Elul

An exploration of the shofar

Most shofars are made from a ram’s horn, reminding us of Akeidat Yitzchak (the Binding of Isaac), which supposedly took place on Rosh Hashanah, since a ram was sacrificed in Yitzchak’s place. (photo by Len Radin / flickr)

Around the High Holidays, some young children receive colourful plastic shofars to blow. Are these shofars kosher? Could they be legitimately used during holiday prayers?

While their colour might hold the attention of the children and worshippers, the answer to the above two questions is no. Shofars that can be used ritually come from animals, including rams, antelopes and goats. The long spiral shofar used by Yemenite Jews, for example, comes from the greater kudu, a striped antelope common to some parts of Africa. But most shofars are made from a ram’s horn. In fact, the shofar is sometimes referred to as a “ram’s horn.” This type of horn reminds us of Akeidat Yitzchak (the Binding of Isaac), which supposedly took place on Rosh Hashanah, since a ram was sacrificed in Yitzchak’s place.

A ram’s horn has a wide base surrounding a core bone, which connects to the animal’s head. Once the animal is dead, the horn is separated from the bone, resulting in a horn that is hollow in its wide part, but sealed at its narrow edge. Heat is applied to enable straightening part of the horn (though some rabbis think this should not be done), then it is polished on the outside and an air-passage hole is drilled in the narrow part, allowing it to produce a sound similar to a trumpet, a trombone or a didgeridoo.

According to Mahzor Lev Shalem, the shofar had a variety of uses in the Bible. It was used as a call to war (remember how it was used to miraculously tumble the walls of Jericho in Joshua, Chapter 6), as a call to assemble the community and, most significantly, to note G-d’s descent on Sinai. Later, it became associated with G-d’s call for Jews to repent.

From one specific shofar, a player can typically produce one sound, which depends on the horn’s length – the longer it is, the lower the sound produced by it, and players must use their lips to vibrate the air in the shofar exactly in the resonance frequency of the specific shofar. But Israeli trumpet player Amit Sofer takes the shofar beyond the tekiah, shevarim and teruah routines of the Jewish prayer book, and turns it into a musical instrument. Listen to Sofer’s trio presentation of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (youtube.com/watch?v=lwaD92UcZME).

The shofar is well traveled. Its Greek cousin, the troumbeta or voukino, for instance, was once used all over Greece. Greek musicologist Fivos Anoyanakis, author of Greek Popular Musical Instruments, notes that this animal horn was used to announce field-wardens and postmen. It closely resembles the shofar.

According to Yad Vashem, during the Shoah, Rabbi Yitzhak Finkler, the Radoszyce rabbi, was incarcerated at Skarzysko-Kamienna, a forced labour camp. Getting hold of a ram’s horn required him to bribe a Polish guard – but the guard brought him an ox horn. It took a second bribe to get the right kind of horn. Then, the rabbi asked camp inmate Moshe Winterter (later Hebraized to Ben Dov), who worked in the camp’s metal shop, to make a shofar.

At first, Winterter refused. Preparing an item that was not an armament, or even carrying something considered contraband from the workshop to the barracks, carried with it a penalty of death. But he relented. So, in 1943, camp inmates heard the shofar blowing. The shofar traveled around wartorn Europe and the United States until Winterter made aliyah. In Israel, he donated the shofar to Yad Vashem.

A year after the Six Day War ended, archeologist Benjamin Mazer discovered the Trumpeting Place inscription (which was written in Hebrew, of course). He discovered the 1st century CE stone in his early excavations of the southern wall of the Temple Mount. It shows just two complete words carved above a wide depression cut into its inner face. The first is translated as “to the place” and the second word “of trumpeting” or “of blasting” or “of blowing.” Today, the stone is on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

photo - The Trumpeting Place inscription — The Trumpeting Place inscription is a stone from the 1st century CE discovered in 1968 by Benjamin Mazar in his excavations of the southern wall of the Temple Mount. The first word translates as “to the place” and the second as “of trumpeting” or “of blasting” or “of blowing.” *(Andrey Zeigarnik / wikipedia)*

What exactly is the mitzvah of the shofar – the hearing of it being blown or the blowing of it? The written source (Numbers 29:1) of the mitzvah is relatively vague, so the issue was debated by scholars. The verse simply says, “a day of sounding shall be for you.” But, in his Shulchan Aruch, Rabbi Yosef Karo (1488-1575) rules that we make the blessing “to listen to the sound of the shofar” and not “on the blowing of the shofar,” so subsequent halachic (relating to Jewish law) authorities have followed this ruling.

What does this mean for a person who has trouble hearing? In this age of hearing aids and cochlear implants, does one fulfil the mitzvah if one uses a hearing device?

As with many other issues dealing with the interpretation of halachah in modern times, there is a difference of opinion regarding electronic hearing aids. Anyone who is not completely deaf is obligated to hear the shofar, according to all opinions. Rabbi Yehuda Finchas, a worldwide expert, lecturer and author of Medical Halacha, opines that anyone who wears electronic hearing aids should ideally stand near the person blowing shofar and remove the aids when the shofar is sounded. However, according to Hacham Ovadia, if one cannot hear the shofar without such a device, one should wear them and fulfil the mitzvah.

A common custom is to start blowing shofar daily at the time of the morning service in the Hebrew month of Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah, the shofar is blown at the time of the Torah reading service. Technically, this happens after the Torah and Haftorah have been read, but before the Torah is returned to the ark. On Yom Kippur, the shofar is blown after the final prayer service of Yom Kippur, Neilah.

Whether a person will hear the shofar being blown on Shabbat depends on the individual’s synagogue affiliation. In the Orthodox and Conservative movements, the shofar is not blown on Shabbat. It is blown, however, in Reform congregations.

Originally, the sages worried that, if shofar blowing was permitted on Shabbat, people might be tempted to violate Shabbat law by carrying a shofar. Rather than risk such a situation, they prohibited any shofar blowing on Shabbat. But, even in Jerusalem, where the shofar would have been blown when the Temple stood, and which has an eruv (a symbolic enclosure within whose borders carrying is permitted) around it, the shofar is not blown in Orthodox and Conservative synagogues.

During the Rosh Hashanah musaf (additional) service, there are three additional sections read: Malchiyot (Kingship), Zichronot (Remembrance) and Shofarot. The Shofarot section provides readers with verses from Exodus and Numbers, Psalms and the Prophets, in which the shofar is mentioned.

Have a meaningful holiday and a happy new year.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Preparing for High Holidays

We have a new rabbi at Shaarey Zedek, our Winnipeg congregation. This is exciting as well as reassuring for many people. Why? Well, Rabbi Carnie Rose is the son of a rabbi and professor who lived in Winnipeg for many years, Dr. Neal Rose. His brother, Kliel, is a rabbi at Congregation Etz Chayim, another nearby congregation in Winnipeg. So, while Rabbi Carnie is new as a rabbi in Winnipeg, he is also a deeply familiar entity. He became a bar mitzvah at Shaarey Zedek. He went to kindergarten with the synagogue’s current executive director.

This addition to our congregation is welcome, as Rabbi Anibal Mass and our chazzan, Leslie Emery, carry a heavy workload. They are still working hard, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes a new hire can offer support and everybody gets more breaks. I’m only observing this as a congregant and as the child of a Jewish professional. Sure, I serve on a committee, I show up to services, but I can tell there’s been a lot of work lately.

On a practical level, moving from the United States to Winnipeg is a big change. My family wanted to be supportive – after all, we too moved from the United States, in 2009 – so we’ve been helping Rabbi Carnie get his library in order. He’s got, as you might imagine, lots of books. These all got miserably jumbled in the move. While this has got to be stressful, he’s handling it all with good humour. We’ve taken pleasure at getting to look at and learn about all sorts of resources in Hebrew and English that we hadn’t seen before. Some books are like old friends, as I studied them as an undergraduate or in graduate school, but, to be honest, my books aren’t in nearly such good condition.

This experience mirrors many Jewish volunteer activities I did as a kid. As the child of a Jewish education director, who then went on to be the administrator (executive director) of my childhood congregation, Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Va., I spent many afterschool hours folding the weekly paper bulletin handed out on Shabbat, moving books or setting up chairs. While attending services or religious school were important activities, for me, the relationships I made with the rabbi and the staff and other congregants as we did these small jobs were the most meaningful ones. Along the way, I met many important guests, though it’s all a bit blurry now. For instance, I sat next to Elie Wiesel once after he spoke at our congregation. What I remember particularly is how formal and dressed up we were. Also, the dessert was good! I was allowed to stay up way past my bedtime.

Now, I’m proud that my kids are finding their way towards making their own community connections. One of my twins has gone to morning minyan many times this summer. He’s the only teen there and gets a lot of positive attention this way, including exchanging ideas with a retired provincial court judge. This judge also happens to be the father of my son’s elementary school principal, so we’re always on good behaviour with him!

My other twin isn’t getting to morning minyan much, but instead he volunteered for full weeks at a summer camp and daycare, helping little kids. He also helps on the synagogue tech team, doing accessible subtitles for prayers that are projected on screens as part of our service. This job is an important one, as it enables people to keep up with the service even if they are having a hard time hearing what’s going on or cannot read Hebrew. He’s been asked to help during the High Holidays. It’s a big honour and responsibility for a 14-year-old.

These commitments are important because they embody both the Canadian emphasis on volunteering and the Jewish one. When I was a teen, I lived for a year on a kibbutz. Volunteering was considered deeply valuable and important. Being the first to volunteer was a moral virtue. Yet, when I hear Winnipeg kids discuss accruing volunteer hours for school credits, it’s seen as an onerous requirement. Perhaps, for some, this requirement doesn’t have great value. On the contrary, in our household, we see these experiences as offering so many learning and growth opportunities.

While we moved books, searched for lost volumes and organized sets of Talmud and commentaries, we also saw the bustle behind the scenes as the congregation gets ready for Rosh Hashanah. There’s so much pageantry to the High Holidays. It’s a big deal. Some members jockey for important honours or specific seats and we listened with interest. We just wanted seats near the back, near where our kid would be in the tech booth. When I mentioned this to the new rabbi, I suggested that maybe different things matter to us. After all, I joked, I didn’t need to show off a new hat. (My mom always said this was an important part of High Holiday services when she was a kid in the 1950s!)

As for honours, we love a quiet summer Shabbat, when sometimes our kids get asked to read or are called up for an aliyah because no one reserved them in advance. These spur-of-the-moment experiences, where we might help out and take part in services, feel like the right spot for us. It may take months of practice to chant one part of the Torah portion, but we try to aim for a week when not much is happening.

A strong community is one where we can all contribute and help. Yes, big donors and fancy new hats are often part of the High Holidays. Big monetary donations keep the heat on, and status matters to many. However, a synagogue, and the Jewish community, must function throughout the year.

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to evaluating how we’ve behaved in the past year, and how we’ll make amends. To me, the most important reflections aren’t about where we are or how we behave specifically on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In every regular weekday morning minyan, we also say “ashamu” – we are guilty. We work on ourselves all the time. Perhaps, while it’s important to have good intentions when it comes to the High Holidays, it’s also key to think about each day beforehand, and afterwards, too. Elul’s a whole month of reflection. Valuing one another and our community means making every day count.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Renewing a commitment to hope

If you were to write a personal “book of life” to express your aspirations for growth in the year ahead, what would its title be? (photo from thisenchantedpixie.org)

In the face of the immense sadness and devastation of the past 11 months, and the suffering that seems to know no bounds, I find it difficult to even register that Elul, the last month on the Jewish calendar, has arrived. But, as the Jewish year inevitably advances, I seek solace and meaning in two practices that have helped me prepare for new years past.

The first is writing my “book title,” for a family ritual we created years ago to facilitate the work of reflection, forgiveness and imagination that are core to themes of the High Holidays. The Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgies tie our teshuvah, our annual returning to our best selves, to our desire to be inscribed in a celestial “Book of Life.” Using this image, my family gathers around the Rosh Hashanah lunch table each year to share the titles of our personal “books of life” and to express our aspirations for growth and desires to be held accountable by one another in the year ahead.

The second is to dust off my shofar and sound the first blast, as I will continue to do, in keeping with tradition, each morning of the month of Elul, until the holidays arrive. Each day, I will I close my eyes and coax out the sounds that the shofar has been compared to: Sarah weeping for Isaac, a call to battle, the blasts that signal God’s presence on Mount Sinai, the call of justice that cracks open the hardness of the universe, the hardness in our hearts and in the hearts of our political leaders and awakens in us a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. By doing this, I hope I will be prepared, both physically and spiritually, for the full complement of 100 blasts, short and long, that will sound over the holidays themselves.

In the past, each of these rituals has given me hope, hope that change is possible, that I can do better, that collectively we can do better and that a better future is possible.

This Elul, I am finding it more difficult, as I imagine many of us are, to muster a feeling of hope. Last Elul, we could not have imagined the challenges of the past year: the slaughter of Oct. 7; the long and devastating war in Gaza; the plight of the hostages; the loss of friends and allies; the fractious polarization within the Jewish community; the rise in antisemitism. All of this on top of the many issues we continue to work on globally, from hunger to homelessness to climate change. Hope feels at best elusive; in our most cynical moments, it feels naïve.

Hope requires of us that we allow for the possibility of a variety of better futures, futures that are as yet unexperienced and perhaps even unimaginable. Hope requires that we acknowledge that a catastrophe that may feel imminent is not a forgone conclusion. Hope demands the humility to recognize that we just don’t know what will be, and the audacity to own our role in shaping it. Human imagination, intention and action forge a line between this present and the better future for which we long.

“People often confuse optimism and hope,” said Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l. “They sound similar. But, in fact, they’re very different. Optimism is the belief that things are going to get better. Hope is the belief that, if we work hard enough together, we can make things better. It needs no courage, just a certain naïvety to be an optimist. It needs a great deal of courage to have hope.… And hope is what transforms the human situation.”

In Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit describes a commitment to hope as essential to the work of activism toward social change. She shares example after example of times when the future (now history) unfolded because of the powerful imagination, agency and organizing of people who held on to hope. “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen,” she writes, “and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.”

Elul reminds us that we don’t know what will happen but that we have the tools individually and collectively to shape the future. The practices of reflecting on the year past and imagining the year ahead that are built into the Jewish holiday cycle offer us the “spaciousness of uncertainty” we need that can spark hope and move us to action. I rely on my two Elul rituals to facilitate this process of reflection and imagination. Whether it’s journaling, reading, speaking to a colleague or friend, or listening to music, I’m sure that each of us has tools for creating space for the kind of reflection and imagination that makes hope, and the attendant action it demands, possible. And our hopefulness has the potential to inspire others. We can hold possibility for them when they feel discouraged and they can do the same for us.

Elul reflection pushes us to awaken ourselves to new possibilities even in the face of despair, fatigue, anger and overwhelm. And this awakening of hope makes it possible to act.

I consider my book title as I blow the shofar each morning in Elul. I’m leaning toward making it “Hope.”

Questions for reflection

• What practices or rituals will help awaken you to new possibilities this month and coming year?

• What is your book title for the coming year, and who do you want to share it with?

Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield is chief executive officer of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America (hartman.org.il). Earlier this month, the Hebrew month of Elul, Olam (“a network of Jewish individuals and organizations committed to global service, international development and humanitarian aid” – olamtogether.org) asked her to share her thoughts as a profoundly challenging year for the Jewish people ended.

Introspection’s the hard stuff

Before the pandemic, we were once at synagogue on Shabbat when the clergy person leading the family service reminded us that, hey, Elul was here, and we could hear the shofar blown if we came to morning minyan. The next day, Sunday, one of my kids decided we needed to go hear the shofar. It was just a normal Sunday. The minyan was small, largely comprised of senior citizens. My elementary school-aged kid rocked and wiggled in his seat. Most of the adults there smiled and gave him high fives and handshakes and made him feel welcome.

When I explained our shofar mission, they nodded. They all understood why we were there. My kid was given honours and made to feel special. When it was time to hear the shofar, he sat up and listened intently. It was one of those times when I thought, “Oh, we should try to come to minyan to hear this every day.”

This was one of those moments when my aspirations were much higher than my capabilities. Years later, I can’t pretend we’ve ever made it to morning minyan regularly again, even virtually, even during Elul. Maybe, someday, I’ll be one of those senior citizens in the frequent minyan attendee club. For now, I’m rushing to get everyone up, fed and out the door to school and work.

Still, I think that morning minyan experience may stick in a kid’s mind. The Elul shofar is a quintessential wake-up sound for many Jews. It’s the time to think about how the year has gone. We can focus on what’s ahead on the Jewish calendar, how we can make amends and do better in the future. What will change next year? What, most likely, will stay the same?

Is this wake-up ritual true of everyone? No, of course not. I recently saw a TikTok reel of a man, probably in his 20s or early 30s, with a beard. The guy was joking that he observed Jewish holidays through food, and then jokingly said, “Rosh Hashanah? That’s the one with the matzo balls, right?” Maybe I haven’t remembered the skit’s details quite right, but I wasn’t its intended audience. I inadvertently cringed. It was grating to me, jarring, like driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

Here was this guy, probably an influencer, showing everyone that he not only wasn’t religiously literate, but also thought Ashkenazi food was the only essential part of the ritual or the holiday. I mean, food is part of Jewish ritual, don’t get me wrong, but, it rubbed me the wrong way.

Here is a full-blown Jewish adult. And yet, he doesn’t think knowing anything about his ethno-religious identity or choosing to observe anything in regards to its religious context is his responsibility. As a Jewish woman who cares about this stuff, this irked me, because with his masculinity comes a lot of privilege in some parts of the Jewish world. He might be so privileged that he doesn’t even have to know any of this but he still would count in an Orthodox minyan and I don’t.

Our household philosophy is that, if people may potentially harass us or kill us for our Jewish identities, we should know more about who we are and why – and try to find joy or meaning in it. Focusing on Jewish knowledge and joy is kind of a “thing” for us.

This is when I have to remind myself, hey, it doesn’t matter how knowledgeable or observant or ignorant this guy on TikTok is. He’s still Jewish. I am no more or less Jewish than he is. It’s not a competition.

Elul is for introspection. It’s also the time to admit that we are all works in progress. I sure need to keep working. As we grow, learn and age, we can recognize and understand new and different things. Hardest, of course, is to recognize what we don’t know: our biases, intolerances and prejudices. We all have these blind spots. This emphasis, each year, on working on ourselves is valuable in many ways, not least of which is trying to be more inclusive and kind.

Elul is also about wonder – through our senses, when we hear, see, touch, smell and, yes, taste the holiday. It’s the primal feeling we get when hearing the shofar, or the release one gets after a heartfelt apology to a loved one. That wonder continues into Tishri, throwing our bread (like sins) in the water at Tashlich. The wonder is in sweet honey on apples and other holiday symbols. It’s in this season, in the northern hemisphere, when the days shorten and get cooler, the trees lose their leaves and we start again.

As I write this, it’s still summer. I’m the first to say that I’m not ready to embrace Elul. It’s coming though, no matter what. In preparation, we’ve already been apple picking at a neighbour’s tree. We got honey from a local farm. The food part is easy. It’s the introspection that’s the work – and I’m looking forward to hearing the shofar remind me to get busy doing it.

L’shanah tovah (Happy New Year) in advance. May the year ahead be sweet.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

When the least is not enough

As we face the fourth wave and the COVID Delta variant, many Canadians are less concerned. If one is vaccinated, risks are much lower. Outside, I see many close-knit groups of people strolling on the streets to restaurants and bars. This correlates with Manitoba’s recent choice to abandon capacity and indoor mask requirements. For those with kids under age 12, it’s a scary scene right before school starts. The Delta variant is looking for vectors, and unvaccinated kids may be one of them.

It’s hard to stop thinking about this as a parent. In anxious moments, I hear the Jaws movie’s theme music as we drive past the elementary school. It’s still summer, but Rosh Hashanah, a new year and a time of reckoning are around the corner.

Much of the pandemic rhetoric now involves a refrain of “getting back to normal.” However, for many of us, we’re not sure normal’s going to ever be the same. Many people have died. Normal isn’t the same after the death of a loved one. Normal also isn’t the same for those who were very ill or are suffering from long COVID. For many parents, including me, this prolonged time at home with my kids has resulted in more teaching and childcare and a lot less time to work. Things may change, but “normal” is something elusive. If our kids are too young to be vaccinated, I’m not sure we’re there yet.

Yet, Elul, the Hebrew month where we contemplate our actions in time for the New Year, is upon us. Even if you don’t ever get to a morning minyan, someone’s blowing a shofar every day now, around the world, except for Shabbat. It’s time to wake up our souls.

This metaphor about “normal” has a lot in common with teshuvah, when we seek forgiveness for what we’ve done wrong to others this year. We apologize and seek forgiveness, but any relationship where one party harms another may remain forever changed. It’s one thing to look at the Torah portion of Re’eh (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17) and read that Moses set before the Israelites the choice, from G-d, between blessing and curse, and simplistically say, “It’s easy! Choose to be a blessing.” Many sermons sound like this, but, when things go off track, it’s not always simple. Obviously, trying to fix it is the right thing to do, even though the effort may not make a relationship all better.

I’ve been studying the talmudic tractate of Sukkah and, on page 31a, there’s a good example of this kind of unsatisfactory resolution. On this page, an old woman comes before Rav Nahman, the exilarch (leader of the Babylonian Jewish community) and the sages and screams, saying they are sitting in a stolen sukkah. Remarkably, no one disagrees with her! She’s upset because the sukkah was constructed with wood that was stolen from her. Even though she’s right, Rav Nahman is condescending. He pays no attention to her.

Rav Nahman says, “This woman is a screamer and she has rights only to the monetary value of the wood. However, the sukkah itself was already acquired by the exilarch.” His legal ruling is that, when a sukkah is built of stolen wood, the wood’s original owner only deserves compensation for its value.

In Rabbi Elliot Goldberg’s introduction to this Talmud page online on My Jewish Learning, he is uncomfortable with this decision. In other talmudic discussions, a stolen lulav is invalid, or G-d denounces theft, even for the sake of heaven. Even if this stolen sukkah fulfils the commandments on Sukkot, Rabbi Goldberg writes that mistreating an elderly woman who has just been robbed is wrong. Rav Nahman lacks respect for her, demeaning her by calling her “a screamer” and failing to speak to her directly.

What is going to fix this relationship or make things “normal” again? If someone pays this woman for the wood, it doesn’t make appropriate amends for her experience, even if that were all she were entitled to legally.

When studying this, I saw an odd metaphor for some of what’s going on around us. We may be transitioning to a new time in which we all have to cope with COVID as endemic. Our new “normal” may include breakthrough illnesses in those who are vaccinated. It may include feeling unsafe or condescended to or unfairly dealt with, as we navigate changing public health orders that don’t keep some of us safe. This may feel risky or, for some people, like an amazing freedom, as they legally disregard the risks.

However, the chances of being ill or having long COVID remain. Like the old woman who is robbed, we may be eligible for compensation after the fact, but the original trauma remains. If someone steals your wood, it isn’t OK. You may get COVID, even if you’re vaccinated. It might not be OK. Worse yet, you could experience the loss of a child or another vulnerable family member who couldn’t be vaccinated. There’s no compensation for that. Losing even one person is too many.

I may be a risk-averse scaredy-cat, but I’ve been thinking about that talmudic elderly woman in Sukkah 31a. If she hadn’t been robbed in the first place, she wouldn’t have had to confront important rabbis and been treated poorly. The new normal for her didn’t get her wood or her dignity back. So, too, if we can be careful, perhaps we can avoid getting sick during a pandemic – but people don’t choose to be robbed or to be exposed to a virus. If we’re careful, bad things can still happen.

What does this mean for Rosh Hashanah this year? When we seek forgiveness and resolution with others, perhaps it’s not enough to simply try and fix only what we’re legally obligated to fix. If we want a “new normal” in a relationship or in society, we will have to build trust, mend fences and patch up things so that our mistakes can be mended. Our new societal normal should result in an even stronger darned fabric than what existed before the pandemic hole was torn out. We can’t expect everything to come out OK if we behave as Rav Nahman did.

I don’t know how the fourth wave will go, or if vaccination will protect our kids. We could think about one another, behave kindly and with compassion in the meanwhile. Masking up, keeping our distance, washing our hands, and doing extra for one another are important. We owe it to one another, and to that older woman that Rav Nahman shamed. Maybe, when it comes to some Jewish laws or health care, the bare minimum required by the law is just not good enough.

Need earth-friendly policies

We are now well into the Hebrew month of Elul, which provides an incentive for heightened introspection, a chance to practise teshuvah, changes in our lives, before the Days of Awe, the Days of Judgment, the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The shofar is blown every morning (except on Shabbat) in synagogues during the month of Elul to awaken us from slumber, to remind us to consider where we are in our lives and to urge us to consider positive changes.

How should we respond to Elul today? How should we respond when we hear reports almost daily of severe, often record-breaking, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms; when July 2019 was the hottest year since temperature records were kept in 1880; when 18 years in this century are among the 19 hottest years and 2014, 2015 and 2016 successively broke temperature records; when polar ice caps and glaciers are melting far faster than projections of climate experts; when climate scientists are warning that we could be close to an irreversible tipping point when climate change could spiral out of control with disastrous consequences, unless major changes are soon made; when we appear to also be on the brink of major food, water and energy scarcities; and when, despite all of the above, so many people are in denial, and almost all of us seem to be, in effect, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as we approach a giant iceberg?

Israel is especially threatened by climate change since, among other dangers, a rising Mediterranean Sea could inundate the coastal plain, which contains much of Israel’s population and infrastructure; and the hotter, drier Middle East projected by climate experts makes terrorism and war more likely, according to military experts.

It is well known that one is not to shout fire in a crowded theatre – except if there actually is a fire. The many examples of severe climate change indicate that the world is on fire today. Therefore, we should make it a priority to do all that we can to awaken the world to the dangers and the urgency of doing everything possible to shift our imperiled planet onto a sustainable path.

We should urge that tikkun olam (the repair of the world) be a central focus in all aspects of Jewish life today. We should contact rabbis, Jewish educators and other Jewish leaders and ask that they increase awareness of the threats and how Jewish teachings can be applied to avert impending disasters. We should write letters to editors, call talk shows, question politicians and, in every other way possible, stress that we can’t continue the policies that have been so disastrous.

As president emeritus of Jewish Veg, formerly Jewish Vegetarians of North America, I want to stress that shifting toward a vegan diet is something that everyone can do right away. It would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and it would be consistent with Jewish teachings on preserving human health, treating animals with compassion, protecting the environment, conserving natural resources, and helping hungry people.

The afternoon service for Yom Kippur includes the book of Jonah, who was sent by God to Nineveh to urge the people to repent and change their evil ways to avoid their destruction. Today, the whole world is Nineveh, in danger of annihilation and in need of repentance and redemption, and each one of us must be a Jonah, with a mission to warn the world that it must turn from greed, injustice and idolatry, so that we can avoid a global catastrophe.

Richard H. Schwartz, PhD, is professor emeritus, College of Staten Island, president emeritus of Jewish Veg and president of Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians. He is the author of several books, including Judaism and Vegetarianism and Who Stole My Religion? Revitalizing Judaism and Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal Our Imperiled Planet, and more than 250 articles at jewishveg.org/schwartz. He was associate producer of the documentary A Sacred Duty: Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal the World.

Importance of prayer

The holy month of Elul has begun, the sixth month in the Hebrew calendar. There is a rabbinic allusion that the month was named from the initial letters of “Ani le dodi v’dodi li” (“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine”), describing the relationship between G-d and His people. In the Aggadah, we read that Elul has special significance because of Moses’ 40-day stay on Mount Sinai (Exodus 34:28), which was calculated to have begun on the first of Elul and ended on the 10th of Tishrei (Yom Kippur).

Every weekday morning, the shofar is sounded and Psalm 27 recited. Sephardim have already begun saying Selichot, but Ashkenazim recite this only in the last days of the month. The word selichah means forgiveness – it is a plea for forgiveness for sins and, as we approach the time when we know that we will be judged, we practise a kind of spiritual stocktaking. We look inward, trying to assess what happened to last year’s dreams/goals, asking pardon for wrongs committed and hoping, with repentance, charity and prayers, to be written into the Book of Life for another year.

Rav Nachman of Bratslav expressed it beautifully: “Every word of your prayer is like a rose which you pick from its bush. You continue until you have formed a bouquet of blessings, until you have pleated a wreath of glory for the Lord.”

Prayer takes on special meaning in Elul, as we move toward Rosh Hashanah, which celebrates the birth of the world. Then, we will recite the special prayer called Unetenah Tokef (“Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day…”) when we are reminded of our mortality. The translation for part of it reads: “Humanity’s origin is dust, and dust is our end. Each of us is a shattered pot, grass that must wither, a flower that will fade, a shadow moving on, a cloud passing by, a particle of dust on the wind, a dream soon forgotten…. But You are the Ruler, the everlasting G-d.” Legend has it that this prayer was written some 10 centuries ago by Rabbi Amnon of Mainz. Ordered to convert to Christianity by the local bishop, Rabbi Amnon refused. His limbs were amputated and, as his mutilated body lay before the ark as he was dying, he said these words, which are also part of the Yom Kippur liturgy.

When mystics pray, they believe there is an ascent of the soul to upper worlds. Prayers of thanksgiving and praise are deemed worthier than petitionary prayers (when we are asking for things), because they are selfless. Some people believe that the highest form of worship is silence. The Bible tells us that Abraham was the first to utter a true prayer – for his fellow man.

In these times, when we are at war, agonizing over our losses and the many families who have lost loved ones, we in Israel need to have faith more than ever. We pray for all Jews to have a good, safe year. We share a common destiny – Jews in Israel and abroad – and it is this shared destiny that binds us together, no matter how different our ethnic and cultural boundaries may be.

I memorized the following poem when I was a schoolgirl. I never knew the author, and doubt that he was Jewish, but I think it is appropriate now and all the year: “I shall pass through this world but once / Any good therefore that I can do / Or any kindness I can show / To any human being / Let me do it now / Let me not defer it or neglect it / For I shall not pass this way again.”

Dvora Waysman is the author of 13 books, which are available through Amazon, or from the author at [email protected]. Her website is dvorawaysman.com.