforces it: from the moment the berakha is recited until the last sound of the shofar is finished, we avoid speaking or interrupting unnecessarily.

The shofar is not a moment for talking to God. It is the one moment in the year when our job is to be quiet. And listen.

So what are we supposed to hear? What is the shofar saying? The answer is in the name the Torah gives this day: Yom Teru’a. And in the explanation of our Sages that Rosh HaShana is Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment. Let us take this apart step by step.

The sound of uncertainty

The Hebrew word teru’a is rendered by Onqelos as yebaba. And what is a yebaba? It is a human sound of distress. But it is not weeping. The Torah has other words for weeping (bekhi), for mourning (nehi), for a cry for help (ze’aqa). The yebaba is something else: a sigh, a whimper, a sound that appears in one very specific situation. It comes when, in a moment of existential uncertainty, a person starts to picture that things may end badly.

An example from ordinary life. More than twenty years ago, one of our children, five years old at the time, got lost in a shopping mall. For the first few minutes, you search with concern. Where is he? He must be around here. He got distracted. We split up and started looking. But what happens when twenty minutes have gone by, and he still has not turned up? That is when the terrible thoughts start. What if somebody took him? What if he was kidnapped? What if we never see him again, chas veshalom?

At that moment, in that kind of existential uncertainty, we do not cry yet, because we do not know that anything bad has actually happened. But we sigh in anguish just from imagining it. We start to break emotionally, whimpering, anticipating, God forbid, a horrible ending. Do not worry. Barukh HaShem, we found our son after the thirty hardest minutes of our lives, happily entertained and distracted in the video arcade.

Back to the yebaba. Those sighs, that whimper of dread that comes out of a person imagining that something terrible may have happened, are what the Torah calls teru’a. That is the voice of the shofar.

Modern psychology has identified something very close to this. Specialists distinguish between fear of a danger that is present and anticipatory anxiety, which shows up when we still do not know what is going on but have begun to consider that something bad might happen. That uncertainty does not stay in the mind. It changes the way we breathe. Breathing turns irregular. There are sighs, small moans, a broken sort of crying. The yebaba is the bodily sound of anticipatory anxiety. We are not weeping over a tragedy that already happened. We are sighing and breaking over something bad that could happen.

The mother of Sisera

The Sages (Rosh HaShana 33b) explain the meaning of yebaba from a very unusual verse in Tanakh. Sisera was the general of King Yabin of Canaan. For twenty years he had oppressed Israel at the head of a powerful army with nine hundred iron chariots (Shofetim 4:3, 13). He looked invincible. That day he went out to fight Debora and Baraq, lost, and was killed. Then the biblical text does something extraordinary. It takes us behind enemy lines, into Sisera’s house. His mother is there, waiting for him as she had so many times before. Her son was going to come home with the spoils, with prisoners, with the applause of victory, and surely with gifts for her. But the chariot does not arrive. Too much time has passed. The mother begins to suspect the worst.

The text shows her at the window, more anxious by the minute:

בְּעַד֩ הַחַלּ֨וֹן נִשְׁקְפָ֧ה וַתְּיַבֵּ֛ב אֵ֥ם סִֽיסְרָ֖א בְּעַ֣ד הָאֶשְׁנָ֑ב מַדּ֗וּעַ בֹּשֵׁ֤שׁ רִכְבּוֹ֙ לָב֔וֹא מַדּ֣וּעַ אֶֽחֱר֔וּ פַּעֲמֵ֖י מַרְכְּבוֹתָֽיו

“Through the window she looks out and moans, the mother of Sisera, through the lattice: why is his chariot so long in coming? Why do the hoofbeats of his chariots delay?” (Shofetim 5:28)

Her servants also realized Sisera is taking too long, and they try to calm her down. “He must be delayed dividing the spoils, which must be enormous” (5:29-30).

Notice one crucial detail. When the text describes the mother’s reaction, it does not say she wept. It says vateyabeb, using the very word yebaba, which gets translated as “moaned” only because there is no closer word for it. It is not quite the same thing. She could not yet cry, because she did not know her son had died in battle. Her mind was full of anxiety, suspended between his possible return and his possible end. For the first time, she began to consider that he might never come back. And she made that sound of premonitory grief.

The yebaba is not the cry of someone who has already been told the worst. It is the sound of someone who has just taken in that the worst is possible. Think of a person who has been tested for a terminal illness and is waiting for the results. Nothing has happened yet. Nothing has been ruled out either. That is the sound the Torah calls teru’a: what comes out of a person at the moment mortality enters his mind.

The Sages then discuss how to produce that sound with a ram’s horn: Is it a long, broken sigh? A short, repeated whimper? Or both together, the sigh first and then the whimper? That is where shebarim, teru’a, and the combination of the two come from.

Rosh HaShana is Yom HaDin

And that is exactly what the voices of the shofar come to remind us: today is Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment. Who is being judged? I am. And what is at stake? My own life.

Our Sages expressed this idea, which is really about our own mortality, with great delicacy, through a beautiful metaphor. On Rosh HaShana, they said, the books of life and of death are opened. God judges our actions of the past year and determines our future. He writes us into one of the two books. And we cannot be sure which book carries our name. Did we do everything we could this past year to deserve being written again in the Book of Life? We do not know.

This uncertainty is what the Shofar is meant to awaken in us. The shofar invites us to stand, for a few moments, at the same window where Sisera’s mother stood. The Torah wants us, for at least a few minutes a year, to stop treating our life as an entitlement and see it again for what it is: a conditional gift from the Creator that has to be earned. And to get us into that state of mind, the shofar makes us aware that we are mortal.

The rest of the year we almost never think about it. While we are healthy, while the family is fine and nothing essential is missing, we live with an extraordinary sense of predictability. We assume tomorrow will be more or less like today, that next month will arrive on schedule, that next year will pass much like the ones before it.

Maimonides describes this state, in which we deny our own mortality, as sleep. And he explains that the shofar comes to wake us: “Wake up, you who are asleep, from your slumber… you who forget the truth in the vanities of time” (Hilkhot Teshuba 3:4).

And what is that truth we forget while we are distracted? It is not a complicated philosophical idea. It is probably the one thing about our future that we know with absolute certainty: we are not invincible, and we are not eternal. Nobody is guaranteed another year.

When predictability collapses

The yebaba of Sisera’s mother is exactly the moment the illusion of safety or immortality cracks. Until then she was sure her son would come back, the way he had come back so many times. And suddenly she is not so sure.

The shofar reproduces that instant so that something similar happens in us. So that for a few minutes we feel fragile, vulnerable, and above all dependent on the Creator. So that we can actually feel that we are being judged, and that our life is not something to take for granted.

That message needs time to sink in. You cannot half receive it while doing something else. That is why, while we listen to the shofar, it is not the time to ask for things or to pray, and not even the time to list our sins, say the Viduy and regret each bad thing we did. That comes later.

During those few sublime moments, what we need to recover is the awareness of our mortality: to listen, absorb, feel vulnerable, and accept how fragile we are.

זִֽבְחֵ֣י אֱלֹ-הִים֮ ר֤וּחַ נִשְׁבָּ֫רָ֥ה לֵב־נִשְׁבָּ֥ר וְנִדְכֶּ֑ה אֱלֹ-הִ֗ים לֹ֣א תִבְזֶֽה

“A broken and fragile heart, God does not ignore” (Tehilim 51:19).

What matters is the process

Recovering the awareness of our mortality is NOT a morbid exercise. Just the opposite. It is the first step of Teshuba. The shofar is not Teshuba itself. It is the psychological and spiritual preparation that makes Teshuba possible. First it breaks our sense of invulnerability and makes us humbler. Then come hakarat hachet, recognizing our failures, the Viduy, asking forgiveness, repairing what we did wrong, and finally, changing.

This is why Rosh HaShana opens the Ten Days of Teshuba with uncertainty. We have been judged, but we do not yet know the verdict. We stop assuming that next year is guaranteed and start asking what we need to change in order to deserve another year of life.

And here is one of the most extraordinary ideas of the Yamim Noraim: the uncertain verdict of Rosh HaShana can be appealed. In the metaphor of the Book of Life, God has written us in, but the verdict is not yet sealed. We have ten days to do Teshuba, to pray, to ask forgiveness, to repair what we did, and to show that we can be different. The final verdict is sealed on Yom Kippur.

So while we listen to the shofar, it is still not the time to ask, to confess, or to enumerate our sins. Not because those things do not matter, but because they belong to the next stages. And the stages should not be skipped. First we let the shofar do its work: wake us up and make us feel fragile and dependent on our Creator.

Then comes the time to act. Humility will let us say the words “I was wrong.” Ask forgiveness from the people we hurt. Repair relationships. Say Viduy. Change.

Rosh HaShana begins in uncertainty. But that uncertainty is part of a deliberate process, one that pushes us to use the days left until Yom Kippur to do everything in our power and appeal the verdict. And when Yom Kippur ends, we trust that our Teshuba was accepted, that any negative decree was revoked, and that the people we love and we have been sealed in the Book of Life.

Tonight, Friday, September 11, Rosh Hashana begins: the Jewish New Year, a day of celebration and of reflection. On this day we begin the process of Teshuba, “repentance and change.” The Shofar announces it (this year, since the first day falls on Shabbat, we will hear it on Sunday).

THREE STEPS

Maimonides teaches that Teshuba has three steps:

HAKARAT HACHET: acknowledging personal responsibility for what we did wrong.

VIDUY: confession, saying our bad habits and wrong deeds out loud.

AZIBAT HACHET: the decision to leave those habits behind and correct our actions.

Hakarat haChet, admitting our mistakes, comes first, and it is probably the hardest of the three. Because our natural instinct is to justify and rationalize whatever we did. Or because we fall into the oldest psychological trap in human history: blaming someone else, also known as “the blame transference syndrome.” It works like this. Something goes wrong, and before we even feel the discomfort of having failed, our mind has already found a culprit: a spouse, a boss, a friend, the circumstances, the way we were raised. The relief is immediate. And it is a trap, because whatever is not my fault I cannot fix. The person who transfers the blame has, without noticing, given up the possibility of change.

WHAT WAS THE SIN?

We all know that HaShem punished Adam and Eve by expelling them from paradise. But what exactly was their sin? Did God punish them for eating the forbidden fruit, as everyone assumes?

Try an experiment. Cover a table with treats: candy, cookies, pastries. In the center, on a special plate where it cannot be missed, put a fruit or a vegetable. It does not have to be an apple; the Torah never mentions an apple. Make it a tomato, something no child craves. Now call in a five- or six-year-old and say: “You can eat anything you want, except the tomato in the middle of the table.” I promise you it is only a matter of time before the child ignores every sweet on the table and grabs the tomato. The forbidden fruit, simply because it is forbidden, awakens curiosity and a desire that cannot be resisted.

RABBI ALBO’S ANSWER

Rabbi Yosef Albo (Spain, c. 1380-1444) argues in his Sefer haIqarim that the original sin of Adam and Eve was not eating the fruit. HaShem knew that sooner or later they would give in to temptation. Like a loving parent, He wanted to teach the first humans a lesson they would need for the rest of their lives: what to do after you make a mistake. The Creator knows that human beings have desires, face temptations, and fail. So He set up the scenario in which Adam and Eve would “fall,” and in falling, learn to recognize their error, correct it, and grow in experience and maturity. God knows that making mistakes is part of being human. Otherwise there would be no Mitsva of Teshuba, no commandment to repent and correct ourselves. HaShem gave the first man the chance to learn how to repair his relationship with Him.

For Rabbi Albo, then, the original sin was not Adam’s disobedience. It was his denial: his refusal to take responsibility for what he had done. Instead of admitting it, apologizing for disobeying God, and learning the lesson, Adam shifted the blame to Eve. “The woman that YOU gave me,” he told God. Notice the “You.” Adam did not only blame Eve. Indirectly, he blamed HaShem. “She tempted me to eat the fruit, and I ate.”

Then HaShem asked Eve. She dodged responsibility the same way: “It wasn’t me. It was the serpent.”

Blaming others for our mistakes is one of the main obstacles to Teshuba. And it is the oldest excuse in history.

TONIGHT

Rosh Hashana is the anniversary of Adam’s creation. It is also the anniversary of that great excuse! Tonight, before we ask HaShem for a good year, the first thing He is waiting to hear from us is the sentence Adam could not say: “It was me.”

By Rabbi Jacob Bitton

When I was a child I learned that HaShem judges us on Rosh Hashana. I often wondered: when, exactly, does that judgment take place? My childhood was spent across several time zones, and I knew that Rosh Hashana began in Israel long before it began in Buenos Aires, for example. Was HaShem judging me before the holiday had started where I lived? Was there something I should be doing differently at the moment of judgment? What time zone was HaShem’s “clock” set to? And for that matter, is God even subject to time? And wouldn’t God, whom we call three times a day “Melekh oheb tsedaqa umishpat,” be judging the world and all its creatures continuously, as the Gemara in Aboda Zara suggests? And more fundamentally: was it wise for me to draw conclusions about what I think I know of God, and about what God is supposedly doing at any given moment? Wasn’t Moshe Rabbenu himself turned down when he asked to know God?

Over the years I realized I had made a small mistake of focus with enormous consequences. I was looking at what God would be doing. I should have been looking at what I was being called to do. Instead of trying to peek at what we imagine God does on this day (something we know we cannot know), it is more interesting to look at this day from our own perspective and understand what we are experiencing. Put another way: instead of thinking of Rosh Hashana as the day when God, the Judge, appears in court, I should think of it as the day when I have to appear. This day is significant not because the Judge is presiding at that moment, but because it is the moment when I am ready to present myself and be judged. There is something special about Rosh Hashana where human beings are concerned.

In general, since the Torah is “letob lanu,” for our own good, I think it is more useful to try to understand how the Mitsvot improve our lives than to speculate about theology. Rather than focusing on the fact that God judges us, I prefer to focus on the fact that we, the Bene Adam, are capable of presenting ourselves for judgment. In the lines that follow I will explain why Rosh Hashana is special for us, and why we are special.

ROSH HASHANA: CELEBRATING WHAT MAKES ADAM UNIQUE

This Rosh Hashana marks the 5787th anniversary of the creation of Adam haRishon. We care because we believe Adam was our direct ancestor: with him began a line of creatures unlike anything created before. Although in many ways he resembled the other creatures created on the “sixth day” before him, there was something unique about Adam. That is what Rosh Hashana is about: it is a reminder of our uniqueness, of what sets us apart from every other biological creature.

The Torah describes the creation of Adam as something entirely separate from the rest of the animal kingdom. Adam was, without a doubt, special. And not because of his physical features, or because he walked upright, or even because of his intelligence.

Ask an average anthropologist, or an evolutionary biologist, what the difference is between a chimpanzee and a human being, and he will tell you it isn’t much. Chimpanzees are stronger and humans are smarter, but we are the same kind of creature. Today they might even borrow the language of artificial intelligence and say that humans are weak chimpanzees with a ChatGPT in their heads, and nothing more. The Torah has a very different answer. For the Torah, Adam haRishon was categorically different from every creature created before him, chimpanzees included. And I would add that what makes Adam haRishon unique cannot be replicated by any artificial intelligence.

Many theories have been proposed about what makes humans special, and most have been debunked. Ethologists and anthropologists have shown that apes can make and use tools. They can solve problems that require abstract reasoning. They can learn to read and write. They can overcome their innate fear of water. Some chimpanzees outperform human children! But there is one thing apes cannot do. Even if an individual ape, properly trained, is capable of remarkable intellectual feats, apes lack the social mechanism to pass that knowledge on to other apes. In other words: there is no accumulation of knowledge. Everything an ape learns dies with that ape.

Adam was created “betselem Elokim.” Of course, knowing these two words doesn’t help much. What does “Tselem Elokim” mean? Let us start with what it does NOT mean. Tselem is NOT an “image.” (HaShem has no image!) We are not made “in the image of God,” as Michelangelo tried to depict it in his frescoes. Yet whatever “Tselem” means, its construct form (semikhut) with “Elokim” implies that humans have SOMETHING in common with HaShem, and that SOMETHING is what separates us from the animals!

LIKE ALL ANIMALS: SELFISH

Let us first consider a fact that holds for every creature. HaShem created every living organism to think, first and foremost, of itself. A creature that put the interests of other creatures above its own would not seek what it needs to survive, and it would die. (Picture a lizard that stops eating because it is worried whether its lizard friends have enough food.) Bore Olam programmed every organism to look out for itself: by securing the survival of each individual, the continuation of life in general is guaranteed. The human being is also a selfish creature. We perceive the world as a set of resources at our disposal. We see other people as “human resources” we can use for our own benefit. When we first looked up at the stars, it seemed obvious to us that the cosmos had the Earth at its center.

UNLIKE ANY OTHER ANIMAL: ABLE TO “DECENTER”

Although HaShem intended us to be self-centered, as we have just described, because that is essential to our survival, Adam was given a unique ability: the ability to “decenter” from himself, to step outside himself and perceive things from the outside.

Animals cannot do that. An animal (and any human being who does not live up to his potential as a Ben Adam) is conditioned to process reality from a single, narrow, selfish point of view. It sees things only in terms of “this feels good” and “this feels bad.” It cannot truly grasp the existence of others (who might have their own “this feels good / this feels bad”); to it, everyone else is a character in the world it imagines and creates. What’s more, an animal cannot even grasp its own existence!

By stepping outside himself, Adam can achieve three things.

First, Adam is able to understand that there is a reality outside himself. A “beginner Ben Adam” would recognize only the immediate physical reality that extends beyond his body. A human being worthy of the title “Ben Adam” would realize that the world extends beyond what he can see. That, in fact, this planet is an infinitesimal dot in the vastness of the cosmos.

Second, a Ben Adam can perceive his own self, analyze his own actions, and judge his own direction and position. The first question HaShem asked Adam haRishon was “Ayeka?” (Where are you?). Those of us who choose to be more than animals can objectively contemplate our subjective self.

Third, as a result of stepping outside himself, a Ben Adam can turn that perception into action. When we realize that outside ourselves there are other “selves” and we decide to see things from their perspective; when we act on what is best for others and not only for ourselves, we are fulfilling the potential of our Tselem to the fullest. In Hebrew, that effort is called “Chesed.”

BENE ADAM ARE FREE. NO ONE ELSE IS

It is these qualities that allow Adam haRishon (and his descendants and followers) to be “free.” We can escape the trance of habit and the hypnosis of what our biological urges demand. We are masters of our bodies; nothing can force us to choose against our convictions.

FREEDOM REQUIRES MAINTENANCE

The freedom a Ben Adam can attain requires maintenance. It can also be lost. Very easily, in fact. And the gravest danger to our freedom lies in our own decisions. Make one bad decision, freely, ignore your Tselem Elokim, and your next choice will be less free.

David haMelekh asked God to save him from the loss of freedom that certain choices bring about (Tehilim 19:13-14):

שְׁגִיא֥וֹת מִֽי־יָבִ֑ין מִֽנִּסְתָּר֥וֹת נַקֵּֽנִי׃ גַּ֤ם מִזֵּדִ֨ים ׀ חֲשֹׂ֬ךְ עַבְדֶּ֗ךָ אַֽל־יִמְשְׁלוּ־בִ֣י אָ֣ז אֵיתָ֑ם וְ֝נִקֵּ֗יתִי מִפֶּ֥שַֽׁע רָֽב׃

“Shegiot mi yabin, ministarot naqeni. Gam mizedim chasokh abdekha, al yimshelu bi, az etam, veniqeti mipesha rab.”

THE SHOFAR: AN INVITATION TO BECOME ADAM AGAIN

If someone told me that among the creatures created on the sixth day before Adam there was one that looked like a hybrid of ape and man, and that it could communicate by speaking and by drawing on cave walls, I would say that this was not the Adam haRishon of the Torah. That creature would belong, rather, among the many mammals HaShem created before Adam haRishon. I would go further: even after Adam, not every “human being” automatically earns the title of Ben Adam. Some humans (most?) live lives not so different from those of animals: the same desires, the same instincts, and the same morality.

Rosh Hashana is an invitation to live up to the title “Ben Adam.”

When we hear the sound of the Shofar this year, I want to invite you not to use that moment to ask for the things we want in life. It is not a moment for asking. It is a moment for listening. The sound is monotonous, but the meaning is deep: “Ben Adam, ma lekha nirdam!” The Shofar is meant to wake us up and remind us of our potential as Bene Adam. Just as it sounded every Yobel, and at Har Sinai perhaps for the same purpose, the Shofar proclaims the liberation of all who are enslaved.

If I had to put into words the kind of thoughts the Shofar should awaken, they would go something like this:

“My Creator, here I am, a descendant of Adam haRishon, standing before You. On this anniversary of the creation of my ancestor Adam, whose unique qualities I recall today so clearly, I reflect on my own Tselem Elokim and on what it means for my life. I am different from every other creature, and I must be judged by standards that apply to no other. My Tselem allows me to pause, to perceive the world beyond myself, to realize that I was created and that You are my Creator. It also allows me to think objectively about my choices and about the potential I have not yet fulfilled.

With my Tselem Elokim comes responsibility for my actions, and with responsibility, accountability. So I present myself to be judged, God, our Father and our King. I have the capacity to be judged, and I know that for every mistake or failing I come to recognize, You have given me the capacity to correct it. More than that: I understand that I must strive to correct them, because not to do so would be to give up a part of my freedom. And the freedom You allow me to seek is what makes me special.

As I hear the sound of the Shofar, I commit myself again to living as a Ben Adam, exercising my Tselem Elokim. I will examine myself from the outside, recognizing that I am free, responsible, and accountable for my actions. I will perceive the world around me as Your creation, not mine, and I will relate to it as something real, not as a projection of my imagination.

So, Father, King, help me overcome my bad decisions, those I recognize and those hidden from me. I will devote the next ten days to this process. I trust that by Yom haKippurim I will have cleansed my soul and my mind of the burdens that have accumulated from my bad choices. Those burdens have held me back; they have kept me from making freer and wiser decisions. I must wake up. I must be freer. I have what it takes: I am a Ben Adam.”

By Rabbanit Coty Bitton

We are very close to Rosh Hashana, the day on which we will be judged. Then come the Aseret Yeme Teshuba, the days of repentance, which end on Yom Kippur. Our Teshuba has to be accompanied by Tefila, our prayer asking HaShem to forgive us and give us the chance to remain in His book of life.

I would like to share a few thoughts about Tefila. As a Jewish woman, I have always taken pride in our matriarchs. One of them was Chana, the mother of Shemuel, the first prophet of Israel. In the Haftara of Rosh Hashana we read Chana’s story and Chana’s Tefila.

Having children did not come easily to Chana. It was a problem almost all our matriarchs shared. Our Chakhamim reflected on this and said that “HaShem desires the Tefila of the righteous.” That is why He sometimes presents good people with very hard challenges. Chana is the classic case. Her situation forced her to be creative. And she composed one of the most beautiful and eloquent Tefilot ever written. Let us look at it.

Chana was desperate. She had Elqana, a husband who adored her, but she could not have children. It was painful every time she saw Penina, Elqana’s other wife, who made no effort to hide how busy she was with her seven children. Penina talked of nothing else, and she was not sensitive to Chana’s pain. In Shilo, where Elqana and his family went to visit the Mishkan, Chana prayed to HaShem with great fervor to grant her a son. From this Tefila our Sages learned many technical details that we apply to nothing less than our own Amida (saying the Tefila standing; moving the lips without raising the voice; not drinking alcohol before praying, and so on).

And we also learn, perhaps mainly, from Chana’s eloquence.

When she prayed, Chana did not simply “ask” HaShem for a son. She “presented” her case before HaShem with intelligent, solid, creative arguments.

1. Chana was the first to use a new name for HaShem. She addressed the Almighty as “God of hosts.” Our Chakhamim explain that “hosts” here means the hosts of heaven, the stars and the galaxies, which, like a human army, move with precision and harmony, obeying the orders of their commander in chief, HaShem. Chana said to HaShem: “You, God of hosts, who created billions of stars and gigantic celestial bodies, what does it cost You to grant me one small baby?”
2. Chana also said to HaShem: “I am a woman. You gave me breasts and the organs of reproduction. But what use is my woman’s body if I cannot conceive and nurse a child?”
3. According to the Midrash, Chana also argued: “I have kept the three Mitsvot of a woman (the name Chana is an acrostic of three Mitsvot: Challa, setting aside a piece of the bread dough for the Kohen; Nidda, family purity; and Hadlaqat haNer, lighting the candles before Shabbat). Do I not deserve, then, that You give me a son?”

From Chana we learn that when we pray to HaShem and ask for what we need, we have to be persistent. And, with great respect, to use every argument we can to show that we deserve a positive answer to our request, just as Chana did.

Finally, we learn one more lesson from Chana, and a very important one. As we know, in the end HaShem grants her a son. And then Chana prays again. This time with more devotion and far more eloquence. Because now Chana prays to thank HaShem. From here we learn that just as we pray to HaShem with all our heart, begging Him to give us everything we need and want, we must not forget to pray to HaShem to thank Him for everything He has given us and gives us, and especially when our requests are answered.

During these Yamim Noraim, let us take Chana’s Tefila as our model. Let us pour out our hearts to HaShem, begging Him to inscribe us in the book of life. And let us not forget to thank Him for everything we receive from Him.

מִי אֵל כָּמוֹךָ נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן וְעֹבֵר עַל פֶּשַׁע לִשְׁאֵרִית נַחֲלָתוֹ לֹא הֶחֱזִיק לָעַד אַפּוֹ כִּי חָפֵץ חֶסֶד הוּא יָשׁוּב יְרַחֲמֵנוּ יִכְבֹּשׁ עֲוֹנֹתֵינוּ וְתַשְׁלִיךְ בִּמְצֻלוֹת יָם כָּל חַטֹּאתָם

Who is like You, [HaShem], who forgives iniquity and passes over the transgression of His people? He does not hold on to His anger forever, because He desires the kindness [of forgiving]. He will again have compassion on us, He will cover our transgressions, and He will cast all the sins of His people into the depths of the sea. (Mikha 7:18–19)

On the afternoon of the first day of Rosh HaShana (or on the second day, Sunday, when the first day falls on Shabbat, as it does this year), we perform a ceremony called Tashlikh. People go to a body of water: the sea, a river, or even a pool. There they recite a series of prayers, including the words of the prophet Mikha, chapter 7:18-19: “Who is like You, O God, who forgives sin and overlooks the transgressions of His people [Israel]? [Who is like You, HaShem,] whose anger does not last forever, because You wish to forgive us and [every year] You have compassion on us once again. You overlook our sins [when we repent] and cast all our transgressions into the depths of the sea.”

ABRAHAM ABINU

Tashlikh is a relatively new tradition. It is not mentioned in the Talmud, nor in Maimonides’ Mishne Torah, nor in Rabbi Yosef Caro’s Shulhan Arukh. The first to mention it was the Maharil (1365–1427), Rabbi Yaaqob ben Moshe Levi Moelin, famous for his works recording the customs of the Jews of Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages. According to the Maharil, Tashlikh consists of visiting a river on Rosh HaShana in order to remember the binding of Yitshaq. The Midrash tells that when Abraham Abinu was on his way to Mount Moriah to carry out God’s command, he came upon a river that should not have been there, and when he tried to cross it, the water reached up to his nose… Even though he had the perfect excuse to call off the sacrifice of Yitshaq, which in the end was canceled by Divine order, Abraham crossed the water and went ahead with God’s command. Tashlikh thus reminds us of the binding of Yitshaq, which took place on Rosh HaShana. That is why we mention it in the Tefilot of the day, and ask HaShem to take into account the merit of our patriarch’s act of unconditional obedience and judge us with kindness.

THE MYSTICAL SIDE OF TASHLIKH

Over time, and after the Ari HaQadosh praised this custom, the Tashlikh ceremony was adopted by virtually all Sephardic communities. But the meaning of the ritual gradually shifted, focusing more on repentance than on the memory of the binding of Yitshaq. The masters of Kabbala linked Tashlikh to the verse from the prophet Mikha quoted above, which says that HaShem “will cast all our transgressions into the depths of the sea.” What does this idea mean? That when we do Teshuba, when we sincerely repent of our sins and transgressions, God will erase them completely and “throw them to the bottom of the sea,” a poetic and metaphorical expression for what every penitent dreams of: the total deletion of the record of our transgressions. Notice that the prophet Mikha speaks entirely in the future: He will again have compassion on us, He will subdue our iniquities, He will cast our sins into the sea. Nothing in the verse says that our sins are already gone. And this explains something about the timing of Tashlikh. We do it on Rosh HaShana, the first of the ten days, when we have not yet apologized to anyone, confessed anything, or changed anything. Tashlikh is not the end of Teshuba. It is an opening prayer: before we begin, we ask HaShem that once we have repented, He will throw away whatever we leave behind.

THE OPPOSITION

Some famous rabbis, such as the Vilna Gaon and Rabbi Yehiel Epstein, author of the Arukh HaShulhan, opposed Tashlikh. So did many Yemenite Jews, who follow Maimonides strictly, and the Sephardic Jews of the Spanish-Portuguese communities of Amsterdam and London. Why did they oppose Tashlikh? In some cases, such as the Spanish-Portuguese community, they left out of the traditional liturgy, that is, out of the formal prayers, many of the customs that came from Kabbala. Why? Because after what happened with Shabetay Tsebi, the false Messiah who abused Kabbala and turned it into superstition to lend credibility to his false claims, they decided not to allow deep mystical ideas into the service, so that they would not be misunderstood by the less informed.

I believe that in the case of Tashlikh, those fears are not unfounded! Why? Because many people innocently believe that by doing Tashlikh they are “throwing their sins into the sea,” and are thereby magically absolved of their transgressions. As if Tashlikh were a substitute for Teshuba. This is completely false. It is not what the prophet Mikha says, nor what the Sages who formulated this custom intended. The process of Teshuba, repentance, is very serious, and this mistaken but very popular view of Tashlikh trivializes it.

GENUINE TESHUBA

Teshuba is a transformative process through which we change not only what we do but also who we are. We devote ten days to Teshuba, from the beginning of Rosh HaShana to the end of Yom Kippur. Here, briefly, are the main steps of real Teshuba:

1. When I hear the Shofar, I must wake up from my spiritual slumber and picture myself standing before God, who, as my Creator, is also my Judge (the One who evaluates whether or not it was worth creating me).
2. I must acknowledge before the Supreme Judge that I am responsible for my actions.
3. I must admit my mistakes and recognize the bad decisions I made this past year.
4. I must also identify my bad habits, some of which have already become part of my personality.
5. During the days between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, I must repair and compensate those I have harmed, and apologize and ask forgiveness from those I have offended or hurt.
6. On Yom Kippur, I must confess my wrongdoings, articulating in a low voice, and feeling that I am standing before God, my mistakes, my bad habits, and my addictions.
7. I must ask the Creator to forgive me and give me another chance.
8. And finally, I must make the decision to change and improve, and plan a serious, workable strategy so that the changes are real and lasting, and my resolutions are not just empty words.

The popular idea that Tashlikh replaces Teshuba is scandalous and counterproductive. How can we tolerate the idea of replacing the entire process of drawing close to God, introspection, repentance, and growth with the notion that one can symbolically “throw all one’s sins into the sea”?

CONCLUSION

Tashlikh is a deeply rooted custom, especially in Sephardic communities, and that is why it is ESSENTIAL that teachers and rabbinic leaders explain to their communities that Tashlikh does NOT make our transgressions magically disappear. We recite Tashlikh to remind ourselves that the process of Teshuba is very serious: our transgressions remain recorded in the Divine memory. But if we repent and change, then we ask HaShem, not ourselves, to “cast our sins into the sea,” so that the records disappear “as if the sea had swallowed them.”

A modern comparison may help. When we delete a file on the computer, it does not disappear: it goes to the trash, and from there it can be recovered. Only when we empty the trash is the file permanently out of the system.

Teshuba works the same way. We do the first part: recognizing the mistake, regretting it, confessing it, deciding to change. That is sending the sin to the trash. But as long as the file is there, it still exists. Emptying the trash of our transgressions is not in our hands. Only HaShem can do that.

And that is exactly what we ask of Him in Tashlikh, before the ten days of Teshuba begin: that after we have done our part, and we have sent our sins to the trash, HaShem will empty it. That they will be gone from the system for good.

וּבַחֹ֨דֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֜י בְּאֶחָ֣ד לַחֹ֗דֶשׁ מִֽקְרָא־קֹ֙דֶשׁ֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם כל־מְלֶ֥אכֶת עֲבֹדָ֖ה לֹ֣א תַעֲשׂ֑וּ י֥וֹם תְּרוּעָ֖ה יִהְיֶ֥ה לָכֶֽם

“In the seventh month, on the first of the month, you shall have a sacred assembly. You shall do no work. It shall be for you Yom Teru’a, a day of the sound of the Teru’a.” (Bamidbar 29:1)

Hearing the Shofar is the central and most characteristic mitsva of Rosh HaShana. In the Bible, shofar refers to a horn used as an instrument to produce a sound. The Torah also mentions another wind instrument, the chatsotserot, trumpets made of metal.

The question for today is this. Many animals have horns, and many of those horns can be used to produce sound. Which one do we need for the mitsva of Shofar on Rosh HaShana? Will any animal horn that makes the right sound do, or does it have to come from a specific animal?

The ram’s horn

For centuries the characteristic Shofar of Rosh HaShana has been the ram’s horn, qeren hakebasim.

Our Sages debated this almost 2,000 years ago. The Mishna examines which horns qualify for this mitsva, and the halakha excludes, among others, the horn of a cow or a bull (qeren shel para). The Gemara (Rosh HaShana 26a) gives several explanations. One of the best known is the principle אין קטיגור נעשה סניגור, en kategor na’ase sanegor, “the prosecutor cannot become the defense attorney.” The bull inevitably evokes the sin of the Golden Calf, and we do not want to bring up that memory precisely when we are seeking HaShem’s favor.

With the ram it is the reverse. Its horn calls up one of the most positive memories we can invoke: the ‘Aqedat Itschaq, the binding of Itschaq Abinu.

After our patriarch Abraham passed the hardest test of his life and showed he was willing to sacrifice what he loved most in order to do HaShem’s will, he lifted his eyes and saw a ram whose horns were caught in a thicket. Abraham took that ram and offered it in place of his son Itschaq (Bereshit 22:13).

Our Sages tied this episode directly to the Shofar. The Gemara says (Rosh HaShana 16a): why do we blow a ram’s horn on Rosh HaShana? So that HaShem will remember for our sake the ‘Aqedat Itschaq ben Abraham, and count it as though we ourselves were prepared to make such a sacrifice.

After the ‘Aqeda, Abraham received an extraordinary blessing: “I will bless you and multiply your descendants like the stars of the sky and like the sand of the sea… and because you listened to My voice, all the nations of the earth will be blessed through your descendants” (Bereshit 22:17-18).

The ram’s horn, then, does not only produce the sound of the Shofar. It also brings to our memory, and so to speak before HaShem, the merit of Abraham Abinu and the ‘Aqedat Itschaq. It is hard to imagine a more fitting memory for Rosh HaShana, the day our actions and our merits are weighed.

The popular “Yemenite Shofar”

A different kind of Shofar has become very popular in our day: the kudu horn, from a large African antelope, commonly called the “Yemenite Shofar.” It is impressive to look at. It can be three or four times longer than a ram’s horn, has a distinctive twist, and produces a deep, powerful sound.

Now that we understand why the ram’s horn matters, a practical question follows. Can we use a kudu Shofar, or one from another animal, on Rosh HaShana? Or must we use a ram’s horn and nothing else?

For Selichot and during the month of Elul, those who blow the Shofar may use a kudu horn without the same difficulty, since there we are not fulfilling the biblical mitsva of hearing the Shofar of Rosh HaShana.

On Rosh HaShana itself, the answer depends on an important difference between the halakhic authorities.

Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh

Maimonides is strict. He opens the laws of Shofar this way:

שׁוֹפָר שֶׁתּוֹקְעִין בּוֹ… הוּא קֶרֶן הַכְּבָשִׂים הַכָּפוּף, וְכָל הַשּׁוֹפָרוֹת פְּסוּלִין חוּץ מִקֶּרֶן הַכֶּבֶשׂ

“The Shofar we blow is the curved horn of a ram, and all other shofarot are invalid except the ram’s horn” (Mishne Torah, Hilkhot Shofar 1:1).

For Maimonides, the ram’s horn is not simply the preferred option. It is the Shofar required to fulfill the mitsva.

The Shulchan Arukh (Orach Chayim 586:1) is less restrictive. It rules that ideally, lekhatechila, the mitsva should be fulfilled with a curved ram’s horn. But bedi’abad, if none is available, other shofarot that meet the remaining halakhic conditions may be used. Cow and bull horns remain excluded, along with other horns whose structure disqualifies them.

In short: according to Maimonides, on Rosh HaShana we must use a ram’s horn specifically. According to the Shulchan Arukh, the ram’s horn is the first and best option, but if it is not available, another halakhically valid Shofar will do.

So the preference for the ram is not a matter of taste or mere custom. When we hear that horn on Rosh HaShana we are not hearing only a sound. We are also calling up one of the most extraordinary moments of our history, the ‘Aqedat Itschaq, Abraham Abinu’s surrender and the merit of our patriarchs, on the very day we most need that merit to be remembered by God.